Thanks to Disney XD pushing back season two of Rebels to October after the big tease “Siege of Lothal,” I scored this novel to scratch the itch and whenever The Martian was boring me. Oh and to keep me from jonsin’ too much until Aftermath dropped electronically on my tablet.
As Rebels takes place five years before the good film trilogy, New Dawn occurs several years before Rebels starts by covering how key heroes Kanan and Hera teamed up to form their rebel cell on Lothal.
It all begins on the mining world of Gorse. Hera is an independent operative who will be meeting someone who has information on Empire’s surveillance deployment on Gorse and its moon Cynda. Kanan is a happy-go-lucky, rolling stone who works on a world for a few months and then moves on, avoiding personal attachments. If you’ve seen the Rebels cartoon, you know it’s due to Kanan being one of the few Jedi survivors of Order 66 from The Revenge of the Sith. Hera and Kanan’s paths cross thanks to Baron Vidian’s arrival. The Emperor has put Vidian in charge of finding ways to extract more mineral resources from Cynda efficiently. In return, the Empire will have more Star Destroyers. With more Star Destroyers, the tighter the Empire’s grip will be over the galaxy. I figure its reach is weak in the Outer Rim. Obviously, Vidian is a ruthless corporate villain on par with Vader; the miners’ lives are irrelevant, efficiency trumps safety and anyone getting in the way receives a pummeling (to death) via Vidian’s cybernetic enhancements.
I’ll leave it there. Either you’re going to read it because you dig Star Wars or you won’t out of indifference to hate.
Miller does an excellent job on this literary debut for Hera and Kanan. He has their personalities down; Kanan wasn’t as serious yet, he’s more of a ladies man since his initial interest in Hera is romantic. This earlier iteration of Kanan remains plausible though. It’s not radically different, it’s more a few degrees off and through Hera, he begins to care about others again. The pacing is excellent. No drawn-out, boring corporate-board meetings or consultations in the Imperial Senate. The action is also plausible, no Michael Bay schlock although I don’t know if Bay’s action stuff could be translated into literature. I was hoping for more involvement from their trademark vessel The Ghost but I’m good.
In closing…Star Wars fans, read it. You won’t be disappointed. Everybody else, give it a try. Star Wars opponents, no problem, there’s plenty of other good stuff I’ll find to recommend.