mpetruce's review against another edition
3.0
This book has everything you would expect from a Star Wars novel: Space battles! Robots! Human-non-human sex! Dismemberment by Wookies (two Wookies kill a dude by twisting him in half!)! Therapy Ewoks (seriously)!
It's been a little long since I listened to the first book, so it was a little hard to remember what went before. Listening to this made it a little difficult to put the interludes in context, too, but that's not the book's fault. Some of the characters still remain a little flat, especially Jom Barell. I don't know how this guy was spec ops, given what a single minded bonehead he is. Also, his narration is a little lame (think a John Wayne impression by someone with a cold). But other than that, the narration is good. You always know who's talking and it's clearly spoken. On to the next book.
It's been a little long since I listened to the first book, so it was a little hard to remember what went before. Listening to this made it a little difficult to put the interludes in context, too, but that's not the book's fault. Some of the characters still remain a little flat, especially Jom Barell. I don't know how this guy was spec ops, given what a single minded bonehead he is. Also, his narration is a little lame (think a John Wayne impression by someone with a cold). But other than that, the narration is good. You always know who's talking and it's clearly spoken. On to the next book.
snazel's review against another edition
3.0
Has more mind control and destroyed relationships than I'm really into.
pickett22's review against another edition
4.0
I listened to this one on audiobook, even though the first one on audiobook was a bit of a trip. The narrator is no less excitable this time around, however, I do continue to enjoy his different voices. He does a VERY good Han Solo, and I appreciate that he doesn't make all his women have high and squeaky voices like some male narrators.
I felt like this book had a lot going on. It's not often you see a book where the different characters have different climaxes. Usually everyone ends up in the same place for the ending action, but this one reversed that: they were together as a team, and then they split up and were in two different places for two different finales. They only came together again in the falling action to set up for the next book. Very weird, but it worked.
I still love Jaz and Sinj. Like... a lot. Their friendship is everything to me.
There are still too many similes. Like... waaaaaaaaay too many, and it needs to stop.
The rest can carry one as is, I quite enjoy it.
I felt like this book had a lot going on. It's not often you see a book where the different characters have different climaxes. Usually everyone ends up in the same place for the ending action, but this one reversed that: they were together as a team, and then they split up and were in two different places for two different finales. They only came together again in the falling action to set up for the next book. Very weird, but it worked.
I still love Jaz and Sinj. Like... a lot. Their friendship is everything to me.
There are still too many similes. Like... waaaaaaaaay too many, and it needs to stop.
The rest can carry one as is, I quite enjoy it.
inkandplasma's review against another edition
4.5
CAWPILE: 9 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 7 | 10 | 8.29 / 4.5 stars
andystehr's review against another edition
4.0
A fun read. I'm enjoying the expanded universe's reboot. I like that the empire is still a threat after the battle of Endor. I enjoyed the new character's introduced in Aftermath book 1 and the movie character's were great to see more of. I was impressed by how Han Solo was so Han Solo!
waveycowpar's review against another edition
3.0
Good story, happy to see more of the original trilogy (and even a prequel trilogy) characters having more air time. But, at the same time, the book felt rushed. The author didn't have time to go over it, iron out his sentences and make sure everything was well written. I guess that comes with the territory of writing to a timeline for the biggest franchise in the world.
I am still looking forward to the third one!
I am still looking forward to the third one!
claire_michelle18's review against another edition
5.0
This was so good! Wendig's writing style brings the story to life with immediacy, making it feel like live action. The character building in Aftermath really pays off in Life Debt with Norra Wexley and her assorted companions really starting to feel like a team. They interact seamlessly with established characters like Han and Leia, really creating a fantastic insight into the star wars universe. The book is evidently building towards the battle of Jakku but also starts to hint at some of the wider questions left unanswered by The Force Awakens.
rhganci's review against another edition
4.0
(4.5 stars) If Aftermath was a disappointing, sparsely informational, 400-page exposition, Life Debt forgives that entirely, builds strongly on the weak foundation of its predecessor, and tells as fine a Star Wars story as has yet appeared in the nu-EU. Chuck Wendig is still finding his feet as a novelist in this universe, and his personal agenda sometimes detracts from the story he's telling, but this outing is so much better--so, so much better--than the previous novel that all of that overshadowed by the story he tells, and the lore he builds. Oh, and the hints he makes. There's a pile of those, and they're awesome.
