If you’ve only been watching Star Wars movies over the past two years, you’ve missed a bunch of great stuff. The comics, books and TV shows have featured huge revelations and new characters. In the case of the books, though, most of the new stuff has only been visible in our imaginations. Until now.
The third book in Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath trilogy, Empire’s End, is out February 21. (Exclusive first excerpt here!) It’s a story set after Return of the Jedi but before The Force Awakens that explains what happened to classic and fan favourite characters, as well as lots of new characters.
Two of the stars of the story are Rebel Norra Wexley and Imperial Rae Sloane, and on the occasion of the final book’s release, Barnes and Noble will release an exclusive poster with them on it. We’ve seen Sloane before, in the pages of the Marvel Comics, but never as a Grand Admiral. And no one has ever seen Norra Wexley before, which means this is her first actual appearance in Star Wars canon. Here are Grand Admiral Sloane and Wexley, thanks to Del Rey and artist Steve Thomas.
![A Crucial Star Wars Character Has Just Been Revealed For The First Time](https://www.kotaku.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/02/jqfzy8nna45a9pmmwfgq.jpg?quality=75?quality=75)
![A Crucial Star Wars Character Has Just Been Revealed For The First Time](https://www.kotaku.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/02/dfg3uhkdbrlcwfs0de4n.jpg?quality=75?quality=75)
Now, if you haven’t read the books, here’s some background. Norra Wexley was a hotshot Rebel pilot who fought in the Battle of Endor. She thought she was going to be done after that, but since the Empire didn’t go away after the death of the Emperor, she was sucked back into the fight. She now leads a small team of Rebels (much like the team on the show Rebels, but with different characters) on various missions. By the end of book two, Life Debt, Wexley and her crew set off to find Grand Admiral Rae Sloane, a high-ranking Imperial leader the team believes was responsible for a violent attack on the New Republic.
And if the name “Wexley” is ringing a bell, yes. Norra’s son is Snap Wexley, the character played by Greg Grunberg in The Force Awakens.
If you’re dying for a Star Wars fix as we wait for The Last Jedi, the Aftermath books will do the trick. The first book is a bit of a letdown, with much of the action focused in one place. Its sequel is glorious, though. With Life Debt, Wendig really spreads the story out and gives the new characters depth. Plus, there are some amazing asides featuring Han Solo and others. It’s worth catching up before Empire’s End hits shelves.
[Twitter]
Originally posted on Gizmodo.
Comments
13 responses to “A Crucial Star Wars Character Has Just Been Revealed For The First Time ”
They let that hack write three books? I thought they wanted to improve on the novel quality compared to the old EU, not make it worse.
The writing was bad, I couldn’t even get through the first few chapters.
Yeah, his style is awful and filled with grammatical and spelling errors too.
I received the first two for Christmas. His writing really is terrible. What makes it worse is that on his blog he’s known for offering writing advice. Please no.
There’s one point in Aftermath during an interlude, wherein two characters are aboard a Sand Crawler trying to buy junk from Jawas. One man is introduced as Cobb Vanth, referred to as such like twice, and then referred to as Cobb Vance for the remainder of the chapter. Part of me wants to say it’s because
he’s meant to be Boba Fett finding his own armour, and he made up the name Cobb Vanth/Vance on the spot to hide his identity, and so forgot what he said and accidentally changed it.But realistically it’s probably because Wendig is a shitty writer and it’s wishful thinking on my part.
That being said, despite his shitty writing, I really liked Aftermath (yet to read Life Debt). Don’t get me wrong, it was deeply flawed and terrible — but I kinda love it?
Apparently Claudia Grey’s new canon Star Wars novels are far better.
I logged in to write the exact same thing. Why didn’t Disney vet their authors?
Politically Correct Characters hoooooo!
Am I the only person getting annoyed that to make sense of a movie/game you have to have seen several comics/books/shortfilms to avoid the narrative of said movie/game being an incomprehensible mess?
One of the most frustrating parts about The Force Awakens. Personally, I find it to be a flaw in the opening crawl. If you have a series of films which always open with 4-5 short paragraphs of floating written exposition, why not use it to fill in the gaps missing from the story?
i.e Why is there a Resistance and the New Republic and the First Order? Who is Lor San Tekka and wtf is the reason he has the map to Luke?
Explaining these things in the opening crawl would have made for a much stronger film.
Well!
If you read this comic, now bear in mind that that comic came out to help you understand a comic that came out earlier but made no sense unless you read this book… and also this web comic that was only available on a Tuesday in 2009. But you’d not quite get the intricacies unless you saw this tweet!
They could’ve at least gotten Timothy Zahn back to write more. His Heir to the Empire Trilogy was exemplary! To quote a review: “You can hear John William’s soundtrack playing in the background while reading.” He wrote each character’s speech so accurately!
Pretty sure Zahn is writing new stuff and has a new Thrawn book comming out soon.
Dayum, dude. I thought I was a night-owl!… 🙂
I’m like superman, I know when I’m needed.