Geek of Oz

Princess Leia may be the most shortchanged of Star Wars ' power trio of protagonists. She's not got Luke's emotional character arc, nor is she an intriguing anti-hero like Han. She's unfortunately best remembered from the original trilogy for wearing no bra in the first film and an uncomfortable metal one in the third, while her male counterparts are well known for one-liners, lightsaber fights and shooting first. I'm certainly not saying that fanservice is all  that Leia's got as a hallmark, but you have to admit it's not entirely fair that the term is regularly applied to her when certain fans recall her exploits in the original trilogy. She doesn't fare much better in the old Legends  books, either; depending on the writer, she's either a forthright - and largely ineffective - political figure, or an action girl add-on who keeps forgetting she has Force powers until she reaches her fifties. Timothy Zahn, Karen Traviss and arguably Troy Denning...

DISCLAIMER: This review uses images from the upcoming Star Wars: Battlefront video game. This book is also technically not part of the Journey to Star Wars: The Force Awakens series, but given its proximity to the film it may as well be. That said, this review will contain NO SPOILERS for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. __________________________________________________________________________ Remember The Force Unleashed video game? Remember that godawful tie-in book that was launched to help promote it as Star Wars' new transmedia project? Yeah, I try to forget about it, too. The problem with game tie-in novels is that, with rare exception, they fall into one of two categories. They're either blatant marketing and advertising exercises, designed to sell you on how great the story could be if you were a direct part of it (which affects books from Assassin's Creed , Gears of War and most of the Halo novels), or they're excellent stories which would ...

DISCLAIMER: As with our other Journey to the Force Awakens reviews, images will be taken from publicity stills for the new movie. This review will contain NO SPOILERS for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. __________________________________________________________________________ The acronym 'YA' (Young Adult) carries a bit of a stigma in some literary circles. As the median between kids' and 'adult books, YA can be seen as softer, less interesting and only appealing to a niche demographic of teens and early 20s. That is, it can be seen as such if you're not willing to ignore such rigid styles of classification and enjoy a book entirely on its own merits. I mention this because I was hesitant about diving into Lost Stars . My past experience with 'younger' Star Wars titles - in particular those awful Young Jedi Knights books from back in the day - had given me trepidation for current ones. All those kinds of books felt diluted, as if some of the w...

  DISCLAIMER: While there don't appear to be any explicit references to future events, it is possible that aspects of Aftermath are intended to foreshadow developments in Episode VII: The Force Awakens this December. Also, given the lack of pictures from the book (since this is, y'know, a novel), the in-text images will be stills released for The Force Awakens instead.  The short version, for those not wishing anything in-depth, is that I liked Aftermath. Quite a bit. However, those wishing to remain clean of any possible spoilerage should tread lightly in this review with a POSSIBLE MILD SPOILER WARNING . ____________________________________________________________________________ When it comes to Star Wars , I'm a massive fan of the books. In addition to all the Old Republic and Prequel Trilogy stories like Outbound Flight and The Rise of Darth Vader , I bought a lot of the old post- Return of the Jedi Expanded Universe novels back in the day. More tha...