Star Wars: X-Wing: Rogue Squadron (1996) Book Review

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well. Today I'm here to review the first book in the Star Wars: X-Wing series, Rogue Squadron, by Michael A. Stackpole. This is going to be the first in my Legends novel review series where I'll be reviewing, over a long period of time, as many of the Legends novels as I can. I won't be doing it in the usual publication order or in universe chronological order that many YouTube channels and blogs use for their Star Wars Legends book and comic book reviews. There will be spoilers since Legends ended nine years ago, and started nearly fifty years ago with the novelization of A New Hope in 1976. So let's get into it.

 The X-Wing series is my favourite series of Star Wars novels of all time. Because it's one of the few novels set in the Star Wars universe, Legends or Canon, that doesn't rely on Han, Luke, and Leia to be the main characters. Instead it focuses on Wedge Antilles and other minor characters from the Original Trilogy, like Admiral Ackbar and General Salm. It also introduces us to Corran Horn, who becomes one of the major Legends character in the New Jedi Order era and onward. And by major character, I mean someone who shows up for more than a few books, not a focus character like Jacen and Jaina became in the New Jedi Order series. It also introduces us to a new organization within the Empire, Imperial Intelligence.

Up to this point we'd had Grand Admiral Thrawn, Admiral Daala, and various petty warlords and Imperial factions that ended up not having anything to do with the Empire, now known as the Imperial Remnant. But I think this is the first time that Imperial Intelligence is focused on as the main baddies. on Wookieepedia's list of appearances for Imperial Intelligence, it doesn't give a first appearance for Legends, however the Canon page for the organization states that Imperial Intelligence was introduced in the Star Wars Sourcebook, which was published for West End Games's Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game (1987) and the earliest novel published that it appeared in was The Last Command by Timothy Zahn in 1993. 

Rogue Squadron consists of Commander Wedge Antilles (a Human from Corellia) as Rogue Leader, Peshk Vri'syk (a Bothan) as Rogue Two, Nawara Ven (a Twi'lek) as Rogue Three, Bror Jace (a Human from Thyferra) as Rogue Four, Gavin Darklighter (a Human from Tatooine) as Rogue Five, Riv Shiel (a Shistavanen (wolfman) from Uvena III) as Rogue Six, Rhysati Ynr (a Human from Bespin) as Rogue Seven, Erisi Dlarit (a Human from Thyferra) as Rogue Eight, Lieutenant Corran Horn (a Human from Corellia) as Rogue Nine, Ooryl Qrygg (a Gand from Gand) as Rogue Ten, Lujayne Forge (a Human from Kessel) as Rogue Eleven, Andoorni Hui (a Rodian from Rodia) as Rogue Twelve, and Captain Tycho Celchu (a Human from Alderaan) as Rogue Null/the squadron's Executive Officer.

We're also introduced to Emtrey, a military protocol droid assigned to Rogue Squadron, and Mirax Terrik, a smuggler who is Wedge's childhood best friend and whose father, Booster Terrik was sent to Kessel by Corran's late father, Hal Horn, during Hal's time in Corellian Security (CorSec). I love Mirax. She is one of my favourite characters in all of Legends and that's because she's smart, but flawed, she's brave but not stupidly so, and she's a more competent smuggler than Han Solo was. Plus she is a main character of these first four books so we end up spending alot of time with her. Particularly in comparison to characters like Lujayne, Andoorni, Peshk, and Bror, who get almost no screentime in the book. I mean Peshk Vri'syk has little to no dialogue and he doesn't have any kind of backstory, other than the fact that he's a Bothan. At least in this book. We end up learning a little bit more about him in the next book, Wedge's Gamble, through another Bothan character introduced there. Which is fine, but if I were reading Rogue Squadron as a standalone novel or it was my first time reading the series, I wouldn't know that we got more info about Peshk since he gets killed during the first attack on Borleias, and we get no character development or backstory for him in this book.

Corran Horn is an interesting character. I really like him, but I also understand that he's not the be all end all of Star Wars characters, be it from the movies, TV shows and comic books. He's flawed. He's a loner but tries to get along with the other squadron members. The fact that he's a loner is picked up on by Lujayne Forge pretty early on in the book, in chapter four in fact. It's the only actual conversation that Corran has with Lujayne, but it's something that both Wedge and Tycho see in him as well, and they help him to overcome that problem in this book, though it still creeps in from time to time. Especially when he's not with Ooryl and Mirax in later books.

I do like that this book is the start of Corran and Mirax's relationship, and they don't get together until between books 3 and 4, due to events that happen in the next book. I like that their relationship isn't a full blown romantic relationship in this book. It's an antagonistic friendship at first due to the fact that Corran's dad arrested Mirax's dad and sent him to Kessel for five years, but it eases up as the book goes on. Which is very different from many romantic relationships in novels that I've read. Both from the '90s and more recently. It's kind of on par for a Star Wars romance though since Leia and Han's relationship started off as antagonistic in A New Hope before blossoming into a full blown romance by the end of Return of the Jedi.

