Star Wars: Aftermath by Chuck Wendig

As you might guess from the cover, Aftermath takes place soon after Return of the Jedi. The "quite operational" second Death Star has been destroyed with the Emperor and Lord Vader on board, but the fledgling New Republic still has Imperial loyalists to deal with. Being part of the new canon, this timeline will not continue with a Truce at Bakura.

I feel like part of the problem with this book is that hardly any of the characters from the movies are important players in this story. Wedge Antilles is held prisoner for most of it, and Han and Chewie only get a short cameo in an interlude. There are scenes that include Admiral Ackbar and Mon Mothma, but they barely affect anything. One would think that those primarily responsible for the end of the Empire would get more of the spotlight in events that directly follow. Instead, Aftermath takes place entirely on the planet of Akiva, not counting the scattered short-story-like interludes, and introduces an entirely new group of characters.

Young scavenger Temmin Wexley* and his mother Norra have been estranged ever since she joined the Rebellion and Temmin's father was arrested by the Empire. Norra happened to be the Y-Wing pilot who flew into the second Death Star, and now she wants to rescue Wedge Antilles from the Star Destroyer Vigilance when she hears his distress call. The Wexleys are joined by defected Imperial loyalty officer Sinjir Velus, and bounty hunter Jas Emari. The group learns that there is to be a meeting of top Imperials in Myrra, the capital of Akiva, and they plan to gain intel from it.

As far as antagonists, we have a gangster named Surat,  plus the usual assortment of generic Imperial officers, the most memorable being Admiral Rae Sloane. Sloane was created for the earlier novel A New Dawn by John Jackson Miller, so Wendig doesn't even get credit for making her well-rounded. Only Norra, Temmin, and Sinjir get adequate character development.

It put me off that the author chose to write in present tense, a technique which just doesn't fit a novel set "a long time ago." He also uses sentence fragments. Everywhere. For all descriptions. Creating many pauses. Got on my nerves. A lot.

This book is intended to be the start of a trilogy, so I'll give it the benefit of the doubt that it might seem better in retrospect, but despite a few fun characters, it didn't add up to much of consequence. And as for it being on the "Journey to The Force Awakens", I did not detect any meaningful connections to the new movie. The time after the Empire's fall should have more impactful stories involving familiar characters, and this book didn't scratch that itch.

*It has since come to light that Temmin is the character Greg Grunberg plays in The Force Awakens. Hey, now we know he won't die in the books!