Spark of the Resistance by Justina Ireland
Spark of the Resistance written by Justina Ireland and illustrated by Phil Noto
Our Resistance heroes are welcomed by the Zixon in an amazing underground city called Ghikjil filled with natural light from a sun tube--there are even crops growing!! ("Below them stretched a magnificent city and countryside. An abundance of sunshine streamed into the space somehow, painting everything with a warm glow. Houses were clustered together in seemingly random configurations, octagonal shapes pressed against and on top of one another in a beautiful sculpture...Green trailing vines draped off of balconies and hung over lintels, and a riotous assortment of flowers bloomed here and there on the vines...Beyond the clusters of houses were verdant green fields with rows of evenly spaced plants.") As we of course could've guessed they would, Rey, Rose, Poe, and BB-8 agree to fight.
I won't give anything else away but I do want to point out some pretty interesting features of this book along with some questionable things:
- The Mon Calamari fleet has already been gifted to the Resistance (this happens in the "Allegiance" comic series) and this fact is mentioned several times. Although I was not a fan of the last half of "Allegiance," it was really cool to already know the story behind how the Resistance got those ships!! A small fleet of Corellian ships is also mentioned...not sure where they came from though.
- Justina Ireland might have a thing for Poe...his hair is described in quite flattering detail by several different characters...lol.
- This book takes place a few months after the destruction of Hosnian Prime as stated by one of the characters. ...but again I ask the question, where and how does Hondo's possession of the Falcon for Ohnaka Transport Solutions play into this timeline?? It doesn't make any sense.
- Speaking of the Millennium Falcon, it is made clear that Rey is the owner of the famed ship...no matter how badly Poe wants to fly it.
- Also, where in the world is Finn?? He's my fave of the sequel trilogy characters, besides Kylo Ren of course, and I missed seeing him continue to grow as he becomes a more solid part of the Resistance. Well, he's apparently delivering bacta from Tevel with Chewie.
- There was some super awkward inner dialogue from Rey about how Rose was a "really nice person" who "cared about others deeply," "she was just a very considerate person." Kinda felt like looking into the mind of a middle schooler. Regardless, turns out the two have been working together quite a bit which is exciting!
- Rey compares the Force to "a damp slugill, slippery and unpredictable." This book makes it clear she is still definitely struggling with how to use it to her best advantage.
- Not all First Order members believe the story of Luke Skywalker projecting himself on Crait or in the Force at all...but haven't they seen their very own Supreme Leader, Kylo Ren, in action?? I'm confused. This would be like Imperials not believing in the Force with Vader stalking around choking people out of thin air. Then again, in Commander Branwayne Spiftz's inner dialogue we get, "The Force was a myth, no more real than the supposedly terrible powers of Lord Vader." Either this guy's an idiot or he's low enough on the totem pole not to see his leader in person.
- Professor Glenna Kip is of an unknown species. She is described as tall and willowy with a greenish tinted skin and tiny scales covering her face. "Golden swirls marked her high cheekbones and outlined her eyes."
- Hynestia (the main planet featured in Lando's Luck) is mentioned as an undesirable place for a First Order officer to get reassigned.
- Minfar has 3 major populations but only the Zixon are sentient. I'm guessing the other two are the grobel and the mekle. Although it doesn't make ANY sense for the 3 major populations to all be predators...I'm assuming they mean major populations of large species, otherwise, how would the grobel and mekle have enough to eat??? The Zixon have "large, slender, diamond-shaped ears, and paws with razor-sharp claws. Their bodies were covered in thick green fur, not long and shaggy like a Wookiee's but shorter and denser." They are only tall enough including the tips of their ears to reach Rey's shoulder. Each mekle has "two sets of wings--one black, the other white. What looked to be interlocking black and white scales coated its sinuous body, giving it a patterned look that shifted as it flew through the air." The juveniles are as big as TIE fighters. The grobel are beasts the size of transport ships. Each one is "covered in brilliant rainbow gemstones hard enough to protect its soft underbelly and grind tunnels through the planet" and has a "cavernous mouth lined with rows of sharp teeth" longer than a person's arm. They have two small appendages, long bodies, and no eyes. I'm telling you, this planet has some gnarly beasties!
- Minfar is covered in a thick jungle. "Plants with red- and green-striped leaves covered the ground. The air had a sweet smell, and small creatures chittered loudly [...] Here and there black flowers peeked out from beneath the huge leaves."
- A tunnel system runs through the underground of the planet and is covered in spiky bioluminescent plants that glow the whole spectrum of the rainbow.
