Book #68 of 2021: Star Wars: The High Republic: Into the Dark by Claudia Gray I wouldn’t call this YA adventure a must-read for Star Wars fans, but it’s a big step up from Light of the Jedi, the first book in this new prequel era for the franchise, roughly two centuries before The Phantom …
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Book #9 of 2020: Star Wars: Master & Apprentice by Claudia Gray The plot is a bit of a mess, but this story offers an interesting look at the teenage Obi-Wan Kenobi and his early dynamic with Master Qui-Gon Jin, eight years before their on-screen introduction in Episode I: The Phantom Menace. It also includes …
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Book #232 of 2019: Defy the Fates by Claudia Gray (Constellation #3) I still enjoy the debut of this sci-fi YA trilogy enough that it’s fun to spend more time with the characters, but the action of the next two volumes feels far more rote by comparison. In this final book especially, our protagonists don’t …
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Book #107 of 2019: Defy the Worlds by Claudia Gray (Constellation #2) I’m enjoying the blandly-titled Constellation series overall, but this sequel is nowhere near as fun as the YA space opera’s propulsive debut. The second novel is more than half over before its two protagonists are reunited, and the new stakes don’t seem particularly …
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Book #44 of 2018: Star Wars: Leia, Princess of Alderaan by Claudia Gray This prequel novel depicts sixteen-year-old Princess Leia coming of age alongside the fledgling rebellion against the corrupt empire that rules her world. Like author Claudia Gray’s earlier novel Lost Stars, it’s a great character-driven drama that asks some smart questions about reform …
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Book #31 of 2018: Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View edited by Elizabeth Schaefer In honor of the 40th anniversary of the first Star Wars movie, this book presents 40 short stories retelling the events of that film from the perspective of various minor characters — from Jawas to stormtroopers to the thing …
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Book #17 of 2018: Defy the Stars by Claudia Gray (Constellation #1) There’s a bit of a rocky start to this novel, but it’s not long before the story kicks off into a careening sci-fi adventure. It’s got so many things I love about the genre: an exploration of the souls of advanced robots, people …
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Book #228 of 2017: A Million Worlds with You by Claudia Gray (Firebird #3) The Firebird trilogy has gotten steadily better as it’s gone along, and this third novel brings it all home nicely. As befits a series finale, the stakes are higher than ever in this book, and the parallel universe-hopping that’s always been …
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Book #197 of 2017: Ten Thousand Skies Above You by Claudia Gray (Firebird #2) This middle book in Claudia Gray’s Firebird trilogy suffers from the same problem as a lot of sequels: a somewhat clunky effort to kickstart the plot and present new stakes now that the main conflict from the previous story has been …
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Book #175 of 2017: A Thousand Pieces of You by Claudia Gray (Firebird #1) The beginning of this book is pretty weak, with a revenge quest that’s hard for readers to care about when we don’t have any emotional connection to the characters yet and a whole lot of infodumping about the technology that enables …
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