Max explores Kwame Mbalia’s Star Wars: The Last Order, embarking on an adventure set in the aftermath of the Battle of Exegol.
Star Wars: The Last Order is a YA novel set shortly after the Battle of Exegol. The remnants of the Resistance are cleaning up the aftermath of their miraculous victory over Palpatine and the Sith Eternal. Like many, many Star Wars books before it, it handles the difficult task of what to do next after we’ve been fighting for freedom for so long.
The author of this novel is named Kwame Mbalia. I am excited to say that he is the second African-American writer to pen a major Star Wars novel this year, after the very talented Lamar Giles wrote Sanctuary: A Bad Batch novel in August. It’s really great to see Disney diversify its writing repertoire, and since Finn is portrayed by John Boyega, a proud black man with strong African roots, it is only fitting that Kwame wrote this novel.
THROWBACKS TO A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY…
The book starts with a classic throwback to 1977, with a young man who craves adventure. Coy Tria is just a tea farmer (like Luke was a moisture farmer!) but dreams of something more. With his grandfather’s approval, he serves as a pilot in the Battle of Exegol to help the Resistance achieve their harrowing victory. But he finds himself ready to leave the jungle base of Ajan Kloss, feeling that he didn’t quite get the adventure he wanted. His life on his homeworld as a tea farmer is very mundane, and fate seems to answer his wish when he finds himself asked to deliver a Datapad message to none other than General Lando Calrissian!
I am always apprehensive when new authors take on writing Legacy characters, but Kwame does right by Lando and C-3PO, portraying them as I feel they should be. He also doesn’t go too much into Lando with the story, but his angry reaction to the First Order shipping enslaved children to be forced into military service was very natural and perfectly aligned with his character. One of the older children is interviewed by Poe, Jannah, Finn, and Lando, and she forms a connection with Coy because of their close ages and a budding mutual attraction. Coy is 17 by the way, 2 years younger than Luke was in A New Hope, and Kwame captures this kid’s youth quite well.
PLAYING IT COY
Since he is privy to this chilling discovery, Poe and the others determine that the kid is in “too deep” to not participate in the action. He has seen too much, so to speak, and finds himself getting what he wished for (albeit not quite in the way he imagined). He also volunteers his rickety ship to help and humorously kicks himself for doing so so impulsively.
I will mention that I did have a cold stop at this point in the novel, as I found the banter between Poe and Finn to be unbearable to read. However, ironically, Kwame later proved that this was just a “fluke” in his writing, as the dialogue and interactions between the characters in the novel were skillfully crafted, and I actually felt they were real people. That, I think, is the mark of an excellent writer.
KWAME MBALIA
Kwame also embarked on a highly experimental spin on story structure that I found intriguing. The new Canon has quickly become infamous for having many of its writers interject interludes into every chapter of their books, flashbacks that often become irritating and tedious to read. Chuck Wendig did this heavily in his Aftermath trilogy, and even the great Timothy Zahn did so as well with his Canon Thrawn novels. I personally have grown to dislike this style of storytelling, so I was a little upset when Kwame did it as well, but honestly, he did it in a way that felt fresh and natural.
Many of these interludes became the book, and Kwame put the present storyline, literally in the back pocket for chapters and chapters, that I actually felt like I was taking turns reading three books at once! This may seem to be even worse if you don’t like interludes, but it strangely worked well for me. The two flashback tales were Finn’s early life as F1-2187, a stormtrooper in the nascent, rising First Order, and a group of new Stormtrooper characters whose adventures were concurrent with Finn but never actually truly intersected.
I also find this artfully done, and I really got into the relationships within the stormtroopers’ squad as they slowly learned that the First Order was not the beacon of hope they had been conditioned to believe. Similarly, Finn and his rival trooper “friend” also learned this harsh lesson, as the Trooper Finn idolized in the First Order was truly nothing but an evil, opportunist monster who only cared about himself. This really colored Finn’s decision to ultimately desert the First Order at the beginning of The Force Awakens, as this good man could not take doing unethical things anymore.
STORMTROOPER DEPTH
I also want to praise Kwame for crafting adventures for these two groups that were interesting in themselves but didn’t go overboard with their importance or the complexity of their structure. The squad of Stormtroopers found themselves doing many things a group of soldiers on tour would do, and Finn and his reluctant friend did a lot of training missions that were believable and not overdone in terms of fantasy. I really believed these were real wartime missions!
Kwame really is a good writer when it comes to creating relationships between characters, and the story had so many refreshing and fun things to explore. However, the plot was a bit like a grand house of cards that folded in on itself, a bit, with some of the plot conclusions. I didn’t see the revelation of Coy’s new girlfriend, not because it was poorly written, but because no context was given; it was just pulled out of the blue, with no real clues to help readers form theories as the story progressed. That is NOT the mark of a good plot, and even though it was totally unexpected, ad hoc reveals feel lazy and underdone.
I also was scratching my head at the ultimate climax, as honestly, while I’ve never seen it in a Star Wars novel before (and I love novel originality), it was silly and really didn’t make any sense. It was anticlimactic and fizzled out in a strange way, and I don’t think readers will buy it on believability grounds. It was almost a sloppy wrap-up to a story that Kwame didn’t seem quite to know how to finish. In fact, I am still debating in my head what his reasoning behind it was. Did he want to blow our minds, or did he lose steam?
VERDICT
Yet this guy really has a lot of talent in writing, and I wouldn’t mind seeing him write for Star Wars again in the future. He has a unique flair that I find refreshing. He needs to build more conclusive plots and perhaps brainstorm with a few Venn Diagrams before he hands in the final product. But I did have lots of fun along the way.
Star Wars: The Last Order by Kwame Mbalia is out in all good bookshops now.
Max Nocerino is a regular Staff Writer for The Future of the Force. He is a passionate Star Wars fan and loves the literature of the galaxy far, far away. Follow him on Twitter where he shares his love of the Force frequently!
