Last Shot

Business trips with airport delays are good for reading time. Started Last Shot (Daniel Jose Older, 2018) on Monday, finished on Tuesday.

An interesting book in that it spans at least three different time periods, each working on a portion of the intertwined tale. Chapters skip back and forth between the eras as the story is shepherded towards its conclusion. One of the best parts about going back in time: we get to see the sassy L3-37.

Good writing; I am well familiar with Lando and Han and the rest, and these characters seemed true to form. Too bad Luke couldn't have been worked in, even as a cameo.

Only found one typo in the book, so that's good. Thought I was on the trail of another, when, in fact, I had merely encountered Disney's latest Star Wars nod toward inclusiveness: a new character who prefers the non-gendered pronoun "they". When used in singular form, in place of he or she, it throws one for a loop initially. As with all of these barrier lowering pushes lately, I am for it. Not used to it, but that's kinda the point. Along these lines, the author manages to work into the story the fact that a New Republic official is a man married to another man. That's fine...but again feels like we're trying to reach some quota of PC mentions per book or something. As I said before, I wind up being for this sort of thing, if for nothing else than the fact that it's overdue to have Star Wars, or anything else, be open to and inclusive of everyone. I guess for me the issue is that whenever a character's sexual preferences are mentioned in these adventure stories it is for this explicit inclusivity purpose. The story does not generally support such overt, expository statements, out of the blue, for any characters. Perhaps they should simply show these people in their relationships as a more natural part of the story. Han and Leia, saving the day, quipping romantically along the way does happen. Doug and Barry, fighting the empire, making eyes at each other across the crowded bunker could happen. Romance is surely a part of the Star Wars experience, and should be open to all. Lando and L3-37, for instance.

A few items to gripe about (of course). First: the 'droids gone wild' main plot theme is a slight retread of that found in The New Rebellion (Kristine Kathryn Rusch, 1996). The technical aspects of the main scheme were weak as well. Not sure "how" it was supposed to happen. Many of the military terms were abused, like when the author mentions a battalion of A-wings, or when the only grenades to be found anywhere were thermal detonators, and even they were classically underpowered (someone threw three (3!) of them inside a small starship, in space, with almost no ill effects--tell that to Prince Xizor's castle). One of the characters is an Ewok slicer. Uhhhhh. Another is a Gungan who is basically there to make fun of Episode I in long-winded monologues. Many instances of "you should think of a new animal/place name"; not everything need come from Endor (in fact, nothing need come from Endor), not every belt is made of nerf leather, not everything hairy is bantha-like, etc. Stretch your creative muscles to grow the universe. On the flip side, "hell" doesn't seem like a Star Wars concept/word. Ruins the immersion in the fictional setting, to some extent. One last thing: apparently "ass" is an acceptable word now in SW literature. The author uses and abuses this fact to enable very frequent mentions; including setting breaking concepts such as "whup ass". Please. I much prefer "stang!" and whatnot. 

Some cool concepts: the main bad guy has an air of General Grevious about him; that's kinda cool. A Twi'lek love interest for Lando is textbook great. I am a sucker for the multi-timeline thread concept, kinda like the last episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation (All Good Things..., 1994).

In the end, I'd say this is a decent entry into the canon.