Star Wars: X-Wing: Starfighters of Adumar (1999) Book Review

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well. So, I managed to finish the ninth Star Wars: X-Wing novel, Starfighters of Adumar, last night before I went to bed, which means I'm here to review it today. So let's get into it.

Starfighters of Adumar is the final full length novel published by Bantam Spectra for the franchise. I think one of the reasons it took thirteen years for another X-Wing novel to get published is a combination of the Star Wars book license shifting from Bantam to Del Rey, and the Del Rey editors being focused on the The New Jedi Order series, and the prequel tie-in book program, which included novels that take place before The Phantom Menace and between each movie. I also think that, in 1999, Del Rey wanted to get away from the Bantam stuff because they wanted to show fans that it wasn't gonna just be business as usual for Han, Luke, and Leia like it had been in the '90s. Also, audience tastes were shifting. No longer were people wanting innocent, goofy, low stakes stories being told in their entertainment. They wanted dark, high stakes, character dramas, and so Lucasfilm gave that to us with The New Jedi Order before George ever gave that to us in the movies and the later TV shows. Plus, let's face it, the X-Wing series is a very '90s/Bantam era book series. I mean four out of the nine books in the series is written by a guy who is really good at light, fluffy, fun stories. Even Stackpole's books are still very safe compared to what Del Rey gave us in the 2000s and early 2010s.

If I'm being honest, the Bantam era is my favourite era of the Star Wars books. One of the reasons I never really got into the Del Rey era of the 2000s and early 2010s is because I found them to be too dark and high stakes. Particularly in the early to mid 2000s when The New Jedi Order was coming out. Del Rey got away from that a little bit with books like Honor Among Thieves and Crucible, but that wasn't until they were wrapping up Legends in 2013 and 2014. Don't get me wrong Del Rey has published some great Star Wars books like Kenobi, Darth Plagueis, and Death Star, but the books stopped being fun to read once The New Jedi Order began publication in 1999, and never really recaptured that sense of fun and excitement that the Bantam era novels of the '90s have. The movies and TV shows really reflect that change with Revenge of the Sith, The Clone Wars, Rebels, and everything Disney has done with the franchise since they took over the franchise in 2012. I mean look at how dark and gritty and realistic Andor is. The novels did it first though.

This is probably the shortest book in terms of chapters, as this only has 15 chapters compared to the 21 to 30 chapters that the previous books had. I think it's also the shortest in terms of page count as well. Regardless, the shorter length for the book is both a detriment and a blessing for this book. It's a detriment because this story is nowhere near as fleshed out as previous X-Wing novels have been, but it's a blessing because it's not a story that really warrants any sort of fleshing out. 

So after breaking up with his girlfriend, Qwi Xux, whom he met in the second book of the Jedi Academy Trilogy, Dark Apprentice, Wedge, Tycho, Janson, and Hobbie are sent to Adumar because the Adumari have a hero worship thing going on for starfighter pilots. However, upon arrival the pilots, currently known collectively as Red Flight, not only do they discover that the Empire has also arrived, but their liaison, Tomer Darpen isn't exactly above board, and Wedge also discovers that Iella Wessiri is there and his relationship with Qwi affected his friendship with Iella. All the while trying to convince a planet that has no world government to join the New Republic, instead of the Empire.

One of my favourite things about this book is how small the cast of characters are. Previous X-Wing books had huge casts of characters between the squadron each novel focused on, which had anywhere between 12 and 13 pilots alone, the supporting characters like Iella Wessiri and Mirax Terrik, AND the villains, which were either Ysanne Isard or Warlord Zsinj, and all of their supporting characters like Kirtan Loor, Fliry Vorru, Admiral Trigit, Prince-Admiral Krennel, and General Melvar. And because the casts for those books were so large, the authors weren't able to do as much with most of the characters, instead focusing on three or four at a time. Here, you only have four main characters and four supporting characters and the bulk of the story is solely focused on Wedge. In fact, I'd say that Wedge is the main character of this book. 

I also love the humour in this book. There are constant one-liners, mostly at Janson's expense, though there are some thrown at Tomer just because nobody in the New Republic party likes him, and I love all of them. One of my favourites is near the end when Red Flight regain their X-Wings and Wedge starts doing tricks and stuff and Janson calls Tycho over the comm and says, "Red Two, this is Three. Am I crazy, or is the general doing what he tells us never to do?" And Tycho replies, "Three, Two. Yes you are, and yes he is. Pay no attention.". I laugh everytime I read that exchange because I think it's funny.

One thing I would've liked a bit more clarification on is why, and when, Tomer decided to do things the Imperial way and then try to manipulate Red Flight into doing his dirty work for him. Janson hints at it a bit when he explains how he and Tomer know each other, but it doesn't really explain how Tomer got himself onto Adumar. I also would like to know why General Cracken was giving orders to Wedge in the first place. Especially for something that was actually a diplomatic mission, not a covert operation. Shouldn't someone like Admiral Ackbar have given Wedge the Adumar assignment? Obviously Leia couldn't, since she was busy dealing with the stuff going on in Barbara Hambly's 1997 novel, Planet of Twilight, which takes place concurrently with this book. 

 Like the other books in the X-Wing series, Starfighters of Adumar received a Legends banner edition sometime in the mid 2010s. I have the original edition because I got it at some point after I got Isard's Revenge in the early 2000s. I honestly really like this book. It's a good ending to the Bantam era as the next Star Wars novel to come out was the first book in the The New Jedi Order series, Vector Prime written by Fantasy author, R.A. Salvatore. The very final Bantam era Star Wars book to come out was the anthology book, Tales from the New Republic, which came out on December 1st, 1999 (Starfighters of Adumar came out on August 3rd). 

That my friends is it for me for today. I might have a comic book review out for you either tomorrow or Thursday, but we'll see what happens. I'm also gonna try to have my review of season 1 of Goosebumps (2023) out for you on Friday, but I'm going to get my Covid shot in the morning, so I don't know if I'll be up for doing a season review. I reviewed the first five episodes the week they dropped, so I'm really not going to feel guilty for not doing a full season review if I don't end up getting to it on Friday. But, like I said, we'll see. So until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.