X-Wing Rogue Squadron By: Michael Stackpole

X-Wing Rogue Squadron picks up about two years after the destruction of the second Death Star during the movie Return of the Jedi. Rogue Squadron was disbanded shortly after the movie and then when the New Republic was formed the provisional ruling council decided to reform the squad under the command of Commander Wedge Antilles. It was more of a political move to appease the worlds that were on the Rebellion's side before the fall of the Empire, and to keep them on the side of the New Republic. The book starts off with the main character of the book, Corran Horn, in a flight simulator where the potential candidates for assignment in the Squadron are taking part in exercises against each other to determine rank order. Corran Horn makes it in with relative ease since he has been flying X-Wings since his time in CorSec. The top ten others are chosen and the squad's XO is also chosen. Captain Tycho Celchu is the pilot chosen to be XO, but he has to fly a weapons stripped down Z-95 Headhunter as they practice on the planet and in orbit around the planet. Everyone seems very paranoid around him like he is a spy for the remnants of the Empire. What he did was only eluded to in vague terms and no one can seem to get a straight answer as to what has happened. I guess that is one of the things that is going to be revealed in the next eight books. As the new Rogue Squadron is formed and they start practicing. Admiral Ackbar decides to send the squadron to a planet to be their base. The planet is covered in a perpetual fog and that will make it harder for the Imperials to find them. The group's first mission from the planet is a success, but as Wedge likes to remind them, there will be not a lot of them left by the end of their fifth mission. What a downer, but as the author likes to remind us through Wedge, Red Group (who was the precursor to Rogue Squadron) lost a lot of people in the attack against the first Death Star and when they were at Hoth they lost a lot of people as well. About halfway through the book the Imperial Intelligence Officer that has been assigned by the woman in charge of the remnants of the Imperials to find and destroy the base that the Rogues are operating from. It appears that he has nearly a photographic memory of everything that he sees and he is somehow, in a matter of paragraphs, able to figure out the planet where the Rogues are operating from. We then get the chapter of the raid that took place and the Rogues lose their first pilot at the hands of some stealth Stormtroopers. Thanks to golden boy Corran Horn and his wingman Ooryl the base is alerted silently and the Imperial raid is stopped, but not without some gunplay that has Corran Horn and Gavin Darklighter in a Bacta bath in the next chapter. The last third of the book is taken up with a failed assault attempt on a planet code named Darkmoon that the New Republic wants to use as a base to work their way to Coursant to finally strike a blow to the heart of the Empire that remains. The assault was planned by the Bothans that were fed bad data and the data that they had on the planet was old anyway. In the next chapter we find out that the General in charge of the Imperial Base on the planet has been using trickery and other means to get extra TIE Squadrons, and this leads to disaster on the part of the raid. The author likes to remind us through Wedge and Corran that this little operation is going to get a lot of people killed and that the Bothans pushed this through the provisional council because they basically said, "You owe us for the Bothans that died bringing you the location of the second Death Star." In the first assault on Darkmoon (which is the squad's fifth mission) the Rogues lose half their pilots, and are forced to retreat when TIE Interceptors and the planet's Ion Cannon disable most of the landing ships of the ground forces and the Star Destroyer that came along. When they get back to their base, Ackbar and the others are trying to decide whether or not to try for another assault on Blackmoon when Golden Boy Corran Horn comes with information that says that they can take the base with forces and an airstrike. They then proceed to come up with a plan that requires the use of the only other star destroyer they have and a feint to a different planet in another system to get the Star Destroyer in that area of space further away from Blackmoon and that would allow the Rogues to get in, do the job and get out. The Second Assault on Blackmoon goes off with a few minor hitches and the six remaining all get back safely. The book for me was a good read. I had tried and failed to read this book back when it first came out in the late 1990's. I think for me at that time it was the confusing dogfighting descriptions that Stackpole uses. I was still somewhat confused by the whole thing now, but at least I was able to get past that and enjoy a good book. There was a somewhat tacked on romantic chapter or two through the book, but I hope that does not rear its head in the next book because I don't much care about the sex lives of characters in the Star Wars universe. The whole thing with the Imperial Intelligence Officer seems like the author needed some way for him to find the base quickly in the middle third of the book, and added the whole thing with the nearly perfect photographic memory because how would a character figure out where they were without some gimmick? Corran Horn speaks to me as a sort of self-insertion character. He always seems to have some answer to a problem that they are having. I don't think it is him so much as it is his droid. There are a few times where Corran shows he's vulnerable because he starts off as a show off and while they are in training in the first part of the book he gets taken down a peg and that gets him in line. The constant reminders by Wedge of the men who died attacking the Death Star's and at Hoth are really annoying. Stackpole does it at least three times through the book and I think I tuned out the last one because he had done it twice already and that is my limit on needing to be reminded about that sort of thing. I have seen the movies and don't need to be reminded over and over again. If you can look past the things I mentioned in the last paragraph then I can recommend this book. Just don't pay full retail for it.

