Instead, they’re well-rendered, and we even see parts of Han, Leia and Chewbacca that aren’t totally visible in amongst the stellar swashbuckling of the original trilogy. It’s easy for the participation of well-known characters to be included as pointless fanservice, but it doesn’t feel that way here. “…we even see parts of Han, Leia and Chewbacca that aren’t totally visible in amongst the stellar swashbuckling of the original trilogy.” The novel’s portrayals of Han Solo and Leia feel authentic, and most of the time they’re on-screen they’re partaking in (or being the nexus of) useful character development for the central cast. This originally caused me a bit of anxiety (I felt the Aftermath core cast deserved more attention, rather than less, in the first book), but Wendig carries it off quite well. Focusing more heavily on the shape of the whatever-the-galactic-equivalent-of-geopolitical landscape is, this second novel brings much more original trilogy star power to bear.
Unburdened from the weight of extensive set-up and introductions, Life Debt actually goes some way to feeling more aftermath-y than Aftermath. Life Debt has a much tighter and more obvious plot focus – the novel is about finding Han Solo, who was left at the end of Aftermath scheming an unofficial movement with a suitably rag-tag group of pirates and smugglers to liberate the Wookiee planet of Kashyyyk from the yoke of Imperial slavery. Intrigued by the characters and their occasionally surprising complexity, it also felt scattershot, like it was focusing on setting up a multitude of perspectives for the rest of the series.
The first book left me a little lukewarm.
I’ve already written my impressions on the first novel (just named Aftermath), which you can read here. Chuck Wendig’s Life Debt is the second novel in the Aftermath trilogy released in the run-up to Star Wars: The Force Awakens in 2015, and somewhere in my busy schedule of feverishly checking stock notifications and serving coffee to the dead during the holiday period I managed to find the time to read it.
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