Thursday, August 22, 2019

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Star Wars: Alphabet Squadron



When it came to the old Star Wars Expanded Universe, there were two series that were considered major stand-outs, with huge readerships even outside the general Star Wars fandom.  The first was the Thrawn Trilogy, so it was unsurprising to see the new Disney Star Wars Canon restore Thrawn to continuity for newer stories.  The second was the X-Wing series written by Michael J Stackpole (6 books) and Aaron Allston (5 books), which focused on telling stories away not on the main Star Wars characters (though they did show up) but upon members of starfighter squadrons in the fight between the New Republic and the Empire.  The books alternated between comedy and action (the Allston books were tremendous comedies) with great characters (guess where my internet handle comes from) and were just tremendous fun throughout, which is why they were so near universally beloved.

All of this is to say that Star Wars: Alphabet Squadron, being surprisingly the first* starfighter-oriented series in the new Star Wars Canon, has a high standard to live up to just by its title.  This is only made even worse by the book's most generic description, which is "a squadron of misfit pilots with baggage are gathered together by an intelligence officer for a crucial mission," which sounds an awful lot like the description of the Allston X-Wing books (the Wraith Squadron trilogy). 

*It's possible there was another such adult novel and I missed it, but it looks like the only thing close is a Middle-Grade novel published in the lead up to The Last Jedi.  

 And yet, by taking a very very different approach to the material, Alphabet Squadron succeeds at meeting the bar, and is perhaps my favorite new canon Star Wars book to date.  Let's be clear: Alphabet Squadron differs from its X-Wing predecessors by - a few moments aside - not being a book about fun and/or action.  If anything, its piloting scenes are the book's weakest element.  But the book explores elements of the Star Wars universe - such as those of defectors, those traumatized by the war, as well as the atrocities committed by the Empire and others - in new and interesting ways to form a really fascinating if dark entry in the Star Wars universe.  This is the first of a new trilogy (with a companion comic book series) and I'll definitely be back for the sequels.

-----------------------------------------------Plot Summary----------------------------------------------
Yrica Quell was once a member of the 204th Imperial Fighter Wing, the elite starfighter unit known as Shadow Wing.  However, after the Wing proceeded to enact "Operation Cinder", a genocidal operation that devastated innocent populations on multiple planets, Quell attempted to defect.  But what she soon found is that the New Republic held little trust of defectors like her, who were on board for most of the Empire's atrocities, and have little trust in her story.  So when a New Republic Intelligence officer, Caern Adan, offers her a slot in a small unit dedicated to rooting out and destroying Shadow Wing, she sees no choice but to take her only shot at proving herself useful to the New Republic.

Yet Caern Adan doesn't trust Quell either, and believes her to be lying about something.  Even worse, New Republic Intelligence doesn't put much stock in the importance of Adan's mission to destroy Shadow Wing, leaving him with limited resources.  As a result, Adan will be forced to trust Quell as the leader of a ragtag group of starfighter pilots, each with their own craft, an X-Wing, an A-Wing, a Y-Wing, a B-Wing, and a U-Wing, all with their own substantial traumas and reasons to hate and hunt down Shadow Wing.  But even if Quell and Adan can get this group of messed up pilots together in time to actually accomplish their mission, they may find that achieving their objective will come with costs far higher than they may be willing to pay.....
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The idea of Star Wars pilots or other soldiers having to deal with traumas from the horrors of war is not an unexplored one: Wraith Squadron dealt with one pilot with PTSD for example, and Matthew Stover's "Shatterpoint" is another novel that comes to mind showcasing a fighter who finds themselves broken by war.  Alphabet Squadron certainly runs with that idea to a certain extent: Quell and at least two of her other pilots are haunted and traumatized by their experiences in war, and need to somehow get past it to do their jobs.  But the book isn't as open to easy answers as some of the older books (such as Wraith Squadron was), and is far darker for it.

