Great book. Ranks second for me in the new canon books after Lost Stars. Well worth a read.

I started the book and it looks very promising.

On 10/4/2019 at 8:55 PM, Captain Lackwit said:

That actually sounds pretty interesting.

Eugh. As long as everyone's having a good time, i guess there's no need to be a poopy pants, but . . . jesus H, i hated this book. Like, literally everything about it, barring one or two of the side chapters.

The author writes the same way I wrote crappy fan-fictions about a dozen or so years ago. At the start of the book there's numerous cases where there's whole sentences inbetween brackets, just casually thrown in there. "Character A and character B were talking in the mess hall (and though character A didn't much care for character B, there wasn't anyone else to talk to, so they talked)". Why do that ? Why, why, why ? Could you not just make it a separate sentence ? Instead of making your book read like a forum post ? Or worse yet, a 12-year-old's fanfic on tumblr ? Thankfully an editor must have stepped in at some point, because after about a quarter of the book that s...tuff stops, only to be replaced with the following huge bugbear of mine:

"-Hey, character A, you have any cool stories to tell ?

-Boy, character B, do I ever !

This is the story he told.

***

(completely new paragraph after a break) Story-story-story-story"

THIS HAPPENS NUMEROUS TIMES throughout to book. These are like, basics of writing that you learn about in kindergarden. It's sloppy, it's lazy, it's just so unbelievably amateurish. And that's the style of the whole book. Oh, and by the way, the book has these super jarring side chapters - like the aftermath book did (at least the first one, as that's the only one i could stomach). About a quarter into the book suddenly we have a chapter that has nothing to do with anything, about a character who's completely unrelated, the action happens in a completely different place and only in his final side chapter (because there's like four of them sprinkled out throughout the book, without any rhyme or reason with regards to the main story) does it actually make sense. By the way, see how jarring brackets inbetween sentences can be ?

Then we get to the characters, who are just so very very very very boring and unlikable. Personal preference and all that, sure, but man, i just couldn't wait for them to go away. Spoilers from here on out for the characters, so don't read further if you don't want, i guess, but man . . .

The main character is, essentially, a psychopath who doesn't really regret being in the Empire and doesn't really fully connect the dots that the Empire is bad all the way. Oh, sure, she thinks that everyone that stayed after operation Cinder is scum and evil . . . nevermind that she was in the Empire after Alderaan, but i guess that's fine for her and not that much of an atrocity ? Truth be told, there's an interesting thing with her that she was kinda staying in the empire out of loyalty to her squad mates and that's a very normal and real-life example of people during horrible things in times of war - you're not fighting the war because of the people giving you orders or because i fully subscribe to their ideals, but because if you don't, your brothers/sisters in arms are going to die. And that's a neat idea, that goes . . . completely unexplored and never gets brought up with her rebel squadmates, they never have a confrontation on their viewpoints or anything.

Then we have the absolutely worst character in the book, who is the b-wing pilot and who suffers from "millenial coolness and edginess syndrome", or rather an attempt of the author to make her cool and hip. Her deal is she listens to music while she fights. As in, literally, before the dogfights start, she's shuffling her space ipod, trying to pick out the best song to kill people to. I imagine it's the star wars equivalent of Linkin Park and she's going "CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWLING INNNNNNNNNNNNNNN MY SKIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN" while she's literally ending the lives of people. Because that's a thing that a normal and well adjusted person does. Not to mention she has a terrible martyrdom complex and wants to die like her hero Jyn Erso, otherwise she thinks she'll have lived a worthless life. Again, very sane, very cool, very normal, never once further brought up or challenged by her squadmates, who you'd think should care for her.

Next up is the farmer boy, who's just this happy-go-lucky super special awesome ace that's amazing at flying (because he's from this super special awesome planet of all-loving tree hippies who ride birds of something and that apparently translated into starfighter controls. Note that he's a good pilot because the book says he's a good pilot, not really on the merit of anything he does). Aaaand, yeah, that's his character. He's nice and naive.

Oh, and you have the character who's a badass edgelord mystery person, who doesn't speak (why doesn't she speak ? noone knows, it's a mystery ! ISN'T IT COOL !?!?). Though apparently she does somehow speak and communicate to people, because several times in the book we're told that she has, but i guess that's not for the readers. Pff, as if we'd care about these characters and want some development out of them, right ?

The squadron, in my mind, completely lacks any chemistry and are such a far cry from the Rogues or Wraiths that it's somewhat offensive to even compare them. They don't have any especially interesting interactions - ****, the squad leader makes a point of not interacting with anyone because . . . well, honestly, because nobody likes anyone in this book and that's about the only relatable thing about these people. There's no depth there, nothing is explored, nothing is developed. They're just a bunch of cool ideas (not cool to me, mind you, it's cool either to the author or it's his idea of what might be cool and hip to the "kids"). They start of at point A and end up right there at the end, with no growth or anything, apart from them somehow magically being a squad . . . because, at one point, the squad leader paints their ships in the same colours ? And they have a camping session at one point.

