Chuck Wendig

Following Star Wars: Aftermath and Star Wars: Life Debt, Chuck Wendig delivers the exhilarating conclusion to the New York Times bestselling trilogy set in the years between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens.

Empire's End: Aftermath (Star Wars)

Darren S. Layne

Though I may be fairly new to making my way through the canon books for Star Wars, I am definitely not new to sci-fi, well-constructed fiction, or the particular flavor of the SW universe. So I feel fine with throwing up my arms at some of the snippy critics of Wendig's Aftermath series who smugly pick apart his work as amateurish and flaccid. There really is no disputing another's taste (including my own), but I think this is the strongest offering in the canon I've yet read. My opinion is predicated upon three simple facets: 

1) Chuck Wendig is a clever writer who doesn't sink to Scalzi-like levels of preciousness or self-satisfaction. He's an excellent constructor of complex storylines with numerous threads that run through one another, and though there are some questions left unanswered after the third book in the series, Wendig isn't a cruel teaser who creates misinformation to draw in readers only to leave them hanging with no resolutions (à la Battlestar Galactica and Westworld). He sometimes experiments with chapter structure using some interesting writing techniques and presentation, some of which I found to be quite fun.

2) He deeply cares about (and is extremely apt at describing) the fine details of the universe and the small-scale relationships between people of various species, and this attention is consistent through the original pro/antagonists of the Aftermath series and also the iconic characters whom we already know quite well. I liken Wendig to a social historian who presents from the bottom-up; his little interstitial vignettes are packed with flavor and convey a visceral sense of motion in the universe, much of it beyond the relevance of the main storyline but nonetheless enticing and illustrative. Some might view that as meandering, but I think it bolsters the broader picture and it makes me want to read more of what he's writing.

3) Wendig's use of drama is artistic: his prose ebbs and flows and there is often something building to a crescendo at the right times, rather than simply being formulaic or manipulative. The losses experienced by numerous characters are rarely glossed over, but it's not carried out in an overly precious manner. Small ripples have big effects and he doesn't forget them amidst the other details of the story. There are some really powerful scenes, especially in Empire's End, that fit snugly between Episodes VI and VII and fill in some extracurricular blanks concerning both films. (I absolutely love that we discover the story behind the downed Imperial dreadnought on Jakku!)

You won't find much about Snoke or the rise of the First Order in this series, because clearly those aren't the stories that Wendig wanted to tell. If you're able accept that and enjoy the ride, you might find the Aftermath trilogy to be an enjoyable piece of Star Wars canon. I hope that Chuck will continue with his treatment of this universe, because it's one that I can certainly get behind.

Empire's End: Aftermath (Star Wars)

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