Star Wars: Wedge's Gamble By: Michael Stackpole

I dip back into the Star Wars pool once again. This Rogue Squadron book I have never read before so I'm going in blind on this. I hope it is a step up from the first one that constantly reminded us that Rogue Squadron has lost a lot of good people over the years. The book starts off with Corran Horn out on patrol in orbit of the planet they took over at the end of the last book. He's out there with a couple of Y-Wings from General Salm's Squadron when a ship jumps out of hyperspace and starts approaching the planet. It launches TIE's and Golden Boy Corran Horn leaves the Y-Wings to handle the mother ship while he takes on the TIE's. There is a lot of dogfighting description in this battle from Corran's POV and there is a point where we think Golden Boy is dead meat but something that happened earlier in the battle comes back. We are then taken to the planet were we are introduced to the new characters that are to take the place of some of the ones that the squadron lost in the last book. One is a Captain and relative of Nien Numb that has been selected to join as has the son of General Cracken who seems to have a bit of a problem with his being in command of his own squad and takes a reduction in rank to join the Rogues. Wedge welcomes them both the squad and gives them their ship assignment. In the chapter after that we finally learn why it is that the higher ups don't like Tycho Celchu flying an armed starfighter. It is because he was once a prisoner of the Empire and he might be brainwashed into turning on his squad members and kill them like other prisoners who have come from the same prison have done in the past. I think the author is setting this up to be a factor later on in this book or in later books. We also learn more about the military protocol droid and why it is that way. It puts a neat spin on things, but so far it has only been used as a plot point in the other book. I hope Stackpole is going somewhere with this. Then we get to what I consider the boring part of the book so far, the politics of the invasion of Courscant. The Bothan's have an idea on what they want to do while Admiral Ackbar has another idea entirely. It is at this point I want to erase all Bothan's from this book and move on. I'm tired of them and their attitude that "Our way is the best way." When the meeting recesses we get a side plot where Leia, who is at the meeting too, talks with Wedge about more politicking that the Bothan's are trying to do to get their way. We get back to the meeting and both the Bothan's and Ackbar are working on plans for the raid on Courscant. The Bothan's want to release some of the prisoners of the Black Sun Organization from Kessel while Ackbar wants to let Rogue Squadron work on the ground on the planet to gather information and maybe sabotage the orbital defense shields at the same time. I hope this book is not all politics because then it is going to get boring and I'll hate the book the whole time I am reading it. I have been reading the books so far because I want starfighter action kind of like the movie Top Gun and so far all I'm getting is C-SPAN. Between the two chapters where they make the plans for the invasion We learn that the Imperial General that was in charge of the planet that the rebels took last book is now working on some sort of biological weapon to use against the rebels and that said General wants to have some Quarren to experiment on. Photographic memory boy is put in charge of the round up of Quarren from the undercity for the General to experiment on. The Rogues get some intelligence brought back by the savior of the last book that the ship that invaded the space of the planet earlier on was back in service around another New Republic planet. They jump in and find that it is there and they are docked with another ship that is transferring something to it. The ship launches TIE's and the Rogues go after the TIE's while the other ships launch an attack on the docked ships. The enemy starfighters are taken out rather quickly while one of the docked ships is destroyed by a volley of Photon Torpedoes and the other is put out of commission and held