One of my favourite parts of this book is the briefing for the first attack on Borleias. Wedge, Ackbar, and Salm are wary of Laryn Kre'fey, the Bothan general who presents the New Republic's forces with his plan to capture Borleias as a stepping stone in their campaign to conquer Coruscant. And because they're wary, they question the Bothan, knowing that Bothans do things despite them not being good ideas. Even though Salm and Wedge had been at odds with each other throughout this whole book because of Salm's belief that Tycho can't be trusted due to his time being a captive of Ysanne Isard following a mission to Coruscant that went bad, and because of Rogue Squadron being a bit looser in terms of discipline and following regulations due to their status as the New Republic's spearhead, it shows that these two people, particularly after the Vladet incident a few chapters earlier, hold enough respect for each other to understand that they're on the same side, and want to see each mission succeed, even if they go about it in different ways. Plus, Kre'fey is a jerk and both are uneasy with him and his plan since it involves both of their squadrons.

Speaking of Isard, she and Kirtan Loor are interesting villains. As I mentioned earlier, this is the first time in the publication history of Star Wars novels that a particular branch of the Empire is the focus of the bad guys's side. Thrawn, Daala, Pellaeon, and the other Imperial leaders we've met up to this point have all been military or political figures in the Imperial Remnant, but this is the first time we get the head of a branch other than the main military, as the main villain. I hate Isard and Loor, but I love to hate them. Like, with Thrawn and Daala, and even Pellaeon, you have military geniuses in command, whose only goal is to re-establish the Empire. But with Isard, her only goal is to destroy the New Republic, and THEN worry about re-establishing the Empire, and she had assets in place to take steps in that destruction. Loor is just so arrogant and dumb, despite his photographic memory, that he is so easy to hate, which is great.

My least favourite part is Corran and Bror's rivalry. It's annoying because I knew people in high school and college who were in a fierce rivalry with each other for no other reason than they didn't like the other person and it's unnecessary. Also, every time I read this book, Erisi's behaviour is very suspicious, but not to the point where it reveals anything from future books. There's a spy in Rogue Squadron, though we don't find out until the end.

I also think that Stackpole has alot of difficulty utilizing the ensemble cast in this book. As mentioned earlier, the book focuses the most on Wedge, Corran, Mirax, Loor, and Isard, while characters like Nawara Ven, Rhysati Ynr, Erisi Dlarit, and Gavin Darklighter have almost no screentime outside of the POV of Corran or Wedge. Even Tycho doesn't get much screentime, despite being a close friend of Wedge. While it does get better as these books go along, but when Lujayne Forge, Peshk Vri'syk, and Andoorni Hui died later in the book, particularly Lujayne, it didn't impact me as much as Chewie's death in Vector Prime (1999) did, and definitely not as much as it would've if Wedge or Corran or Mirax had died instead. Particularly Wedge. I do have to say that Ooryl is one of my favourite characters in this book. Just because the Gands are such an interesting species, who, beyond the bounty hunter, Zuckuss in The Empire Strikes Back, we never see in Legends OR Canon, and now, because of Ooryl, I want Gands to show up in one of the Disney+ shows or one of the upcoming movies, so we can learn more about them. Especially because we always get Twi'leks, Rodians, Wookiees, and Mon Calamari.

I first read this book back in late 1998 when my best friend at the time, Garrett, lent it to me. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, this was the first Star Wars novel that Garrett lent me, and the third one I read, after Galaxy of Fear: Eaten Alive and The Han Solo Trilogy: The Paradise Snare. It's the book that made me a Star Wars fan. I'd watched the movies a few times, but when I realized we were getting brand new characters, and that Han, Luke, Leia, Lando, Threepio, Artoo, and Chewbacca weren't going to appear in this book, it made me realize that, Star Wars was much larger in scope as a universe than what the movies portrayed the universe as, I was hooked.

 Originally published on January 1st, 1996, it's easy to forget that Rogue Squadron was published relatively early in the Bantam era of Star Wars novel publishing. It came out before Shadows of the Empire, and before the Black Fleet Crisis Trilogy, but after the Corellian Trilogy and after the early one off novels like The Truce at Bakura and The Courtship of Princess Leia. It was reprinted in February 1996, which is the edition that I have as that's the one that stayed in print until some time between 2014 and 2016 when the Legends banner reprint that Del Rey put out after Disney bought the franchise in 2012. Wookieepedia doesn't list a date for the 2010s reprint, but most of the early Legends banner/2010s reprints came out between 2014 and 2016, with 2017 being the latest it would've come out.

Rogue Squadron was re-released again on September 7th, 2021 as part of the Essential Legends Collection, which is starting to look like is re-releasing ALL of Legends instead of a select few novels like it was marketed as when it first started in 2021. I prefer the original cover that depicts the first battle of Borleias but the Essential Legends Collection cover is cool too. 

Alright my friends, I think that's going to be it for me for today. I'll be back tomorrow for the next installment in my Marvel Star Trek comic book overview. So until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.