I'm reading Star Wars Catalyst by James Luceno. I used to read a lot of Star Wars books in the old continuity and recently one of my bosses has started lending me some of the newer stuff. I'm struggling to get through Catalyst, partly because I'm not finding a lot of time to read, and partly because it just isn't that interesting.
It falls into the traps that sink most bad prequels. Everything feels preordained and unsurprising. If you've seen the movie you can guess what is going to happen to every major character. Questions of if they will or will not do something are meaningless because the first 10 minutes of Rogue One tell you how the story ends. It also struggles to find an interesting story to tell about the early development of the Death Star and it struggles to find an interesting protagonist in Galen Erso. Galen is portrayed as a genius who is duped into working on a superweapon because he doesn't understand the potential of the technology he is developing. He exists in a sort of dreamy haze of theory and the text goes to great pains to remind the reader that he is brilliant in a very abstract way. Unfortunately, it makes him largely unrelatable, and his inability to see the true potential of the technology he is developing a hard pill to swallow. More damning, the idea of the spaced out genius weapons designer who doesn't understand the full impact of their work was already done better in the old EU in the form of Qui Xux, the old continuity's original Death Star designer.
Most of Galen's chapters deal with him trying to get more energy out of Kyber crystals. Unfortunately, these passages are almost completely useless. Calculations and experimentation are alluded to in such general detail that its impossible to get a feel for any sort of progress. Obviously the science is fake, but the way that it is written makes it
feel fake, as though all of these parts were supposed to be rewritten later to inject a feeling of discovery of excitement into it. Most of the other chapters focus on a completely forgettable smuggler or on Galen's wife Lyra who both exist in the story solely to piece together that the Empire is Up To Something, which is boring because we, the reader, already know exactly what they are up to. Jyn Erso, is a child and has, thus far, no bearing on the plot whatsoever, seeming only to exist in the book because she is the main character in the movie.
My favorite character in the movie was Director Krennic and his chapters are the only parts of the book that seem to have any life in them. I really like the dimension he brings to the Star Wars universe. He's a technocrat and Imperial apparatchik, nakedly ambitious and always striving for more power, more influence, and more recognition. He scrambles and schemes and does everything in his power to gain the notice of his superiors and leverage that notice into influence, favors, and ever more responsibility. What I love about Krennic is that, however badly he wants it, he's just never going to be a power player in the Empire. Those higher up the food chain easily override him or undercut him, and he burns with a constant need for validation, validation which he is routinely denied at the whims of his superiors. He has a few run ins with Tarkin in the book that feel like they should have been more tense, but so far even his chapters haven't been able to overcome the whole book's lack of stakes or momentum.
There is nothing here that is surprising, or that sheds some new light on the characters of the movie. It's literally just an accounting of what the characters were doing prior to the movie and is thus the worst kind of prequel. I feel like if the book had focused more on Krennic's attempts to politic his way to the top and his rivalry with Tarkin, a more seasoned, ruthless, and altogether more natural opponent, that the book could have been more interesting and taken on more of a dimension of grand tragedy as he scurries and strives and tries his hardest while reader knows that in the end his rival is going to crush him without a single pause and take the credit for his greatest accomplishment. Galen Erso should have been a background character at best. If Galen had to be the viewpoint character, then he should have known what he was working on and the story should have presented some reason for him to have a change of heart and decide to work against the Empire from the inside, not have him be ignorant of the true purpose of his work for most of the story.
Ultimately I intend to finish the book because I am stubborn but I doubt anything in the last 3rd will radically alter my opinion of it. At this point I definitely don't recommend it.