The main plot of the novel is well represented by the title and all it implies: this is a Han Solo and Chewbacca story, post-Return of the Jedi, and it deals with the obligations between the two and the New Republic plays in the fulfillment of those obligations, on both a personal and political level. Both aspects of the novel are really winning. There's drama, action, location, and adventure--all of the things that we've come to expect from the best Star Wars stories. Life Debt has it to a degree that Aftermath only hinted at, and grasped for, it its muddled and un-engaging narrative. This story is well-paced, and the stakes seem suitably high for the plot points that Wendig is handling and the characters he's choosing to handle them with. The last 150 or so pages were suspenseful, exciting, and compelling enough to read in one sitting. It's a great story that really feels like the "aftermath" of the Galactic Civil War, on both personal and political scales. And to have another Han Solo adventure after The Force Awakens was really, really satisfying.
The one thing that holds this novel back from being on par with Bloodline and Dark Disciple was Wendig's aggressive personal agenda in the writing. He writes in the first person again, which really counteracts the "A long, long time ago..." aspect of the entire mythology. But more than that is the hamfisted way in which Wendig jams his own personal and political beliefs into the novel, an incongruent complement to some of the best writing he does. This occurs almost always in the form of scenes and exchanges between characters that add to the story in no way at all. The interludes seem needless (though a few are quite interesting), and the number of tacked on relationships between the characters in the story all fall short of developing the plot or characters, really in any way at all. Wendig does a much better job developing those characters in context than he does by contriving situations--almost all of them external to the plot--to make sure we the readers know how progressive a writer and thinker Mr. Wendig is. Those passages are laborious, and are the only thing holding Life Debt back from being among the very best of the nu-EU.
All of that aside, I'd certainly say that this is essential reading for the Star Wars fan. A lot of the questions we have about the links between things get frameworks for their answers, and like any good middle chapter of a trilogy, the epilogue of this installment validates and commits to the developments made here and promises what is to come in Empire's End. It's going to be huge.
The main plot of the novel is well represented by the title and all it implies: this is a Han Solo and Chewbacca story, post-Return of the Jedi, and it deals with the obligations between the two and the New Republic plays in the fulfillment of those obligations, on both a personal and political level. Both aspects of the novel are really winning. There's drama, action, location, and adventure--all of the things that we've come to expect from the best Star Wars stories. Life Debt has it to a degree that Aftermath only hinted at, and grasped for, it its muddled and un-engaging narrative. This story is well-paced, and the stakes seem suitably high for the plot points that Wendig is handling and the characters he's choosing to handle them with. The last 150 or so pages were suspenseful, exciting, and compelling enough to read in one sitting. It's a great story that really feels like the "aftermath" of the Galactic Civil War, on both personal and political scales. And to have another Han Solo adventure after The Force Awakens was really, really satisfying.
The one thing that holds this novel back from being on par with Bloodline and Dark Disciple was Wendig's aggressive personal agenda in the writing. He writes in the first person again, which really counteracts the "A long, long time ago..." aspect of the entire mythology. But more than that is the hamfisted way in which Wendig jams his own personal and political beliefs into the novel, an incongruent complement to some of the best writing he does. This occurs almost always in the form of scenes and exchanges between characters that add to the story in no way at all. The interludes seem needless (though a few are quite interesting), and the number of tacked on relationships between the characters in the story all fall short of developing the plot or characters, really in any way at all. Wendig does a much better job developing those characters in context than he does by contriving situations--almost all of them external to the plot--to make sure we the readers know how progressive a writer and thinker Mr. Wendig is. Those passages are laborious, and are the only thing holding Life Debt back from being among the very best of the nu-EU.
All of that aside, I'd certainly say that this is essential reading for the Star Wars fan. A lot of the questions we have about the links between things get frameworks for their answers, and like any good middle chapter of a trilogy, the epilogue of this installment validates and commits to the developments made here and promises what is to come in Empire's End. It's going to be huge.