#thane kyrell

[bo-katan]

CIENA REE and THANE KYRELL on the mural for the Manga Pavillion at STAR WARS CELEBRATION JAPAN

[irixhye]

Lost Stars by Claudia Gray is one of my favorite Star Wars novels and after watching Thunderbolts* I've been thinking about how perfect Hannah John-Kamen and Wyatt Russell are to play its main characters, Thane Kyrell and Ciena Ree. I even made a moodboard:

(Btw, Hannah played a First Order officer in The Force Awakens)

[knightofthenewrepublic]

[bitbrain86]

one of my favorite tropes in ANH-era star wars books is “characters who conveniently avoided being on the death star at the time of explosion.” idk why it’s so oddly comical, but it is.

[jewishcissiekj]

myyyyyyy loverboy and hatergirl

[madidraw]

I had all and then most of you some and now none of you Take me back to the night we met

[incorrectpizza]

Okay so I finished Lost Stars again and it's being sad that Thane and Ciena haven't shown up in canon since hours. They just. Deserve a break?? Okay??

Also, Ciena deserves a Hera hug. Because I just know if Hera caught wind of her story she would commit an instant adoption.

[tacos-goku]

Ok today we're going to review Star Wars: Lost Stars (or *Estrellas Perdidas* since i have the ESP version)

Note: Includes Spoiler Free and Spoilerfull section, you'll be warned

It a really old book i decided to read cuz i had it in my house and i heard good things about it.

Spoiler Free Section:

The book is pretty good, the author already had a good number of releases earlier. It doesnt drag that much its very fluid, one or two chapters that takes place halfway across the book feel slow but its not a deal killer. For a YA novel no character feels horribly corny, at least not cornier than a regular star wars character, although they do start introducing a bunch of characters halfway that i mostly couldnt remember.

The legacy characters are used pretty solidly, they dont take all the screen but they arent sidelined entirely since they are pretty important to the story, aside from Darth Vader and Princess Leia most of them only get namedrops here and there, and those that do appear regularly arent particularly famous. You dont need to know who Mon Mothma or Admiral Piett are to enjoy the book. The romance is good enough, its not god tier but you can tell the author has experience writing and she makes it very natural, the romance itself doesnt start until halfway making it feel fluid with the character arcs.

One thing that did bother me for some reason was the cliffhanger, I thought it would be a sell for Episode 7 or some sequel to the book, but its just an open ending for a character that will never appear in another piece of media, and a very unsayisfying open ending at that.

I'm gonna give it a 7.5/10, closer to a 7 than an 8. Recommended for anyone who likes Star Wars and/or YA novels, if youre not into either you might not like it, but its not amateurish like most YA novels post hunger games, it has essence.

Ok now it's time for the spoilers:

The biggest detail that I found odd but I grew to appreciate deeply was the characters never getting over Alderaan and the Death Star's respective explosions. The EU and New Canon have both wanked Star Wars powerscaling so much we forget blowing up a planet is a big deal and this book makes the characters feel that. Having an imperial from alderaan who witnesses the event and instead of defecting doubles down on his loyalty is really interesting.

I also like the change in characteristics from the rebel and imperial main characters, SW usually portrays the empire as rows of rich white people (and a blue man or two) and the rebellion as a very diverse group of humans and aliens so making it so the loyal till the end imperial is a black woman who sees it as a way out of space detroit and the rebel who defects after the events of a New Hope a rich white guy who sees the empire more cynically is an interesting take, although this may be up to personal interpretation.

I did mention that the legacy characters are handled very gracefully, much better than those Disney+ shows could manage, but there was a chapter that did feel too fanservicy, where the imperial main character, Ciena, is the one sent to tow Darth Vader's ship after the death star blows up, it seemed too forced of a meeting between the two, seeing as Ciena ends up in Darth Vader's Star Destroyer anyways for the events of episode V and VI, besides that I didnt feel any problem with the og characters.

The alderaanian imperial, Nash, left a lot to be desired, the book employs a lot of timeskips so it can extend over all the inportant years it needs to, but Nash's character arc doesnt adapt to these, seeing him go from a cheery imperial pre episode IV to an angry loyal commander during and after episode VI isnt handled *horribly* but you dont see the progression since they dont take enough time on him to make you feel the change, I do like that he isnt made comically evil and he does love his friends even at his worst, that is appreciated humanization.

Finally, the post Return of the Jedi events are a bit rushed, you can tell Claudia Gray wasnt allowed to spill too much details on the events since this was released before The Force Awakens, but the insider look on post Endor empire is pretty good, I dont necessarilly agree with the empire surrendering one year after Endor in the new canon, but the book makes it clear that the Emperor quite literally was holding the empire together by himself via duct tape and lightning and how him and Vader dying sent everything downhill, the Battle of Jakku is a great example of it, showing the Empire just getting completely pummeled.

Any character I didnt mention by name I dont have much to say about other that they were either very good if they first appeared on the first half (The other protagonist Thane and other imperials like Jude or Kendy), or a bit forgettable if they first appearned on the second half

That's all