Customer Reviews

Star Wars: Death Troopers (Star Wars (Random House Audio))

5 star:		(45)
4 star:		(29)
3 star:		(28)
2 star:		(20)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

I've read a fair share of Star Wars books, but never anything this gory or downright scary. Star Wars is usually pretty tame. So I was surprised to find this book whose cover is comprised of a bloody Stormtrooper head hanging from a chain with a hook jammed through its eye. I like old-school Star Wars, from the Classic Era, Episodes IV-VI, so I was eager to read this to see what the "Death Troopers" were all about. Well, that decapitated Stormtrooper head scene is actually in the book, along with many others that could probably not be proudly displayed at your local bookstore. I'm actually surprised that this book doesn't contain a warning label or sticker that this book is for "Suggested for Mature Readers". But here it is, for the first time, a Star Wars book about flesh-eating zombies in deep space. Parents, the Clone Wars this book is not. Here are some sample lines:

"[The zombie's] mouth was buried in Pauling's throat and it was busily slurping its blood, ripping off huge gobbets of his flesh... Strands of Pauling's flesh were dangling from its teeth."

"The leg was connected to a torso, covered up by another, and another, the pile growing in front of him comprising what he realized was hundreds of dismembered corpses--heads, arms, legs, and whole bodies, bare bones, many of them still dressed in rotten Imperial uniforms... hacked recklessly to pieces, still others partially devoured, whole gobbets of of flesh gnawed off. Many of the parts were bloated to the point where the skin itself had begun to split open like sausages..."

Well, that's probably enough for you to get the idea. There's an exciting, gritty story here with a couple of fun cameos from classic Star Wars characters, but to get through it your imagination will have to cope with all kinds of horrific imagery and gristly situations where people eat each other alive and poke weapons into eye sockets and shove cleavers into heads. There are also some heart-racing chases in the dark for those who dig that kind of thing. So if you like that stuff, you'll enjoy this. I can't say I ENJOYED that part of it, but I was able to stomach the content and I particularly enjoyed the fact that it takes place within 5 years of Star Wars: Episode IV. However, I can't imagine letting my little boy crack this book open and I hope other parents won't blindly buy this book for their kids just because "it's Star Wars". If you wouldn't let your kids read a book based on Night Of The Living Dead, steer them clear of Death Troopers too.

I became aware of this book through the video trailers fans had done for it. I am a huge zombie genre fan and a Star wars junkie. This was just too good to be true. If you enjoy Star Wars, Horror, or Zombie fiction you will enjoy this book. The pacing is fast and addictive. The characters are realistic and approachable.

If there is anything to complain about this book is that it is fast paced. For the first time I sat down and read a book from cover to cover in one sitting. I haven't owned the book for 24 hours and have finished the book. Part of me is curious to see if there will be another book following the characters that survive the events in the book or if the infection will become a series of books. That the concepts from the book are being brought into the Galaxies MMO and the fan adoption of the ideas makes me hopeful that this is not the last we will see of this type of book in the Star Wars Universe.

I'm more of a Star Wars fan than a zombie fan, but I was willing to give "Death Troopers" a chance. After all, the Star Wars Expanded Universe is very flexible, capable of telling stories in all manner of genres, so why not horror?

I found "Death Troopers" to be a grim, dirty, depressing story. The violence and gore didn't bother me so much as the tone of the book -- it just didn't seem like Star Wars to me, it could have been any generic sci-fi / horror franchise. I found the whole experience to be depressing, cold and inevitable. At a certain point, the story slipped into the modern zombie movie mode, and from there on in it was all about going through the motions.

Minor spoiler alert: I agree with some reviewers that the addition of Han Solo and Chewbacca weakens the story. It was fairly easy to pick out the story arcs for the other characters, but once the author introduced Han and Chewie (my favorite SW characters, by the way), I started caring less about the other characters and more about how this adventure would fit into Han and Chewie's chronology.

I guess I'm more interested in happier endings. To me, Star Wars is about the battle of good versus evil, and "Death Troopers" was sort of a monster-of-the-week experience for me. It didn't fit my expectation of what a Star Wars novel should be, and it didn't thrill or entertain me like I had hoped.

Death Troopers is one of the few heavily marketed Star Wars books in recent years. The idea seems like a good one: Zombies + Star Wars = Profit. Unfortunately, the book is a disaster from the first page. I'm going to break my review down similiar to [...] review page.