- The Resistance quartet NEVER shot to kill in this book, no matter how in dire straits they were with the First Order. They always just stunned the troopers. Now I get this is a children's book but you still need to stay true to the characters. You don't have to be explicit about the troopers dying but you also don't have to specify explicitly that they were stunning the troopers. This felt like a really bad choice to me since they were in such a sticky situation. And we know from other literature and the movies that yes, they do in fact shoot to kill...
- Poe has done some growing up since making those disastrous decisions in The Last Jedi. "Before, he would've demanded that they find the labs in the dark, repair the Falcon, and take the First Order by surprise. It would be impulsive and risky, and later he'd wonder if it had been a good idea. But after everything that had happened and all the friends he'd lost, including Rose's sister, Poe was more cautious. Victory wasn't worth lives, and with so few allies left, he had to be smarter about taking risks." Of course, we also get to see a fabulous bit of growth in the pilot in the finale of the "Poe Dameron" comic series. I can't wait to see what he's like in TROS.
Well, I think I covered literally everything of import in this book...except the surprise twist about 3/4 of the way through. Sorry, y'all know I don't like to spoil things. If you really want to know the twist, you know where to find me. Because honestly, and I'm saying this again, but, I don't recommend spending your time reading this book. It's just not worth it. There are others far more worth the time and money. In fact, if you still haven't read the same author's Lando's Luck, go do that!! It is such a great book. I don't know what happened with her second foray into the galaxy far, far away. Oh well, they can't all be winners. On to some more "Journey to TROS" reading material!!! Hopefully Force Collector and Resistance Reborn won't disappoint!!
An interesting premise and a fun, new sentient species make this a decent book. But honestly, having read Lando's Luck, also by Justina Ireland, I was disappointed with this entry into the Journey to The Rise of Skywalker publishing campaign. Yes, it's a middle grade reader, but so was Lando's Luck and that book was so much better!! Lando's Luck was full of plotting, scheming, twists and turns, great dialogue, and fascinating cultures. This one pretty much lacked all of the above except one major twist that was a welcome happening in an otherwise fairly dull story. I hate to dog on anything that's Star Wars but I really have to be honest with this one and say that I don't recommend it. I don't think it will be important to the overall TROS story...unless Glenna Kip makes an appearance and/or the Zixon show up as part of the Resistance. It just didn't flow well and the dialogue was quite childish. Not to mention when the big battle happened at the very end, it literally took up a 1 sentence paragraph... But keep reading for a full breakdown of everything you need to know...just in case.
Anyway, what is this book about? Well, Rey, Rose, Poe, and BB-8 are on a mission to gather supplies for the Resistance on the planet of Fermic ("a factory planet with air that stank of the nearby fuel refineries") when they get a distress call from someone on Minfar. The quartet of heroes heeds the call and comes afoul of TIE fighters as soon as they exit hyperspace. After crash landing the Millennium Falcon (which is still full of porgs) on Minfar, they stumble across a set of elaborate tunnels that leads them to Lim, a Zixon (see her pictured below)--the species that sent out the call for help. The First Order has been in orbit around the planet for awhile, searching for lost laboratories containing a secret and formidable weapon called the Echo Horn!! (The weapon was pretty nifty, albeit super depressing and scary as it essentially was able to mind-control using only sound.)Our Resistance heroes are welcomed by the Zixon in an amazing underground city called Ghikjil filled with natural light from a sun tube--there are even crops growing!! ("Below them stretched a magnificent city and countryside. An abundance of sunshine streamed into the space somehow, painting everything with a warm glow. Houses were clustered together in seemingly random configurations, octagonal shapes pressed against and on top of one another in a beautiful sculpture...Green trailing vines draped off of balconies and hung over lintels, and a riotous assortment of flowers bloomed here and there on the vines...Beyond the clusters of houses were verdant green fields with rows of evenly spaced plants.") As we of course could've guessed they would, Rey, Rose, Poe, and BB-8 agree to fight.
- The Mon Calamari fleet has already been gifted to the Resistance (this happens in the "Allegiance" comic series) and this fact is mentioned several times. Although I was not a fan of the last half of "Allegiance," it was really cool to already know the story behind how the Resistance got those ships!! A small fleet of Corellian ships is also mentioned...not sure where they came from though.
- Justina Ireland might have a thing for Poe...his hair is described in quite flattering detail by several different characters...lol.
- This book takes place a few months after the destruction of Hosnian Prime as stated by one of the characters. ...but again I ask the question, where and how does Hondo's possession of the Falcon for Ohnaka Transport Solutions play into this timeline?? It doesn't make any sense.
