Alphabet Squadron by Alexander Freed

For reference, I actually listened to the audiobook for this one, so there will be some notes about the soundscape and orchestration later on and I don't want you to think I was singing stuff while reading (though it's fine if you want to do that too.)

Alphabet Squadron, the appropriately titled first book in the series of the same name is a classic ramshackle team building story, where oddball characters are thrown together with their own motivations and goals and kind of unite to face the bigger enemy. I'll be honest, this one took me a little while to get through, nearly a month of listening on and off, and not because it's a particularly bad story. In fact the beginning and the end are both pretty exciting and well paced, but I did feel it dragged a bit in the middle. I'll explain a bit more as to why this happened next;

The Story

Set just after the formation of the New Republic and the death of the Emperor, Alphabet Squadron is set in a time of chaos and uncertainty, where rebels and renegades have now suddenly, and perhaps unexpectedly, found themselves in positions of power and control. One such individual is New Republic intelligence officer Caern Adan, who finds himself trying to prove the value of the intelligence agency within the new order and hunt down the illusive and dangerous Shadow Wing unit. The fact that he has almost no resources with which to do this is a problem he works around by grabbing everyone desperate or lost enough to need a new target, and so Alphabet Squadron is born, being formed with an odd collection of classic rebel ships - an A-wing, B-wing, U-wing, X-wing and Y-wing, the team works more or less together in an attempt to uncover what this Imperial force is up to, then dive in to take them down.

Naturally, for this type of team building underdog story, the characters all come from a pretty diverse mix of backgrounds and this leads to some friction before they pull together as a team to do the 'big mission' TM. Although not an entirely original idea, or even an innovative way of pulling off this style of story, the characters are interesting enough that its easy to overlook that particular fault. There is a general depth to everyone, even if they do fall into a few Star Wars trope character types, which is revealed though the chapters as the story jumps from one perspective to another, and enough near misses that attachments to these survivors are formed. None of them are perfect, the going is genuinely tough for them and it works well for the style of the story.

However...

The middle really does kind of drag after an action loaded opening, getting the team together takes a while, and through all this we are mostly given updates about the grinding escape attempts of 'The Dare', a republic ship being hunted down by Shadow Wing, while listening / reading about Yerica Quell get into ethics and clash with Adan and his reformed torture droid ITO, now therapist. Unlike the others, Yerica doesn't really grow all that much as a character though this, and comes off a little whiny with her desire to be flying, but with enough self awareness to know she hasn't earned that right yet. The leadership of the squadron basically falls into her lap, and things start to get moving again with the story.

From here on out things do get back into it, and the story peaks with a classic daring mission to try and do the thing to stop people dying who don't need to. Unlike some underdog stories, the reasoning behind deploying a small squadron rather than the entire fleet which they are traveling with is actually well reasoned and developed throughout the story, so it still works well without leaving any big questions as to why everything rested on their shoulders in the end.

On top of all this there is also a rather interesting side story, following a character who we kind of figure to be ex-Imperial pretty early on, but he certainly doesn't seem to be all that bad and it's a good pull into the second book. I like that there isn't such a big cliffhanger, but the way his story plays out certainly hints at some pretty big, and unknown to the republic, developments which will surely require the attention of the new intelligence working group - Alphabet Squadron.

The Summary

It's good overall, especially if you like the classic dogfights between rebel fighters and TIE's, as these in particular are descriptive and easy to visualize. If, like me, you get the audio version too, this is enhanced with the soundscape of thrusters and blasters, subtly placed behind and around the narration. I certainly enjoyed it enough that I've bought the second book and will be diving into it once I finish book two in the High Republic. While there is certainly nothing groundbreaking about the story, Freed has a clean and clear writing style, and does great work with some big name characters making for a generally enjoyable read.