STAR WARS: CRIMSON CLIMB – E. K. Johnston

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Qi’ra listened to the dreams and promises of a boy with a reckless smile, only to be torn away from him and returned to the White Worms gang while Han made his way to freedom. Now freedom seems like a luxury she can’t afford while she concentrates on survival and despairs of ever leaving Corellia. But her fortunes seem to turn when a representative of the crime syndicate Crimson Dawn plucks Qi’ra from captivity and brings her to the syndicate’s leader, the mysterious and mercurial Dryden Vos. Vos offers Qi’ra an opportunity she’s never had before: the chance to build something resembling a comfortable life if she can prove her worth to his organization. With failure meaning certain death, Qi’ra knows she must immerse herself in the merciless, murderous world of Crimson Dawn. What she doesn’t know is just who she will be if she survives. . . .

Something tells me the MAKE SOLO 2 HAPPEN Twitter campaign is not going to have a happy ending. Separate from the handful of Star Wars movies that have seemed to struggle in development, I just…am not seeing SOLO 2 as a realistic thing.

Which is of course a bummer! I loved SOLO, a ton. But there’s been no shortage of comics & books that help fill out Qi’ra’s storyline, in particular. She’s been a major factor in all of the ongoing Star Wars comics from Marvel, as well as the star of her own miniseries, CRIMSON REIGN. And there was also the wildly entertaining MOST WANTED by Rae Carson, which served as a SOLO prequel.

And now we have E. K. Johnston’s CRIMSON CLIMB, which picks up almost precisely at the moment that Qi’ra and Han get separated in SOLO. Which is actually a really cool thing! You can almost feel this book branching off in its own direction, while the remainder of SOLO plays out in the back of your mind.

Thrown back into the seedy underbelly of Corellia, and once again working as one of Lady Proxima’s White Worms, Qi’ra has been taken down several pegs. And she does not hold a tremendous amount of fondness in her heart for Han Solo as a result.

CRIMSON CLIMB digs deeply into just how miserable & traumatizing life as a White Worm really is. Any alliances Qi’ra can strike up are fragile, at best.

This is quite a bit darker than your average YA Star Wars novel, no doubt. The book details Qi’ra’s path from Corellian scrumrat to Dryden Vos’s second-in-command in the Crimson Dawn crime syndicate. Paul Bettany certainly brought a great deal of menace to the role in Solo, but Johnston paints a picture here of one of the most vile characters in all of Star Wars. Vos is a manipulative, gaslighting, violent monster.

I really dug this one! I can’t sit here and say that Qi’ra is one of my favorite Star Wars characters of all time or anything, but I think she is really compelling to watch/read about. There are so many stories about survivors in Star Wars, and Qi’ra has had it about as hard as anyone in the galaxy far, far away. She’s smart, patient, ambitious, and brave. This book really works as an effective bridge between Solo and the comics, where her story takes even more unexpected turns.

This was great! E. K. Johnston has written some of the most thoughtful & incisive YA Star Wars novels, and this is a must-read for any Qi’ra and/or Solo fans!

May the Force be with you!!

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