- Speaking of the Millennium Falcon, it is made clear that Rey is the owner of the famed ship...no matter how badly Poe wants to fly it.
- Also, where in the world is Finn?? He's my fave of the sequel trilogy characters, besides Kylo Ren of course, and I missed seeing him continue to grow as he becomes a more solid part of the Resistance. Well, he's apparently delivering bacta from Tevel with Chewie.
- There was some super awkward inner dialogue from Rey about how Rose was a "really nice person" who "cared about others deeply," "she was just a very considerate person." Kinda felt like looking into the mind of a middle schooler. Regardless, turns out the two have been working together quite a bit which is exciting!
- Rey compares the Force to "a damp slugill, slippery and unpredictable." This book makes it clear she is still definitely struggling with how to use it to her best advantage.
- Not all First Order members believe the story of Luke Skywalker projecting himself on Crait or in the Force at all...but haven't they seen their very own Supreme Leader, Kylo Ren, in action?? I'm confused. This would be like Imperials not believing in the Force with Vader stalking around choking people out of thin air. Then again, in Commander Branwayne Spiftz's inner dialogue we get, "The Force was a myth, no more real than the supposedly terrible powers of Lord Vader." Either this guy's an idiot or he's low enough on the totem pole not to see his leader in person.
- Professor Glenna Kip is of an unknown species. She is described as tall and willowy with a greenish tinted skin and tiny scales covering her face. "Golden swirls marked her high cheekbones and outlined her eyes."
- Hynestia (the main planet featured in Lando's Luck) is mentioned as an undesirable place for a First Order officer to get reassigned.
- Minfar has 3 major populations but only the Zixon are sentient. I'm guessing the other two are the grobel and the mekle. Although it doesn't make ANY sense for the 3 major populations to all be predators...I'm assuming they mean major populations of large species, otherwise, how would the grobel and mekle have enough to eat??? The Zixon have "large, slender, diamond-shaped ears, and paws with razor-sharp claws. Their bodies were covered in thick green fur, not long and shaggy like a Wookiee's but shorter and denser." They are only tall enough including the tips of their ears to reach Rey's shoulder. Each mekle has "two sets of wings--one black, the other white. What looked to be interlocking black and white scales coated its sinuous body, giving it a patterned look that shifted as it flew through the air." The juveniles are as big as TIE fighters. The grobel are beasts the size of transport ships. Each one is "covered in brilliant rainbow gemstones hard enough to protect its soft underbelly and grind tunnels through the planet" and has a "cavernous mouth lined with rows of sharp teeth" longer than a person's arm. They have two small appendages, long bodies, and no eyes. I'm telling you, this planet has some gnarly beasties!
- Minfar is covered in a thick jungle. "Plants with red- and green-striped leaves covered the ground. The air had a sweet smell, and small creatures chittered loudly [...] Here and there black flowers peeked out from beneath the huge leaves."
- A tunnel system runs through the underground of the planet and is covered in spiky bioluminescent plants that glow the whole spectrum of the rainbow.
- The Resistance quartet NEVER shot to kill in this book, no matter how in dire straits they were with the First Order. They always just stunned the troopers. Now I get this is a children's book but you still need to stay true to the characters. You don't have to be explicit about the troopers dying but you also don't have to specify explicitly that they were stunning the troopers. This felt like a really bad choice to me since they were in such a sticky situation. And we know from other literature and the movies that yes, they do in fact shoot to kill...
- Poe has done some growing up since making those disastrous decisions in The Last Jedi. "Before, he would've demanded that they find the labs in the dark, repair the Falcon, and take the First Order by surprise. It would be impulsive and risky, and later he'd wonder if it had been a good idea. But after everything that had happened and all the friends he'd lost, including Rose's sister, Poe was more cautious. Victory wasn't worth lives, and with so few allies left, he had to be smarter about taking risks." Of course, we also get to see a fabulous bit of growth in the pilot in the finale of the "Poe Dameron" comic series. I can't wait to see what he's like in TROS.
Well, I think I covered literally everything of import in this book...except the surprise twist about 3/4 of the way through. Sorry, y'all know I don't like to spoil things. If you really want to know the twist, you know where to find me. Because honestly, and I'm saying this again, but, I don't recommend spending your time reading this book. It's just not worth it. There are others far more worth the time and money. In fact, if you still haven't read the same author's Lando's Luck, go do that!! It is such a great book. I don't know what happened with her second foray into the galaxy far, far away. Oh well, they can't all be winners. On to some more "Journey to TROS" reading material!!! Hopefully Force Collector and Resistance Reborn won't disappoint!!
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