Right
off the bat, I have to admit that I definitely went on quite a rollercoaster
ride when it came to me simply trying to decide whether or not I should
actually read Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath.
When I first saw Aftermath at Barnes
& Noble back when it was first released in 2015, I immediately became
intrigued by the book and interested in reading it after seeing the cover of
the book, and reading the plot description that’s on the cover of the book.
However, seeing that Aftermath had
gotten a lot of mixed, if not bad, reviews really made me reluctant to read
this book. I’m a big fan of the Collider YouTube channel’s weekly
show, Collider Jedi Council, and Kristian Harloff, who’s one of the show’s
regular panelists, repeatedly criticizing Aftermath
on Jedi Council, even calling it garbage at one point, really scared me
away from reading Aftermath even more
than I already had been for a very long time. However, I ultimately started to
have some serious doubts about whether or not I should actually avoid reading Aftermath simply because it had gotten a
lot of mixed reviews, and because Kristian Harloff had repeatedly trashed the
book, after I read James Luceno’s book, Catalyst:
A Rogue One Novel. I read Catalyst
partly because Kristian Harloff had repeatedly raved about the book, and called
it a must read; and I ended up hating it when I read it. The fact that I hated Catalyst really made me question if I
should actually let Kristian Harloff’s thoughts on Aftermath be the primary basis of whether or not I decided to read
it. Ultimately, I decided to read Aftermath,
and I have to admit that I went into reading this book with low expectations.
With
that being said, while Aftermath does
have its fair share of flaws, I ended up really enjoying this book for the most
part, and I’m so glad that I read it. After actually reading Aftermath and seeing for myself what I
thought of the book, I definitely have to disagree with most of the comments
that Kristian Harloff has made regarding Aftermath.
I think it’s safe to say that my taste in Star
Wars books definitely differs from his to a certain degree, and I
personally feel like people in general have been way too harsh when it comes to
their critiques of this book. I definitely regret letting the fact that Aftermath has gotten a lot of bad or
mixed reviews be the reason that I didn’t read it sooner, because I’ve never
let a TV show, movie, or in this case a book, getting bad or mixed reviews keep
me from giving it a chance, and enjoying it in the past. I honestly have no
idea why I let that keep me from reading this book back when it first came out,
and I immediately became interested in it.
Perhaps
it’s because I’ve always considered myself to be more of a Star Trek fan than a Star
Wars fan; even though I’ve been a fan of both Star Trek and Star Wars since
the prequel trilogy was released, and I was a kid at the time. I definitely
know very little about all of the Star
Wars books that are out there, and I’ve been trying to prioritize which Star Wars books I want to read based on
which books have been recommended by various Star Wars fans on YouTube. I’m just now really getting into reading
Star Wars books, and I ultimately
feel like Aftermath definitely
succeeded in getting me truly interested in reading more Star Wars books, which is definitely something that Catalyst failed to do. For the record,
I’ve recently finished reading Timothy Zahn’s new book, Thrawn, and I hope to post a review for the book relatively soon,
but I digress.
