DRIVING A WEDGE
Review by Jim Fisher
Author Aaron Allston steps in to fill Mike
Stackpole's combat boots -- and takes the war to Warlord
Zsinj
X-Wing: Wraith Squadron
by Aaron Allston
published by Bantam Spectra
When I first heard that Mike Stackpole would not be writing the new X-Wing novels I was apprehensive to say the least. Mike had put together four great novels, which all worked well without any of the main Star Wars characters showing up to save the day. Less than twenty pages into Wraith Squadron it became obvious that my fears were completely unfounded. Wraith scribe Aaron Allston not only succeeds in writing a successfull novel that doesn't include Luke, Han, Leia, et al., but he also manages to successfully introduce an entire new cast of characters.
NEW FACES
Although the easy route would have been to simply take
Stackpole's Rogue Squadron and put them through new
movements, Allston chose to create his own characters and
situations. The premise is a simple one:
Wedge Antilles, the galaxy's finest fighter pilot,
notices a hole in the New Republic's military
forces. With Admiral Ackbar's permission, Wedge
forms a dual purpose unit. a group of commandos who
also happen to fly X-wing fighters. Allston does a
tremendous job in fleshing out the new characters.
Where the previous X-Wing novels had focused on
Corran Horn, Wraith Squadron does a much better
job of balancing the time devoted to different
characters. Although Kell Tainer takes the
"Corran" role of the new central character in
the squadron, others such as Ton Phanan and Garik Loran
share a fair amount of the spotlight. However, a
few characters are very weak. Although Myn Dynos
appears early on in the novel, he is seldom seen, and we
learn very little about him. Tragic Jesmin Ackbar
isn't really developed until about halfway into the
novel. Still, the characterizations were solid and
the dialogue was well written.
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Allston weaves a wonderful yarn in the plot of the novel. He takes from the training stages of the squadron right into battles and, more importantly, he shows the down time between the battles. It is here that we see one of the greatest strengths of his writing: humor. It was this facet of the novel that caused me to have fun while reading it. Allston does the best job of any Star Wars novelist in capturing both the action and the humor of the films.
NEW FOCUS
However, there is one major difference between
the Star Wars films and this novel. In the
films, the heroes were archetypes of an epic proportion,
fighting desperately to save the galaxy; the villains
that they faced reflected that. Here, the heroes
are the pilots of the New Republic: plain and simple
"grunts." The true threats to them are
the faceless pilots fighting for the Imperial
forces. Although heavy hitters such as Warlord
Zsinj and Admiral Trigit play antagonistic roles in the
novel, they aren't going to be flying that TIE Fighter
that just vaped your wingman. Likewise, the
Imperial pilots would feel more threatened by Kell Tainer
than they would by Han Solo or Admiral Ackbar, but they
wouldn't know who Kell Tainer is. This is the major
difference between say, Heir to the Empire and Wraith
Squadron. Of course, prominent pilots like
Wedge Antilles and Baron Soontir Fel are exceptions to
that rule, but they are rare ones indeed.
Overall, I found this novel to be one of the best of the Bantam series. The story was both entertaining and intricate. With this novel Allston shows that not only does he understand Star Wars, he can write good Star Wars. There is one drawback: the next book won't be out until this summer.
(When he isn't sleeping Jim Fisher is busy working on one of his numerous web projects or his calc homework .)