Razor's Edge: Star Wars (Empire and Rebellion) by Martha Wells

It’s a tall task to take iconic characters and weave them into a story of your own invention.  Martha Wells does this very successfully in Razor’s Edge:  Star Wars (Empire and Rebellion). Her task is made all the more difficult by the setting, which takes place shortly after the events in the original Star Wars, pegging the personalities of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia and Chewbacca as very close to how they were portrayed in the movie.  

The characters and their interactions felt very authentic.  The plot involves a meeting at the out of the way location that gets derailed when Leia runs into a pirate attack led by a ship from her destroyed homeworld of Alderaan.  Leia and Han wind up on the Alderaanian ship headed toward a pirate base on an abandoned asteroid mine.  Leia must try to protect the Alderaanians, convince them to join the rebellion, rescue hostages from a captured freighter, defeat the sinister pirate leader, complete her mission and do it all before the Empire shows up.  Luke and Chewy are left to catch up and try to bail out their captured comrades.

This story was a lot of fun.  The pirate base on the abandoned asteroid mine was a fascinating and vividly described setting.  The characters, both familiar and new, were interesting and complicated.  The battles and fight scenes were wonderfully depicted and ratcheted up in intensity as the plot moved along with rising stakes at each step of the way.  I’ve long been a fan of Martha Wells and she certainly doesn’t disappoint here.  The Star Wars universe is incredibly vast with plenty of room for stories to tell.  Wells proves that there is plenty of fertile territory left to explore.  Both casual and die hard Star Wars fans will enjoy this story.  Highly recommended.

I was fortunate to receive an advance copy of this book.

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