Wednesday, May 12, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Star Wars: Victory's Price by Alexander Freed

 





Victory's Price is the third and final book in Alexander Freed's Alphabet Squadron trilogy (which began with 2019's "Alphabet Squadron", which I reviewed here), a new canon Star Wars trilogy that I really went into with a lot of trepidation.  After all, the old X-Wing novels were probably up there in terms of most beloved old EU novels for Star Wars fans - and that was especially true for me.  But Alphabet Squadron, and its sequel Shadow Fall, really surprised me by taking a very different tone, a much more cynical tone than the old X-Wing novels ever did even as it again features a crew of starfighter pilots in the post RotJ fight against the Empire.  The first two novels dealt heavily with the questions of what to do with defectors, and people from the Empire who may have committed atrocities in the Empire's name, and what is there left to fight for when a war seems about over and so much has been lost. 

Victory's Price concludes the trilogy in tremendous fashion, featuring our main five characters - plus Rebels fan favorite Hera Syndulla - as they reach an ultimate conclusion in their journeys.  The plot manages to answer some questions while at least exploring other themes that can't really have an easy conclusive answer, as our traumatized group of pilots, and their seemingly turncoat leader, attempt to figure out what comes next and what really matters.  In a way, this book and the trilogy seems very much to be a darker, more serious take on the old Wraith Squadron trilogy, right down to the question of a defector and whether she can ever be redeemed, but with more depth than that trilogy ever even tried to pull off.  And it works, for the most part, really damn well, being one of the few new canon works I've read that I will highly recommend.  

Spoilers for books 1-2 are inevitable below: --------------------------------------Plot Summary-----------------------------------------------
Alphabet Squadron remains in shambles after their "success" at Cerberon.  Wyl Lark has been promoted to commander of all of Hera Syndulla's starfighter forces aboard the Star Destroyer Deliverance, but remains bitter about Nath's sabotaging of his attempt to peacefully end the conflict at Cerberon and his distance away from his isolationist planet.  Chass na Chadic finds herself desperately reaching for the teachings of the cult she fell in with on Cerberon, with nothing else to ground her during and in between battles.  Nath Tensent is now working as a liaison to New Republic Intelligence for Syndulla, struggling to maintain relationships with each of his fellow pilots.  And Kairos seems to be traumatized and depressed by the loss of her mask and armor shell, showing her face to people for the first time.  

But Alphabet Squadron's mission remains unchanged - to hunt down what remains of Shadow Wing, which they suspect to have rejoined the Imperial Remnant.  But what they don't realize is that Yrica Quell is alive and has rejoined Shadow Wing - ostensibly with the intent of sabotaging it from within.  But as Quell returns to the side of Shadow Wing's leader, ace of aces Soran Keize, she finds the choice of which soldiers/pilots to betray isn't as easy as she once thought, as Soran attempts to do everything to keep his pilots alive at all costs.  

But in doing so, Soran will lead Shadow Wing on a new campaign of the genocidal Operation Cinder, forcing Quell and the rest of Alphabet Squadron to make one final set of impossible choices to stop him...and to try and build a better future for themselves and the galaxy as a whole......
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I'm going to get this out of the way first, because it's still a thing but not really important: Victory's Price, while ostensibly a novel about starfighter pilots, is still not very good at showing off starfighter combat.  The book features two ace vs ace confrontations, as well as a bunch of other major starfighter vs starfighter battles, and is more interested in the results of those battles than describing the in detail, at times just basically skipping over the "how" those combats went to get to the results.  So if you're looking for that aspect of the X-Wing novels here, you'll be disappointed.  

But you should know this by now, two novels in to this trilogy, and Victory's Price is far more interested in its characters than its action, and it works really well for it.  |

Book 1 introduced a rag tag tired group of starfighter pilots as well as the question of redemption for a defector like Yrica Quell, who committed atrocities in the name of the Empire and who had to be pushed out of the service by her mentor before she committed more just because it was all she actually knew.  Could she be redeemed?  Would it just for her to be so, after all she's done?  And could soldiers from the losing side like her and others really put down their arms and find justice in the laws and governance of the New Republic? 

Book 2 continued that theme by adding the general traumas of the rest of Alphabet Squadron as their battle on Cerberon went utterly sideways for months, with both sides feeling the tremendous trauma of what has started to seem like a forever war.  Both sides began to see the other side, no matter what they had done, as real people (especially Wyl) and began to wonder if there was anything else out there for them besides war...assuming the war would ever end.  And then there was enemy commander and ace Soran Keize, who believed that while the war was lost, it was his duty to his pilots to do anything to save them physically and mentally until the end, no matter the cost to others.  

Victory's Price deals with all of these themes once more and combines them all into a plot that works really well through the characters of Alphabet Squadron (and often seen by Hera Syndulla as a viewpoint character from the outside).  Wyl, Chass, and Nath have to deal with the traumas of the forever war and the yearning for something else....even if they don't really have anything else to go to (Chass and to a lesser extent Nath) or might be ostracized by their own people (Kairos).  Quell (and Wyl) has to deal with the fact that she knows the Shadow Wing pilots as people, people who she doesn't want to die, as Soran does anything to try to save them...even as she knows that more and more others will die under Soran's plans...and has to make a choice as to what really matters and what really is justice. 

The book never has clear solid answers necessarily to any of these questions as well, there aren't any - that's a matter for philosophers, as one character puts it.  But the character journeys provide really strong explorations of these questions and themes, leading to a climax that is absolutely well deserved and tremendous.  The book does cheat a little in its ending (several characters miraculously survive the final battle just so the ending can work), but it's a cheat that readers will be happy to see rather than having extra darkness spoil the work.  Honestly the only weak part of this story is Kairos' tale, which feels maybe a bit too on the nose with how she is transformed by war, but otherwise, this is a really strong conclusion to a very strong trilogy.  Highly recommended for Star Wars fans, and even for others.  

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