The Good

The cover art for this book is great, the imagery definitely sucks you in and compels you to take a look. The binding and paper stock are also excellent. The physical book itself feels like quality, and there were some nice touches of using "creepy zombie" font during the beginning of each chapter. The cover/poster was also a nice addition, and hopefully we'll see more hard backs use this in the future.


The Bad

Let's talk about the writing and the story. First off, there is absolutely no need for a 240 page book to have 40 CHAPTERS. Every new paragraph does not warrant a new chapter. It is extremely annoying, and it feels like you're reading a youth novel - especially with "titled" chapters. And yes, the novel itself is not 288 as it is advertised. Del Rey stuck in an "excerpt" from Star Wars Outcast in the back. Note that this "excerpt" is 30+ pages. It's a total sham and Del Rey should be ashamed for taking advantage of Star Wars fans this way.

The story itself is not horrible, but it is definitely lacking. The book reads more like a short-story (which it should've been) and it often feels like you're reading a outline for the novel this should have been. At a minimum, the book should have been double the length it is now. Something other Star Wars readers might notice is that Del Rey novels often have these rushed, half-assed endings tacked on to them. The ending to this novel is no different: there is absolutely no realizations or closure. Also, the inclusion of some "surprise" characters feels so gimmicky that you'll lose all respect from that point forward. You'd think with all the marketing dollars they spent on this project, they could've made the quality of the content better.


The Ugly

This book has absolutely no business retailing for $24.00 (16 here on Amazon). Del Rey should be ashamed of themselves for ripping off Star Wars fans with a book that doesn't even clock in at 300 pages. You would get better entertainment value per hour by going to the movies. The story itself is so mediocre that this book had no business being anything more than a $7 paperback. Which is exactly what I'm recommending you to do: wait until this book comes out on paperback if you absolutely must read it.

As most everyone who picked up this book, I'm a huge Star Wars fan. I've read many of the books (not all...but many) from different points in time in the SW universe (Old Republic - New Jedi Order), and have always favored the Old Republic timeline. But this book stood out against all the others for it's time frame. Obviously because it had a Stormtrooper helmet with blood smeared across it and hanging from a hook through the eye-shield (who wouldn't like that), and being a horror fan it just "spoke" to me. I read this book quickly (very short read). And the introduction of two SW Universe Juggernauts (Han and Chewie) half way through did take the ending out of the entire story. Though I did find myself wondering just who else would survive if anyone. Over all this book kept me interested (even if just barely...at times), a fast paced horror story that matches any of the numerous Zombie movie story lines that have come out in the past 10 years (for those that like consistency in their horror), and the fact that the infected are "smart" (aka they learn) makes for a fun angle. But there are flaws in the story that didn't add up. I ignored them but they kept nagging at me throughout (Eg: How do people supposedly immune suddenly become infected?).

It is a very gory read compared to any other SW book out there. If you have a weak stomach then I wouldn't recommend. But if you like horror and/or Star Wars this is a good book (not great but good) read it once and just shelf it. Have arguments with your friends on the validity of its existence in the SW cannon...it should make for some good conversations for geeks like me:) Not the BEST book but certainly not the WORST.

While the idea of a zombie story set in the Star Wars universe seems as though it may be interesting, the actual execution in this novel is at best ineffective. And at worst, laughable. (There may be spoilers below.)

I have relatively low standards for fiction novels set within popular, well-known film universes. If major characters from the genre appear I assume that the novel will be flat, two-dimensional and lacking in character development. This novel didn't meet those low expectations. The best thing I can say about Death Troopers is that it is a very quick read, easily finished in an evening if you are so inclined.

Character development is non-existent. All the characters you are introduced to in Death Troopers remain shallow, static stereotypes throughout the story. And when two major cannon characters are added to the story half-way through they don't even have that much depth. Indeed, they appear to be cardboard cutouts of their namesakes. I found it incredibly difficult to care about any of the characters or what happened to them. Oddly, the character that I liked the most was the one I feel the author wanted you to like the least. And while his actions evolved through the story it felt contrived, as though they served primarily as a plot device rather than actual character growth.

