I tend to overthink media, and one thing I’ve been overthinking recently is whether books and radio are more ethical media than television and film, because I understand the former (perhaps naïvely) as involving less waste of resources for the sake of entertainment.

I bring this up not because I’m convinced by the argument (which I haven’t really thought through) but because the second season of Andor had me back on the side of television, because how else could you tell such a great story as that? Here’s the thing, though: This (audio)book had me mulling over the question again, because I might like it more than Andor.

This took a while to get through for a book I enjoyed so much. It has Andor-level grittiness and complex characters and narratives that make it better than a lot of Star Wars stuff. The audiobook’s use of Star Wars music and sound effects is also a big plus. I’ve already checked out the final book in the trilogy so that it’s not another two years before I wrap it up!

This book took me a while to get into. I gave up on the print version a year or three ago, and even the audiobook wasn’t doing great at capturing my attention for a while—I had to rush to finish this before it was due back to Libby. I’m glad that I stuck it out, though, because I liked what I got. I never read the X-Wing novels from the old EU, but I wanted something like what I imagined they were. Alphabet Squadron ended up being the best kind of expanded universe book: Expanding on interesting ideas, filling in details, offering new perspectves, and capturing the original feel of things. This ended up feeling a lot like Andor in adding some grittiness and cynicism to Star Wars, and I was surprised how far Freed went in emphasizing that star war is star hell. I found pew pew pew spaceship fights that I’ve loved for decades to actually be quite ugly, and I’m glad for that new perspective.