And then there's just a whole bunch of weird things in the book. Like, for example, when they're choosing the squad leader, they have a choice between a person who's lead a squadron before and the imperial pilot (who up to this point has about . . . 20 minutes logged in an xwing ?). And they reasonably decide that they can't give the first guy command because he used to command Y-wings, so he has no relevant experience and might misjudge the capabilities of his squadmates . . . so they give the command to the imperial pilot, who literally knows nothing about A-wings, B-wings, Y-wings and U-wings. And throughout the entire book, by the way, we get her inner thoughts on how inferior rebel fighters are to TIEs . . . erm, sorry, what ? Like, oh, yeah, a TIE fighter is vastly superior to an X-wing, sure, because . . . TIEs don't have shields and so the pilots are forced to fly better ? Grade A logic there, i wonder why modern militaries don't let propeller planes fly against space age jet fighters . . .

In summation, it's just a terrible terrible terrible book and i deeply regret reading it. It has nothing on the X-wing books (which themselves, let's be honest, are not the height of literature, so, yeah . . .). I dunno, if all you've ever read is dollar store YA books and like R.A. Salvatore's Drizzt books, this might be cool to you, but if you've literally ever read anything borderline decent - avoid.

15 minutes ago, DadiBG said:

. Her deal is she listens to music while she fights. As in, literally, before the dogfights start, she's shuffling her space ipod, trying to pick out the best song to kill people to. I imagine it's the star wars equivalent of Linkin Park and she's going "CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWLING INNNNNNNNNNNNNNN MY SKIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN" while she's literally ending the lives of people.

I liked the book, thought it was fine, but to this point - I think the number of people who listen, at some level, to music in combat or leading up to combat would surprise you.

4 hours ago, dsul413 said:

I liked the book, thought it was fine, but to this point - I think the number of people who listen, at some level, to music in combat or leading up to combat would surprise you.

It's a surprisingly high number. It's like this guy you quoted forgot that war drums and such were ever a thing.

Imagine forgetting that music was integral to the human psyche. I can't.

17 minutes ago, Captain Lackwit said:

It's a surprisingly high number. It's like this guy you quoted forgot that war drums and such were ever a thing.

Imagine forgetting that music was integral to the human psyche. I can't.

Wow, yeah, i totally forgot music exists and pumps people up.

Or, alternatively, it's absolutely insane to listen to music while you're focusing on flying a plane at stupid high speeds (nevermind an actual starfighter requiring insane reflexes), in a COMBAT scenario. Might want to focus instead on the people trying to kill you.

As the guys in this thread point out:

https://www.quora.com/Can-fighter-pilots-listen-to-music-while-flying-or-during-combat

Would be more than glad to read about actual examples of fighter pilots listening to music, tho. Would further erode any sort of respect i have for military people, but there you go.

6 minutes ago, DadiBG said:

Wow, yeah, i totally forgot music exists and pumps people up.

Or, alternatively, it's absolutely insane to listen to music while you're focusing on flying a plane at stupid high speeds (nevermind an actual starfighter requiring insane reflexes), in a COMBAT scenario. Might want to focus instead on the people trying to kill you.

As the guys in this thread point out:

https://www.quora.com/Can-fighter-pilots-listen-to-music-while-flying-or-during-combat

Would be more than glad to read about actual examples of fighter pilots listening to music, tho. Would further erode any sort of respect i have for military people, but there you go.

You're really not a fun person.

And as somebody who kicks on the Cowboy Bebop soundtrack when I go bounty hunting in Elite, I can tell you that you really don't focus on the music. It's just there because you want it to be.

But I'm sure that makes me a dangerous sociopath in training.

17 minutes ago, Captain Lackwit said:

You're really not a fun person.

And as somebody who kicks on the Cowboy Bebop soundtrack when I go bounty hunting in Elite, I can tell you that you really don't focus on the music. It's just there because you want it to be.

But I'm sure that makes me a dangerous sociopath in training.

And i'm sure you playing a video game is totally the same as being an actual fighter pilot ?

Anyways, not about to fight the whole sub on this. It's a bad book, plain and simple.

5 minutes ago, DadiBG said:

And i'm sure you playing a video game is totally the same as being an actual fighter pilot ?

Anyways, not about to fight the whole sub on this. It's a bad book, plain and simple.

Of course it's not the same thing, but there's plenty of people you have to convince of that.

