X-Wing: Rogue Squadron

Review - X-Wing: Rogue Squadron - by Michael Stackpole - Feb. 1996

To be completely honest up front: I like Mike Stackpole. I e-mailed him over a decade ago, and he was very gracious in his reply. I like this series - Wedge was one of my favorite characters (the only guy to show up in all three films that doesn't show up in the credits) - so I was going to want to like this anyway. And yes, while finishing this book, I had a piece of Fruitcake, which I like (the 130 year old fruitcake mentioned in this article is in my family.., Uncle Morgan is my grandpa's cousin - nice fellow, good to play cards with), and so I joined in with the pilots having their Ryshcate in celebration with them.

Wedge, X-Wings, and Star Wars Fruitcake. I have to like this book.

That being said, let's look at it with some specifics.

The EU - No 1-upsmanship Stackpole creates his hero, Corran Horn, who I like, but the very first words of the book set the stage - "You're good, Corran, but you're no Luke Skywalker." And this is perhaps the biggest strength of this book. It's the first Star Wars book we get that isn't centered on Han, Luke, and Leia - and you know what? It doesn't try to make the new characters better than them. They are legends - these characters might become legends (until Denning gets his hands on them and turns Corran into a dithering. . . wait, not there yet, not there yet, different book, 33 years down the road in book time) - but right now they aren't.

This is something that I find very appealing about this book. It's just how people, how characters could live in the Star Wars Universe. The e-mail above that I wrote to Stackpole was precisely about running a Role Playing game - this book feels like you are looking in on a really good gaming session.

The EU - Law and Order in the Rebels I like Corran Horn as a character. I like the police-style background, and the depth that gives to the character. I like the investigatory tone (the lack of which makes the Coruscant Nights series so disappointing...) and approach, which is a different angle than normal. Plus, I like the internal tension that comes up - how do you fight with the sorts of people whom you are used to putting away.

The EU - Villains Isard and Loor make good villains. Why? They can hurt the good guys. If you can't touch the good guys, what good are you as a villain? But more than that, I appreciated Loor - you got the sense that he is growing and becoming more skillful. He's not just a hurdle and then on to the next one, but an actual person. Derricote has depth as well. They can pull things off, actually bring frustrations and dangers to our heroes - and that means they are good villains -- without trying to be more "evil" than the Emperor.

The Bad - Slightly Wooden Combat I feel impelled to knock the book a bit - I want to have some semblence of impartiality. Here it goes. I played X-Wing and loved it. The Space combat makes sense to me because I have done it - I can visualize it.

Folks who didn't play X-Wing... not so much. I had a friend read it, and he couldn't stand the combat - it made no sense to him. Before X-Wing came out, people were worried that players would too easily become disoriented without a horizon. As I ended up playing the game, I ended up not caring about that (just how close the Destroyers were) - but that's me. I can see how lots would be confused. I think that happens here - given how much of the book rests upon space combat, it could have been a bit more crisp, with more visuals I guess.

Still, it made me happy to read it again =o)

The Grade - A (unless you hated the X-Wing games, in which case you might give it a B- simply because the action would be really, really distracting)