Review: Bloodline

Bloodline by Claudia Gray
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

By now, the stories of the original Star Wars trilogy, and also the prequels (love 'em or hate 'em, they're essential to understanding the originals), are the stuff of pop culture legend. So last year, when The Force Awakens began an all-new awesome sequel trilogy as only J.J. Abrams could direct it, there was really only one thing missing...

...how did we get here? The Empire was over - wasn't it? Where and when and how did a new group of galactic Nazis take hold?

Claudia Gray's Bloodline gives us a few answers, starting when Leia was serving in the New Republic's Senate, which, like the current American government, arose after a rebellion against serious tyranny...and, like the current American government, has become bogged down in debates and inefficient as hell because of an uncompromising two-party system. Leia, however, spends most of this book working together with a sparky young Senator from the opposing party, who appears to actually worship the Empire...except he doesn't, and shouldn't, because like Leia, the Empire hurt him deeply when he was young.

Boasting strong characters, timely political subtext, and nuggets of explanation as to why the events of The Force Awakens happened as they did, Bloodline is absolutely essential to all Star Wars fans' proper understanding of the newest chapters in the saga, and really deserves to be adapted into an anthology movie like Rogue One or the young Han Solo story.

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