That darkness extends to most of its main characters, including the squadron's lead commander in Caern Adan, who's as self centered and bastardy as the rest of them.  The squadron includes a nigh-suicidal vengeance-hunter, a corrupt pilot only in it for money, a pilot who hides behind a mask and has brutal strength, and a young man who wants only to go home.  While there is the generic squadron bonding scene you'd expect from a book like this, the group is one messed up group and it....stays messed up all the way through the end.

But the most interesting character is our main character, Yrica Quell, who is a fascinating take on a concept that I can't remember really being explored in depth in the old Star Wars canon: defectors.  There were more than a few Star Wars characters in the past who were defectors from the Empire (General Cracken, Tycho Celchu, Pash Cracken's whole squadron, Han freaking Solo....) but the older books never really explored what it meant for both someone to defect from a side that has committed so many horrors (which some defectors may have been complicit in) and for others to have to fight alongside such defectors.  Quell didn't defect after the results of two Death Stars, but only after Operation Cinder*, one more genocidal action of the post-Emperor Empire, and other Republic soldiers and fliers don't trust her for it - how could they?  And a large part of the book is Quell's struggle to find some cause to fight for, some actions she can take to prove herself that don't result in more harming of innocents, and can be inconceivably be called just and worthy, after all that Quell has seen and done.  And this conflict, both between Quell and others, and Quell and herself, is incredibly well done, leading to the stunning conclusion.*

*Spoiler in Rot13: Va gur raq, vg'f erirnyrq Dhryy'f frperg vf gung juvyr fur qvq qrsrpg nsgre Bcrengvba Pvaqre....fur qvq fb bayl nsgre fhpprffshyyl pbzcyrgvat gur trabpvqny zvffvba fur jnf tvira, hcba orvat sbhaq ol ure pbzznaqvat bssvpre.  Gung bssvpre, jub jr frr haqre n cfrhqbalz guebhtubhg gur obbx gelvat gb qb tbbq va gur tnynkl, qvntabfrf gung Dhryy vf gur glcr bs fbyqvre jub jvyy pbagvahr gb qb jung fur vf beqrerq ab znggre ubj ubeevoyr, hagvy fur rvgure xvyyf urefrys be vf xvyyrq, naq qevirf ure gb gur Arj Erchoyvp jvgu gur ubcrf gung fur jvyy or hfrq va n yrff rivy jnl gurer.  Guvf erpnfgf fb zhpu bs jung jrag orsber cflpubybtvpnyyl, nf Dhryy'f nggrzcgf gb svaq fbzrguvat Whfg va jne, va gur vqrn gung fbzrguvat jbegul pna or sbhaq va ure fbhy guebhtu svtugvat, vf ure frnepuvat sbe n pher sbe ure fvpxarff va nafjre gb ure rk-pbzznaqre'f beqref.  Naq Pnrea Nqna, nffubyr nf ur vf, yrneaf guvf frperg naq hfrf vg gb rffragvnyyl oynpxznvy naq fraq Dhryy onpx vagb n fcveny gb raq guvf obbx, bapr ntnva fvpx jvgu fbhy-pehfuvat hajbeguvarff.  Vg'f n qnex nf uryy cflpubybtvpny raqvat naq V pna'g jnvg gb frr Dhryy'f wbhearl pbagvahr gb frr vs fur pna svaq n jnl bhg bs vg, rfcrpvnyyl jvgu ure sbezre Pbzznaqre yvxryl gb or gur nagntbavfg va gur shgher obbxf....

All in all, the terrific if dark and broken characters, the excellent plot, and fantastic ending, make Alphabet Squadron a worthy addition to the Star Wars canon and well worth your time.  If I have any complaints about this book, it's that the starfighter action scenes are not particularly well written - if you remember how well the action was described in the X-Wing books, where you can envision how things are playing out, that's not really the case here - where things are described in vague generalities and ships and characters die more to drive the plot than based out of any rationality of piloting.  If this element was better, this could truly be an all time great book.  As it is, it's merely very very good.
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