Star Wars Beyond the Films‘ Nathan P. Butler is now posting short, non-spoiler reviews for many new releases. Spoiler-filled discussion will often follow in the weeks or months thereafter on the podcast.
Resistance Reborn by Rebecca Roanhorse (hardcover, 2019)
The final film in the Skywalker Saga looms on the horizon. As is usually the case, Star Wars publishers are paving the way for The Rise of Skywalker with new comics, novels, and other tales. In the past, we’ve seen everything from great (Labyrinth of Evil) to “meh” (The Approaching Storm) pre-film ramp-up titles from Del Rey. With so little known about the era between The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker, will Resistance Reborn thrill or be just another run-of-the-mill ramp-up novel?
Resistance Reborn
Resistance Reborn is the first Star Wars work of any kind from acclaimed and award-winning author Rebecca Roanhorse. It was provided to reviewers a short time before release with secrecy that bred anticipation: a review embargo date (a rare thing for Star Wars novels), a hardback copy for review (but without a dust jacket to prevent possible resales), an audiobook download provided alongside the physical review copies, and an email preceding it all, requiring secrecy until the review embargo ended (which it has). Del Rey seemed to be really excited about this release.
As it turns out . . . they were absolutely right in being excited to see this book hit shelves.
Resistance Reborn chronicles a period shortly after The Last Jedi, as the Resistance tries to find allies and figure out what happened to the various allies who failed to heed their call in the film. Along the way, they must keep their ranks, already diminished after the flight from D’Qar and the Battle of Crait, from being reduced even further.
Overall, the story is enjoyable, provides insight into this era between films, and helps answer that unanswered question from TLJ: Why didn’t allies respond to the call from Crait? That said, that isn’t what makes the novel special among Star Wars novels in the Story Group’s current Canon.
You can tell when reading that Roanhorse has paid close attention to the films, as she has captured the “voice” of major Sequel Trilogy characters and their nuances better than just about any Star Wars novel in this era to date. But that’s still not what makes the novel special.
What does make it special is something that will cause continuity fans to cheer and disgruntled fans of the new Canon to take note. Perhaps the single most important aspect of the original Star Wars publishing continuity, now known as “Legends” (1991 – 2014, retroactively bringing in items from 1976 – 1990), was the fact that the writers tended to understand that they were writing in a broader universe. Their stories were not told in a vacuum, and connections and references between works were common. Eventually, many of the latter Legends stories, such as the Legacy of the Force novel series or Legacy comic series, managed to mine the overall continuity and form a web of connections that made those stories feel like they were truly part of an organic, growing universe wherein the stories around them and the experiences of the characters in other works actually mattered.
For the most part, novels since the reboot in 2014 that launched the new Star Wars Canon continuity have been relatively light on connectivity. Oh, they connect quite often to films or TV series like The Clone Wars or Rebels, or even theme parks (Galaxy’s Edge), but when it comes to substantial connections between stories told in comics or novels, those ties have tended to be few and far between outside of company cohesion (Marvel tending to connect some works) or author cohesion (authors referencing their prior works in new works). It has been extremely rare to see a story actually try to form a coherent, strong web of connections between characters and events not just in visual media or theme park settings but also to other comics, novels, video games, etc. without it tending toward the author’s own works. That kind of strong connectivity and continuity is exactly what makes Resistance Reborn so speical in modern Canon: Roanhorse, a new author to Star Wars, has managed to make this the single most connected book in perhaps the entire Story Group Canon.
The novel includes major film characters, yes, but it also builds heavily upon the Poe Dameron comics (espeically the post-TLJ arc, The Awakening), characters from Battlefront II‘s story downloadble-content (Resurrection), the Bloodline novel, and more. The backgrounds and experiences of the characters, the stories told previously, and the ramifications of those events, actually matter. In a continuity where “everything” is supposedly of equal canonical value (minus LEGO Star Wars and a few exceptions), it’s about damn time that someone bothered to actually write a Star Wars novel that pays attention to the broader continuity beyond just the films, TV shows, and theme park. Roanhorse may be new to Star Wars, but she writes like a veteran seeped in modern Star Wars lore. Coming from me, someone who spent over 20 years of his life maintaining the largest fan-made Star Wars chronological document that has ever existed, that’s perhaps the greatest compliment that I could give. She cares about the saga, not just her book or what you can see on a screen or experience at Disneyland.
It can be done.
The Verdict
Resistance Reborn is on my “must read” list for any fan of the modern Star Wars canon. That said, to get the most out of it, you should make sure that you have read Poe Dameron: The Awakening, Bloodline, the Aftermath trilogy, and Lost Stars, along with playing Battlefront II‘s Resurrection DLC (if available). The more you know the backstory, the more uplifting this read will be as a testament to the interconnected continuity of the broader saga. It’s an enjoyable read otherwise, especially given how well she captures the voices of the characters, but the more you have read of the post-2014 Star Wars universe, the more enjoyable the experience will be.
Recommended for: Those looking for insights into the era between TLJ and TROS, well-written tales involving the Sequel Trilogy‘s young heroes, and especially those who apprecaite connectivity and continuity in a Star Wars novel.
Not recommended for: Those with no interest in the Sequel Trilogy era, or those looking for giant space battles. The missions involved here are much smaller in scale.
The copy used for this review was provided by Del Rey, as was an audio copy, though the reviewer also purchased a signed copy from Books-a-Million.