for it to be taken back to be investigated. After that we get back to politics and I get bored. Who cares about the Bothans versus Admiral Ackbar anymore? Wedge has Golden Boy, Corran Horn, report to him where we learn that he and another member of Rogue Squadron are going to Imperial Center under cover to scope out things before the Rebellion makes a decision on how to take the planet. It is at this point that all my hopes for this book being like the first book are dashed. No X-Wing versus TIE action because it goes on for the rest of the book about the operation on Imperial Center. The only thing that may have redeemed the book was action at some point. I get it, but it is not until right around page 240, and by then it is too late and Stackpole has already lost me as a reader. I'm just coasting through the last 100 or so pages to get to the end of the book so I can finish it and move on to the next book. One thing that does not make sense to me is if you already have an established network of intelligence operatives on Imperial Center then why are you risking the lives of your best pilots to do an operation they are not trained for and risk them getting their cover blown by one thing going wrong (which we are constantly reminded of). It seems like he's doing it for no other reason than cheap drama and to give the author an excuse to pair up random characters from Rogue Squadron for awkward characterization and a lot of talking. There's also a lot of Murphy's Law going on in this book. Everything that can go wrong does go wrong. I can believe some things going wrong but to have virtually everything go wrong then I lose my ability to suspend my sense of disbelief. Even if it looks like they are finally one step ahead of the Imperials, something happens to shoot the wheels completely off of the plan and they have to come up with a new plan. I know there would be no conflict without some of Murphy's Law happening, but to have it happen all the time is just bad writing. There's still a spy in the ranks of Rogue Squadron and we are no closer to finding out who it is than when we found it out in the first book. It does not help any that one of the prisoners they released from Kessel was working against them from the word go. We know that it is not Tycho Celchu because he is not taking part in this mission even though Golden Boy thinks he sees him talking to someone in a dive bar in the undercity of Imperial Center, or so we are led to think. If I have to venture a guess on who the spy is, then I'll say it is either the Military Protocol Droid, M-3P0 or the Bothan in Rogue Squad. Who better to be the spy than the member of the team that is the race that hates the Imperials. I'm probably wrong on both those counts, but I have been right about certain things in the past. After the release of the Black Sun prisoners they are not brought into play a lot of the time in the book except to give one of them an excuse to toy with Corran Horn. I don't know why that plot point was brought into play and it just seemed like it was tacked on to add mass to an already boring book. The whole thing with Kessel could have been left out and all the plot points with the Black Sun Organization removed and you would have had a pretty serviceable book that was maybe twenty to thirty pages shorter. The book almost redeems itself in the last fifty pages which is what the other 300 pages in the book had been setting up for. Too bad the way things fall into place is telegraphed from the moment they land on the planet earlier in the book. The nasty virus that General Derracote has hardly comes into play and the way they describe the means of transmission of the virus, it can be defeated easily with a pair of protective gloves and mask like doctors use these days. I guess they don't have gloves and masks "A long time ago in a galaxy far far away." If what I read of the reviews on Amazon are true, then the third book is no better than this one with little fighter action and a lot of blah-blahing. I'm debating whether or not to continue reading the series of nine books or not, but I have at least one book ahead of making up my mind so I have plenty of time to decide.

