+++Warning, this contains spoilers from the movies The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker. +++
This is one of the newest canon novels in the Star Wars universe. Most of the book is set between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens and serves a dual role. The first is to provide a proper origin story for Rey and her family, and the second is to provide a much better story for Luke and Lando than either of them received in The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker movies. The novel starts out on Exegol and introduces "the abomination," who would later take the name Dathan and eventually become Rey's father. It reveals that he was made from the genetic material of his father (who is not revealed in the book) but is a failure because he cannot feel the force. It also reveals how he got off Exegol (involving a cameo by a major legacy character). Then the book jumps to the present, in which Lando's daughter has been kidnapped, and Luke is balancing his time between retrieving artifacts with the help of Lor San Tekka (the character played by Max Von Sydow in The Force Awakens) and his Jedi Academy and training Ben Solo as his Padawan. Lando learns of a family being hunted by the Sith (Dathan, his wife Miramir, and Rey), and Luke, who has been having visions of Exegol, agrees to help him try to find the family and figure out what the Sith threat is.
The novel intertwines the two storylines very well. Of course, we know how Dathan, Miramir, and Rey's story turns out, but this gives us the actual backstory and shows all the events (including being hunted by Ochi of Bestoon) who is trying to capture Rey and bring her to Exegol. Dathan and Miramir are trying to find Lando and Luke (who they only know as The Jedi) and Luke and Lando are trying to find them, and they keep missing each other. We learn about the decision to leave Rey with Unkar Plutt on Jakuu (and why Rey was convicted they were coming back for her) and learn exactly how they died.
Whether this novel redeems the sequel trilogy will really depend on your point of view. If you are one who hates the sequel trilogy, then I do not think anything will help redeem it. While I strongly disagreed with Lucasfilm's original plan to have three different writers and directors for the sequel movies, I never thought that any of the movies were as bad as some make them out to be. That said, I think they would have been much better off having a single writer or set of writers write each movie, so what happened with The Last Jedi, basically discarding what was set up in The Force Awakens, would not have happened. I do think that The Rise of Skywalker would have been better if it had told more of this story (obviously, the book was not around at the time, so they could not do so), but had they fleshed out this story and jumped between it and the plot in the movie, it would have worked a lot better.
Overall, the book is very good. Even though most reading it knows even before reading it basically where the characters will end up, the book does a great job telling a suspenseful story to get there. It makes much better use of Luke than any of the sequel trilogy movies did and gives more depth to Lando than he arguably had in any of the prior movies, including Empire and Return of the Jedi. So, if you are one who only reads some of the novels, I would definitely consider this one a must-read.
This is one of the newest canon novels in the Star Wars universe. Most of the book is set between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens and serves a dual role. The first is to provide a proper origin story for Rey and her family, and the second is to provide a much better story for Luke and Lando than either of them received in The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker movies. The novel starts out on Exegol and introduces "the abomination," who would later take the name Dathan and eventually become Rey's father. It reveals that he was made from the genetic material of his father (who is not revealed in the book) but is a failure because he cannot feel the force. It also reveals how he got off Exegol (involving a cameo by a major legacy character). Then the book jumps to the present, in which Lando's daughter has been kidnapped, and Luke is balancing his time between retrieving artifacts with the help of Lor San Tekka (the character played by Max Von Sydow in The Force Awakens) and his Jedi Academy and training Ben Solo as his Padawan. Lando learns of a family being hunted by the Sith (Dathan, his wife Miramir, and Rey), and Luke, who has been having visions of Exegol, agrees to help him try to find the family and figure out what the Sith threat is.
The novel intertwines the two storylines very well. Of course, we know how Dathan, Miramir, and Rey's story turns out, but this gives us the actual backstory and shows all the events (including being hunted by Ochi of Bestoon) who is trying to capture Rey and bring her to Exegol. Dathan and Miramir are trying to find Lando and Luke (who they only know as The Jedi) and Luke and Lando are trying to find them, and they keep missing each other. We learn about the decision to leave Rey with Unkar Plutt on Jakuu (and why Rey was convicted they were coming back for her) and learn exactly how they died.
Whether this novel redeems the sequel trilogy will really depend on your point of view. If you are one who hates the sequel trilogy, then I do not think anything will help redeem it. While I strongly disagreed with Lucasfilm's original plan to have three different writers and directors for the sequel movies, I never thought that any of the movies were as bad as some make them out to be. That said, I think they would have been much better off having a single writer or set of writers write each movie, so what happened with The Last Jedi, basically discarding what was set up in The Force Awakens, would not have happened. I do think that The Rise of Skywalker would have been better if it had told more of this story (obviously, the book was not around at the time, so they could not do so), but had they fleshed out this story and jumped between it and the plot in the movie, it would have worked a lot better.
Overall, the book is very good. Even though most reading it knows even before reading it basically where the characters will end up, the book does a great job telling a suspenseful story to get there. It makes much better use of Luke than any of the sequel trilogy movies did and gives more depth to Lando than he arguably had in any of the prior movies, including Empire and Return of the Jedi. So, if you are one who only reads some of the novels, I would definitely consider this one a must-read.
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