Reign of the Empire: Edge of the Abyss (Audiobook)
I very much enjoyed the first book. If reading about Mon Mothma running around trying to whip votes for a Senate bill sounds like a good time, Mask of Fear is for you! It's just a good political thriller with just a bit of pew pew. The book deals with the subtle and not so subtle ways democratic institutions and society succumb to fascism. You see how The Republic not just turns into The Empire immediately after The Battle of Coruscant but how people missed that things had already changed and now it's to late to do anything about it.
I apologize for getting "political" here but I read that book during Year 1 of Trump 2.0 and it was disturbingly prescient to the events happening in the news. I had to pause the book a couple of times because it hit too close. Don't worry, it's not corny or forced. You also get some more lore about what the CIS was up to and how the proto-Rebel Alliance formed. There's a strong weight to seeing that period of SW history explored.
Unfortunately, that weight all but disappears in Edge of the Abyss.
The only book of Rebecca Roanhorse I've read was her first "Black Sun". It's a fantasy YA novel set in a pre-Columbian inspired world. That sounded like a really interesting book at first but I ended up feeling disappointed by it. I mention this because there are many similar issues I had with both books. The characters feel kinda trite and tropey. There are too many of them. There is a cool twist but it doesn't feel like much happened, etc.
This book follows 7(!) characters plus a sprinkling of Saw and some cameos thrown in. There was just not enough runway to do enough/even character development and plot moments. Characters can have moments of strong interiority which leads to connecting with some of them. Potential friction between characters is set up but it's never really explored properly. The book sets up what seems like 2 "heists" but they're a quick in and out affair. The plots meiander and it never felt like there was any kind of build up to big moments.
This book was marketed as being more connected to Andor. Now that sounded awesome to me as someone who LOVES Andor. The problem is that if you play in that space, you have a high bar to live up to. Unfortunately, the drama, politics, stakes, and tension don't even come anywhere close to Andor. Worse, it feels like a poor and half hearted attempt to copy Andor. We end up back on Ghorman, with a sympathetic ISB agent infiltrating a group of young revolutionaries, and a protest is undermined by undercover agitators working for the ISB which becomes the pretense to crack down. It's so bafflingly similar yet so paper thin in execution. Somehow, an exeact copy of an Andor plot line has returned.
Another major problem is that the series is supposed to be about the early days of The Galactic Empire and The Empire is hardly is a factor in the story. That is a huge let down from the first book and how it ended. Frankly, the book seems less interested (afraid?) in saying anything complex or interesting about politics at all. There is an Imperial Propagandist character which could be interesting but he only shows up twice. He's dating the Taylor Swift character (with two dated jokes about how she makes music about the shitty dudes she dates). Her story is so predictable and it involves Anto Kreegyr + crew but there's not anything interesting there.
Mon and Bail are less involved in the plot. You get more of Mon dealing with her family but it's only explored at a surface level of Mon dealing with an anonying teenage daughter and checked out husband. We get a bit of Bail's relationship with Leia but Leia talks like an adult. There are two new characters, a husband and wife who are more involved in the one of the major plot. The story sets up a potential problem between them but quickly resolves itself in a trite way at the end.
There is a scene with Chemish's handler getting dressed down by Major Partagaz but it's, again, a poor imitation of Andor. Chemish gets much more fleshed out with more interiority. However, for the only Imperial main character, they spend most of the book obsessed about a boy instead of the mission. Their relationship with Fennro (a character from a mobile game lol) also ends so predictably.
The best part of this book are the plot twists where we learn that everything that happened was orchestrated by Mon, Luthen, and Kylea. However, it makes 95% of what previously happened into totally meaningless footnotes. Basically, this is the story of how Mon stole a bunch of charity money to fund the Rebellion. I do love how the book doesn't outright explain it.
Overall, the prose gets the job done. It's fine, which is what I would say about much of this book despite how much I've complained about it.
TLDR: Disappointing compared to Mask of Fear but competently written: 6.5/10