Star Wars X-Wing: The Krytos Trap By: Michael A. Stackpole

This book is the third part in the nine part X-Wing series of books that deals with Rogue Squadron in the post movies era of Star Wars. When last we left the story, Golden Boy, Corran Horn, was presumed dead when his Z-95 Headhunter crashed into a building that collapsed on top of him. The New Republic had taken Coruscant from the Remnants of the Empire and is now having to deal with other things. Most of this book deals with two things. The trial of Captain Tycho Celchu on charges of murdering Corran Horn and being a spy; as well as having to deal with the Krytos Virus and getting the Bacta needed to heal the alien population of Imperial Center. There is another plot where we see Corran Horn escape the prison he is being held in along with other people Ysanne Isard finds unacceptable or has failed her. There are also a few minor plots; like the only Bothan on Rogue Squadron being blackmailed into a writing a report that says a delay in an operation that they take part in was the result of human error and not mechanical. There are also more power plays by the Bothans that basically boil down to "We got you the Death Star II location and you owe us." They consider the Bothans who died during that operation to be Martyrs to the cause and are hailed as heroes. The Imperial with the photographic memory also plays a part and is tying the whole trial plot into the rest of the book when he gets some information that he shouldn't have and decides to act on his own. It was good except one thing, after two books of having him mentioned and being a minor player Warlord Zsinj makes his appearance on the scene when he attacks a convoy of ships that were carrying Bacta to Coruscant. The entire convoy is destroyed, but one ship that was supposed to be there, The Pulsar Skate, was not found to be in the debris. Zsinj thinks he's destroyed Rogue Squadron and as a result is getting his ego stroked. There's a real neat plot twist that I am not going to spoil about this, just read the book for yourself to find out. The Imperial with the Photographic memory decides to contact the lead defense counsel of Captain Celchu, Nawara Ven, and get him off the hook with the information he has as well as telling him the names of some of the imperial spies in return for immunity from prosecution for crimes he's committed, a new identity, one million credits and a one way ticket off Imperial Center. He ultimately ends up dead before he could testify at the hands of a character that came out of left field, but at least there was some reason for that character to be there. I like this book mostly because contrary to what the reviews on Amazon said the trial does not take up too much of the book and is not at all boring. It's also nice to be focusing on characters other than Corran Horn and Kirtan Loor with some of the story being told from the point of view of Nawara Ven and Wedge Antilles. Granted it was just the trial and one combat mission, but I like the character now that he's not a one note player. It's also nice to have the squadron back in X-Wings for some of the book and flying around because if I had to read another novel much like book two of the series then I would have been bored to death and chucked the book against the wall several times. Maybe it was just my attitude of going into the second book, but this book just seemed a lot better than that one. Overall a solid half-price buy. It atones for book two.

Star Wars X-Wing: The Bacta War By: Michael A. Stackpole

This is the fourth book written by Stackpole and I hope that he has gotten this whole thing out of his system about having Rogue Squadron not in their X-Wings. I'm kind of tired of a book series, titled Star Wars X-Wing, hardly having the characters in their X-Wings at all. When last we left our heroes, Wedge and the rest of Rogue Squadron had up and quit the New Republic, Ysanne Isard has control of the planet Thyferra along with a Super Star Destroyer and three other Star Destroyers and The New Republic is still in control of Coruscant. Wedge and the other rogues eventually find a place to call their own early in the book where they can start their own little private war against Isard and get Thyferra out of her hands. How do they intend to fund this little war? Isard made the mistake of transferring millions of credits into Tycho's bank account to make him look like an imperial agent and then not taking the money out again. Along with the Z-95 Headhunters they have left and can sell to any number of museums or private governments for millions of credits they are pretty much set for buying all the stuff they need to run their war. Early in the book we have a meeting with the Darklighter family and one of them is a very well to do businessman on Tatooine. It is here we get a little characterization about Gavin Darklighter and just have an excuse for Corran to talk about everything the squadron has been though over the past three books with Gavin's father. Also in this chapter we finally meet Booster Terrik who is negotiating for the same supplies that Corran, Mirax and Gavin are there to buy. The well to do Darklighter procured these from the Imperial Garrison on Tatooine and has been selling it off since the fall of the Empire. Through some tricky logistics the group manages to get all their X-Wings from the New Republic along with surplus parts, and technical crews to keep everything running smoothly. Then we get to the first of the many