Now that you've said your part about the book, feel free to not go further about how bad it is.

8 hours ago, DadiBG said:

Wow, yeah, i totally forgot music exists and pumps people up.

Or, alternatively, it's absolutely insane to listen to music while you're focusing on flying a plane at stupid high speeds (nevermind an actual starfighter requiring insane reflexes), in a COMBAT scenario. Might want to focus instead on the people trying to kill you.

As the guys in this thread point out:

https://www.quora.com/Can-fighter-pilots-listen-to-music-while-flying-or-during-combat

Would be more than glad to read about actual examples of fighter pilots listening to music, tho. Would further erode any sort of respect i have for military people, but there you go.

The funniest part of that thread was that you have a bunch of people aren't the pilots saying that there's no way they'd listen to music, because it would be too distracting, and then you have the actual fighter pilots saying all the ways in which they could listen to music, but, "of course we never listened to it while on task!"

Funny how every person who realizes they can be held accountable for something they're saying makes sure to clarify that they aren't doing the thing they aren't supposed to be doing! 🤣

1 hour ago, Freeptop said:

The funniest part of that thread was that you have a bunch of people aren't the pilots saying that there's no way they'd listen to music, because it would be too distracting, and then you have the actual fighter pilots saying all the ways in which they could listen to music, but, "of course we never listened to it while on task!"

Funny how every person who realizes they can be held accountable for something they're saying makes sure to clarify that they aren't doing the thing they aren't supposed to be doing! 🤣

We definitely aren't listening to music while flying! No way!
*hides MP3 player*

Yeah started reading it am about a 1/4 way through seems kind of dull so far. I also dont like the jumping around character wise, feels like you are reading 4 books at once.. waiting for them to merge into one story line eventually...

19 hours ago, DadiBG said:

Would be more than glad to read about actual examples of fighter pilots listening to music, tho. Would further erode any sort of respect i have for military people, but there you go.

I don’t need or want your respect, but I’ve listened to music. With my crew. In combat. It doesn’t make me a sociopath. You don’t crank music to the point where you can’t hear other people, and 99% of the time you don’t even realize the music is still on when things get busy. Or you’ve punched it off because you have too many radios going off and the extra noise coming across the audio control panel isn’t needed. You’d be surprised that it is a shockingly disciplined force that knows their limits on attentional resources and doesn’t push it. A very low level of, say, a Star Wars soundtrack isn’t going to keep me from executing the mission when it’s busy but might break the monotony of chilling above a cloud deck on a slow day.

For example of tech available, the Bose A20 headset has an aux cord input built into its volume control and it’ll blank out the aux input when you receive any other traffic across the headset.

This is also Star Wars, I’m not going to judge a book character on how realistic it is to crank music as her way of zoning in.

The mission sets I support are different from fighter aircraft performing intercept or OCA duties, there may be differences there.

I'm not a “fighter” pilot but I do fly on combat aircraft.

28 minutes ago, dsul413 said:

I don’t need or want your respect, but I’ve listened to music. With my crew. In combat. It doesn’t make me a sociopath. You don’t crank music to the point where you can’t hear other people, and 99% of the time you don’t even realize the music is still on when things get busy. Or you’ve punched it off because you have too many radios going off and the extra noise coming across the audio control panel isn’t needed. You’d be surprised that it is a shockingly disciplined force that knows their limits on attentional resources and doesn’t push it. A very low level of, say, a Star Wars soundtrack isn’t going to keep me from executing the mission when it’s busy but might break the monotony of chilling above a cloud deck on a slow day.

For example of tech available, the Bose A20 headset has an aux cord input built into its volume control and it’ll blank out the aux input when you receive any other traffic across the headset.

This is also Star Wars, I’m not going to judge a book character on how realistic it is to crank music as her way of zoning in.

The mission sets I support are different from fighter aircraft performing intercept or OCA duties, there may be differences there.

I'm not a “fighter” pilot but I do fly on combat aircraft.

Thanks for posting this. People are under the impression that military life is all professional all the time and all serious. It is a fairly serious life, but folks outside of it forget the human element is a very, very, real and present part of being in the military.

Finished reading the book, has some great sequences, characters bit on weak side, but workable. Now to main topic: How to represent this on tabletop fluffiest way possible. As all characters are new generics will be used in their place (got a feeling if they are release in some card pack it will cost too much to put all 5 in tournament squad), but that leaves points to spread around. My version goes like this (got female red squadron veteran promo, and that fits the theme :D):

A/SF-01 B-wing - Blue Squadron Pilot - 46
Blue Squadron Pilot - (41)
Ion Cannon (5)

BTL-A4 Y-wing - Gray Squadron Bomber - 33
Gray Squadron Bomber - (31)
R4 Astromech (2)

RZ-1 A-wing - Phoenix Squadron Pilot - 30
Phoenix Squadron Pilot - (30)

UT-60D U-wing - Partisan Renegade - 43
Partisan Renegade - (43)

T-65 X-wing - Red Squadron Veteran - 47
Red Squadron Veteran - (43)
R2 Astromech (4)

Total: 199/200

View in the X-Wing Squad Builder

want to see other versions, will try going to my next tournament with fluffiest one I can find and will post results after.

