Bane of Kings writes a short review of Death Troopers by Joe Schreiber, a Star Wars Novel.

“Even the Dark Side can know fear…” ~The Founding Fields

 

Okay, having developed a recent interest in the Star Wars expanded universe (You know, the one with all the books in), and after a recommendation, I decided to pick this up recently and raced through it.

Now, having not read any Star Wars novels before, apart from a kid’s one that I read when I was little about Obi-Wan Kenobi before he became an apprentice to Qui-Gon Jinn, I really didn’t expect it to be as good as it was.

The backdrop for this novel basically revolves around an Imperial Battle Barge Purge, carrying loads of prisoners to an Imperial Detention Moon. However, when Purge’s thrusters go out, they come across a seemingly derelict Star Destroyer. However, as we soon find out, The Empire has its reasons for leaving the ship in space and The Purge’s crew soon realise their mistake of boarding it. However, it is far too late as the death toll begins to mount.

Only the dead don’t remain that way for long, and very soon, there are only six survivors, a sadistic captain of the guards, a certain smuggler and a wookie companion, two teenage boys, and a doctor, the only woman on board.

And, in a way, the inclusion of Han and Chewie, although making it entertaining, kind of ruined the book for me as it was set a year before the Battle of Yavin 4, it was kind of obvious that those two would survive, and thus it ruined some of the tension for me in the novel. However, the other four survivors, it’s a very different story – you don’t know whether they’ll live, or die.

Moving on, the novel varies in pace, starting off slowly, and towards the end of the book explodes into action, that’ll only leaving you wanting more when you finish the novel.

Now, let’s talk about the “z” word, which in this case means Zombies. In this novel, they aren’t the slow, stupid types that have a hunger for brains, oh no. Although these do have a hunger for brains and are slow, they certainly aren’t stupid, for they’re learning, building up their knowledge as they go along, so, if one of the survivors tries one trick on them, rest assured, it won’t happen again.

The description of the novel is enjoyable, yes, there is character development here as well, but only really shown in a few of them, and also the action is pretty good also, some pretty nice scenes there.

Finally, before I finish, I’d like to point out that although you’ll enjoy reading this novel, you won’t feel any sympathy for any of the characters. I mean, come on, you wouldn’t like a ruthless, sadistic, captain of prisoners, and that’s just one example.

And on that bombshell, I leave you with:

Verdict: 4/5

More Joe Schreiber writing Star Wars: Red Harvest by Joe Schreiber (Prequel)

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