pronged attack on Isard. Wedge decides to make her mad by attacking a Bacta convoy they have intelligence on. All goes well and Corran and Ooryl deliver the ship to a planet that needs the Bacta to take care of its small, but very sick population. Any disease this population gets spreads quickly though the population, but by the time it is supposed to clear the population, it has mutated and the used to be sick, get sick again. They were getting normal Bacta shipments and paying the Bacta cartels regular payments, but when Isard took over the price spiked so that the normal shipment now costs billions instead of millions of credits. This earned the good graces of the people on the planet and has given the Rogues a place to seek shelter in case the need arises. Corran and Mirax go to Thyferra along with some special forces new republic troopers to help start seeding the seeds of chaos on the planet to help with the overthrow of Isard. They make it through the spaceport customs and then as they are waiting to meet their contact, Corran does something stupid that causes the Imperials on the planet to open up a can of firefight on them. Horn decides he's going to use some of his newfound Jedi prowess on the stormtroopers. He ultimately fails because he forgot his training with his lightsaber and gets shot up. The last thing he sees is Bror Jace, ex-rogue that for all we know died at the end of the first book. What happens next is that he is healed in a tank of super Bacta and they manage to get the special forces troopers set up on the planet with some resistance cells and they make trouble for the Imperials throughout the book. Once they stage a guerilla raid on one of the fathers of an Imperial TIE Pilot (she's from Thyferra) and instead of killing him, they take a picture of him unconscious at his desk stripped down to his undergarments. The guerilla parts make for a refreshing change of pace in the book and give us something to enjoy other than the flying action of Corran Horn and the others. Through a series of hit and run tactics, essentially a few X-Wings pop in on a Bacta transport run launch a couple of proton torpedoes and then take off again Wedge begins to peck away at the TIEs that are on the destroyers. This frustrates Isard to no end and then Wedge decides to make a bold statement and go after the victory class star destroyer with the experienced crew and captain. It takes a combined effort by all the Rogues and a few alien supporters as well, and they bring it down. That leaves Isard with only two big star destroyers (Imp Star Deuces as they are called by the rogues) and her Super Star Destroyer. Throughout the entire books, Isard seems to be losing her cool since they were forced off Coruscant. The constant heat of Thyferra is getting to her and for someone who is supposed to be some big tactical genius, she gets sloppy throughout the entire book. When Wedge brings his master plan to a head at the end of the book (I'd say the last 75 pages) everything seems to be going well, and then something screws it up, and then things start looking up again and then something happens to screw it up again. All of it seems to happen like Wedge predicted, except one thing in the Rogues' favor. The Gravity well projector they got from Talon Karrde and mounted on their station pulls some A-Wings that were out on patrol and manages to get one of the Star Destroyers to surrender and turn to the good guys side. Just in the nick of time too because Wedge's plan of using as many proton torpedoes on the Super Star Destroyer as they could get was working but they were still getting chewed up. At the end of the fight we have the Rogues going after a shuttle that Isard has taken from the planet that has been juiced up with extra shields and firepower. Corran decides to make a run on her, but the juiced up shields are too strong for the X-Wings lasers to bring down. Corran would have used his torpedoes, but he had none. He used them bringing down a former Rogue that had turned to the Imperials. In a case of Deus ex Machina Corran's targeting sensors had been slaved to the rest of the Rogues to make the most of their volleys and two torpedoes bring down the shuttle with Isard on it. Thus eliminating her and ending this whole sordid four book saga. The rebellion now has a very beaten down Super Star Destroyer at their disposal as well as a couple of Star Destroyers that are in slightly better shape. One of those star destroyers is claimed by Booster Terrik as the spoils of war. This is by far the stupidest thing in the whole four book series. The New Republic should have said "here's money for the Imp Star Deuce now go away" no matter what the man's reputation is, nobody but a big government should have a Star Destroyer. Granted it has been stripped of but the bare essential weapons, but still it is beyond words how stupid that plot point is. Not only that, but the way Stackpole spends fifteen pages on the negotiating of getting Booster his capital ship almost killed the entire book for me. Booster Terrik is by far the worst character in the Star Wars expanded universe. Okay so the Yhuzan Vong are 1a, but Booster Terrik is 1b in the worst Star Wars expanded universe character category. It was at this point I wanted to chuck the book at the wall. At the very end of the book the Rogues are brought back into the fold of the New Republic and this sets things up for whatever is going to happen in book five.

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