23 hours ago, DadiBG said:

Would be more than glad to read about actual examples of fighter pilots listening to music, tho. Would further erode any sort of respect i have for military people, but there you go.

Well then,
as a vet, you know what you can go suck on dontcha?

couldn't do it.... tried reading it a few times but it was very boring and jumped around a few times too many. I just found it a pain in the butt to follow... and I really wanted to like this one!

Wheres Micheal Stackpole, give me a proper squadron book!

On ‎10‎/‎7‎/‎2019 at 4:36 PM, Redblock said:

Finished reading the book, has some great sequences, characters bit on weak side, but workable. Now to main topic: How to represent this on tabletop fluffiest way possible. As all characters are new generics will be used in their place (got a feeling if they are release in some card pack it will cost too much to put all 5 in tournament squad), but that leaves points to spread around. My version goes like this (got female red squadron veteran promo, and that fits the theme :D):

A/SF-01 B-wing - Blue Squadron Pilot - 46
Blue Squadron Pilot - (41)
Ion Cannon (5)

BTL-A4 Y-wing - Gray Squadron Bomber - 33
Gray Squadron Bomber - (31)
R4 Astromech (2)

RZ-1 A-wing - Phoenix Squadron Pilot - 30
Phoenix Squadron Pilot - (30)

UT-60D U-wing - Partisan Renegade - 43
Partisan Renegade - (43)

T-65 X-wing - Red Squadron Veteran - 47
Red Squadron Veteran - (43)
R2 Astromech (4)

Total: 199/200

View in the X-Wing Squad Builder

want to see other versions, will try going to my next tournament with fluffiest one I can find and will post results after.

• I'd probably recommend finding some points (maybe taking the ion cannon off "Chass"?) for fitting a turret to "Nath" - a B-wing has a 3-dice primary; it can manage without a cannon, but a Y-wing with neither turret nor torpedoes is basically just a flying target drone. A gunner may be pushing it cost-wise but even if you just find a dorsal turret to allow better coverage of fire you'll probably find the Y-wing gains more from points spend on upgrades than the B-wing.
• When you've only got generics, there's rarely a big reason to worry about initiative bid. By comparison, 1 point is enough to "Wyl" Crack Shot, which is a very nice option to have for a fighter with an A-wing's popguns.
• Kairos is potentially useful - even a red co-ordinate can be good at the right moment to give someone else a focus-and-lock attack. Contraband Cybernetics isn't a bad card if you can find the points for it.

No turret on Y-wing in the book, so no turret in list. I plan to scrap cannon and give Kairos a tactical officer to represent groups manager (its strech, as he is mostly sitting in back lines)

Final version I'm taking to tournament on sunday:

UT-60D U-wing - Partisan Renegade - 49
Partisan Renegade - (43)
Tactical Officer (6)
Pivot Wing (Open) (0)

T-65 X-wing - Red Squadron Veteran - 47
Red Squadron Veteran - (43)
R2 Astromech (4)
Servomotor S-foils (Open) (0)

A/SF-01 B-wing - Blue Squadron Pilot - 41
Blue Squadron Pilot - (41)

BTL-A4 Y-wing - Gray Squadron Bomber - 33
Gray Squadron Bomber - (31)
R4 Astromech (2)

RZ-1 A-wing - Phoenix Squadron Pilot - 30
Phoenix Squadron Pilot - (30)

Total: 200/200

View in the X-Wing Squad Builder

On 10/4/2019 at 2:21 PM, SDCC said:

Great book. Ranks second for me in the new canon books after Lost Stars. Well worth a read.

OMG I love Lost Stars!

I was so happy to see Thane and Ciena get added to Xwing!

On 10/10/2019 at 3:34 PM, Sir Orrin said:

OMG I love Lost Stars!

I was so happy to see Thane and Ciena get added to Xwing!

It took me a long time to get around to reading it; gathered dust on my shelf for years.

But once I started I read it in three days!

Shadow Fall excerpt

52 minutes ago, Imperial Advisor Arem Heshvaun said:

Shadow Fall excerpt

Well if Hera's in it...

As an unashamed fan of the first book, I am super excited for this! Thanks for sharing!

Shadow Fall: First Look at New Villain on StarWars.com