Review: Star Wars: Alphabet Squadron by Alexander Freed

While it’s obviously a trivial pursuit to read Star Wars books, Alexander Freed is one of the authors I look forward to reading the most. His previous work, Battlefront, did a great job reminding the reader that while Luke and Leia and Han and Chewie were running around the Death Star, there was a WAR going on, with fierce battles and countless deaths. Battlefront brought this to the forefront, with the group of protagonists constantly changing due to casualties, and tied it up into an iconic piece of Star Wars history. Based on that work, I was really excited to start Alphabet Squadron.

As with Battlefront’s reminders of war, one of the first things Alphabet Squadron gets right is answering the question “what happened after Endor?” Yes, there was a whole series of Aftermath novels that led up to the Battle of Jakku, but those novels never had a consistent through line, and seemed to really be setting up tangents (“Vader Lives!” The Mandolorian duel! The sheriff in Boba Fett’s armor!) that have yet to be followed up on. Alphabet Squadron takes place shortly after Endor, when the head of the Empire has been cut off but the body is still thrashing about. Even more importantly, it highlights the difficulties that the rebellion has in going from an underground military group to the rulers of the galaxy, and shows how unprepared they were to face their new responsibilities.

It also partially answers the question “what happened to all the Empire supporters?” by starting on a “prison” planet (albeit a lenient one) for Imperial soldiers. The main protagonist, Quell, is provided the opportunity to join the rebellion (now New Republic) and use her expertise to destroy a vicious TIE fighter squadron. With nothing else before her but an empty existence, she accepts.

The story in Alphabet Squadron is adequate, yet incomplete. There is no real climax, as this is the first book of a planned trilogy. Yet that does beg the question of why a complete story couldn’t have comprised the first part of the trilogy – plenty of parts of trilogies have had beginnings, middles, and ends of their own.

So this book has good characters, interesting setting, and intriguing setup, yet still leaves a little to be desired. Five out of ten hot dogs.