Star Wars: Bloodline
by Claudia Gray

Publication Date:
May 3, 2016

Timeframe:
28 ABY

Synopsis:
After the fall of the Empire, the Senate is split into the Populist and Centrist parties. Both profess the goal of restoring the Republic, though they are unable to set aside their opposing views. Tired of the pointless bickering within the Senate, Leia takes on one final mission before retiring. However, the mission proves to be bigger than she originally thought, inducing chaos and unveiling corruption.

GUEST REVIEW!

Special guest reviewer Jaysson Monstertruck!

Are you sure that none of my friends will see this page? I can’t let any of the guys know I’m some kind of Star Wars faggot or anything. It’s cool though, because there’s nothing wrong with being gay, it’s just that… you know, I don’t want any of the guys to think I’m some kind of faggot.

My bedroom is full of cool shit like football trophies and posters with hot chicks on them like Selena Gomez and, uh, iCarly. And whatever else kids my age are into, I don’t fucking know. What my parents and friends don’t know is that my closet is stashed with, like, 100 lightsabers and Criterion Collection versions of all the Star Wars movies and a life-size R2-D2 replica and about a hundred of these stupid books. Don’t ask me where a 14-year-old kid like me got the money to buy this shit without his parents knowing, what the fuck do I know? Maybe you should stop being such a fucking faggot about it and let me talk. What the fuck was I saying? Oh yeah.

So I don’t normally read books since it’s all gay and stupid, like all the shit Ms. Carpenter wants us to read. Like To Kill a Mockingbird and Mein Kampf and shit like that. I have a hard time with it since I think I have undiagnosed dyslexia or something and it’s tough to even read the articles in my brother’s porno mags without getting distracted by, you know… other things. Do 14-year-olds’ older brothers even buy porn mags anymore? What is this, 1982? What the fuck am I even talking about?

Anyway, Star Wars: Bloodline is a book about how Princess Leia’s dad was Darth Vader and nobody is cool about it. I usually don’t read books about girls, but this is Star Wars and Leia’s a baller so I was confident enough in my masculinity to read this in my closet with a flashlight every night at around 11:30 when I knew my parents were either sleeping or doing the thing that makes the bed springs squeak. There was a shit-ton of political stuff that went right over my head, like galactic senates and Populists and Centrists and who cares? My civics teacher Mr. Wharton gave me a D- on my essay about the branches of government because I talked about Ben Carson and why he is a great surgeon but a complete moron in every other way. I learned this from my friend Noah who talks about Ben Carson a little too much. I don’t know why the fuck that kid is so into Ben Carson. Nobody is into Ben Carson.

I guess what I’m saying is that Bloodline was probably not for me. Political stuff sucks and besides the whole thing about busting the guy’s cartel and killing him with thousands of tons of water, I was bored shitless and there wasn’t a single lightsaber battle. No Jedis at all. They just talked about how Luke is jacking off somewhere on some remote planet like a complete faggot.

I hope my friends don’t see this. I’m the only guy on the football team who still gets his head in the toilet.

TOM’S REVIEW!

Tom, the Cool Guy

First of all, if I had a handjob every time someone in this book arched an eyebrow, then I must be gettin’ jerked by an octopus!

Second of all, once this book gets going it’s very enjoyable. But it took a bit of time to establish the Populists vs. Centrists political rivalry (and it’s obvious to me which party is which with respect to American politics) and Princess Leia’s overall disillusionment with the Senate. Populists want autonomy for each planet, and Centrists want a centralized government body for the whole galaxy. While the book paints the Populists as the liberal good guys and the Centrists as the authoritative bad guys, in comes young Centrist Senator Ransolm Casterfo, a man who hated the Empire but likes the idea of the Empire. Leia and Casterfo butt heads for exactly three pages before they start seeing eye-to-eye on many issues… but really, it’s Casterfo that bends harder toward Leia’s ideology than the other way around. These two build a trust and a friendship over the course of the book, almost teetering on inappropriately sexual even though you could tell Claudia Gray did her best to keep it in check by never hinting that either found the other attractive, nor spurring jealousy over Leia’s marriage to Han Solo. In real life, though, the friendship they build would have likely been problematic.

It turned into a superficial crime drama for a bit of time as Leia, Casterfo, and their ragtag team of young idealists try to gather information about a crime lord named Rinnrivin Di, his ever-expanding and threatening cartel, and the mysterious organization that is behind Rinnrivin’s operation. A lot of this part of the novel acts as a by-the-book police procedural meant as a vehicle for Leia and Casterfo to work together and build trust. It finally gets very interesting, probably about halfway or through the novel, when Casterfo is informed by a fellow Centrist senator (and First Order agent) named Lady Carise Sindian that Leia is the daughter of Darth Vader. Finally, the “bloodline” part of Bloodline comes into play! He feels betrayed and reveals this information to the entire Galactic Senate for pesky reasons like “integrity” and “honor”. Chaos ensues! Instead of killing herself like so many people would if they were revealed to the galaxy at-large to be Darth Vader’s rancid offspring, Leia tries her best to pick up the pieces and maintain some semblance of dignity. As we find by the end of the book, she’s only partway successful.

This is the first Star Wars book I read that predominately puts you in Leia’s head. Being that she’s a seasoned politician in her late 40s with an annoyingly naïve ideology, she’s portrayed with an incredible amount of unwavering integrity and doesn’t really fuck up too much like a real human being would. To Gray’s credit, she portrays the somewhat arrogant sorta-Empire-loving Ransolm Casterfo with the same amount of integrity and level-headedness. It sometimes becomes hard to see these two as the people under their suits unless they occasionally betray their old baggage; Ransolm’s family were slaves under Vader’s control, Leia and her whole Alderaan-blew-up thing. There are also these heartful scenes between Leia and Han that made me queasy, but maybe that’s because I’m not good at reading about two people giving each other the ol’ fuck-eyes.

WORTH A READ?

Yes. It’s a well-written story about political turmoil, truth, and betrayal. Bloodline supposedly takes place six years before the events of The Force Awakens, and even though I haven’t watched that and probably won’t anytime soon, you don’t need to have watched it for the context. Which is fantastic, because I’m not about to binge the sequel trilogy in order to understand any bullshit Star Wars books. What am I, some sort of basement dwelling nerdface?

Shut up.