There are plot holes in the story that you can fly the an entire Star Destroyer (and the author flogs how large they are) through. Let's start with the most painful; the zombies are created by a virus which our protagonists are immune to. And yet they can STILL become zombies if they are bitten by zombies. Excuse me? You're immune to the zombie virus, but can still become one? Then there is the zombie of a prisoner that was dead for two weeks before the barge was infected with the virus. How did a dead body get infected? While there are (many) more, these felt the most egregious.

At no point in time did I feel any suspense or horror in this novel. There was plenty of gore, but none of it lead to a sense of suspense.

The old adage says you should never judge a book by its cover.

Maybe we should update it to say that we should never judge a book by its cover or its Internet marketing campaign.

Images of the cover for this "Star Wars" book began to slip out months ago along with the tease of stormtroopers plus zombies. Based on that alone, the novel had to be worth reading, right?

Yes and no.

As a standalone novel in the "Star Wars" universe, the books is an enjoyable enough story as author Joe Schreiber introduces us to a bunch of character who are to set to be potential zombie fodder early in the story.

The story has a nice sense of atmosphere to it. A prison ship breaks down with a full compliment of prisoners and is forced to dock with an abandoned star destroyer for help and to try and find parts. Hope turns to fear as a mysterious disease comes back on board, wiping out most of the crew and prisoners apart from a handful of survivors with immunity to the disease. Then, the dead start rising and become zombies, leading to lots of chasing and running.

The problem with "Death Troopers" is that there's a twist mid-way through that completely took me out of the story and had me rolling my eyes. And the book never recovered from that moment. In fact, a large chunk of the second half of the book depends on this twist, making it virtually impossible to escape it or maybe pretend it didn't happen and get back to some zombie stormtrooper mayhem.

Let me just say right off the top that I am not normally a fan of horror books. I realize that the genre is popular now, but zombies and the undead hold no particular appeal for me. However, Death Troopers is a Star Wars book, so I decided to give it a try. I was not familiar with Joe Schreiber as this is the first of his books I have read.

The basic plot of Death Troopers is fairly straightforward. The Imperial prison barge Purge is packed with 500 prisoners being transported to an isolated penal colony. In the first stages of the book we have the normal kind of prison story with prisoners fighting prisoners, guards exercising their power, a warden of questionable character, etc. We are introduced to most of the main characters. Then everything changes. The barge's thrusters fail and the barge comes to a halt in the vicinity of what appears to be a deserted Star Destroyer. A boarding party is sent on to the Star Destroyer to see if any engine parts can be found. The Star Destroyer is dark and spooky, and things quickly go amiss. Only part of the boarding party makes it alive back to the Purge, and they unknowingly bring a horrible disease back with them that quickly attacks the barge's population. Death comes for almost all. Then the dead begin to rise and come after the six survivors, including two surprise characters not listed in the Dramatis Personae in the front of the book.

The primary characters are just superficially developed in the book. We only get to know a little bit about them. The book is almost nonstop action, but it never seemed to be particularly scary. Gross in places, yes. Lots of blood and gore. Lots of shambling undead and lots of disgusting scenes, but not really terrifying. One of the contributing factors to this is that the two surprise characters are icons in Star Wars lore, and you know that they are not going to die.

Mr. Schreiber's writing is acceptable. The story moves along quickly through short chapters, and I did find that I wanted to see what happened next at the end of each chapter. I suspect that the book is doing well enough so that more tales of this Star Wars genre will be published. They are just never going to be my favorites.

One last aside - I would like to have seen how Darth Vader or a Master Jedi would have dealt with the situation on the barge and the Star Destroyer. That could be interesting.

The stand alone horror novel "Death Troopers" pits zombie hordes against uninteresting characters and forces classic Star Wars characters to carry a regurgitated theme. Ultimately the novel occurs in the Star Wars universe for the pre-existing cultures, races, and equipment yet the author does not utilize the primary defining element from other science fiction series which are the Jedi. Therefore it simplifies any background development on the author's part to generate a zombie story.

The deceptively long content and mediocre editing does not help much either. The 45 chapters are relatively short, each approximately 5 pages in length, and the first page of each one begins half way down the page reducing the sum total of pages by over 20. In Chapter 7, Sartoris splits a boarding party into two groups, suddenly the two Stormtroopers migrate from to his group after separation. I do not believe firing laser cannons on an X-wing will move it while on a hanger deck. The author does not honor the meaning behind the Wookiee life debt either.

I anticipated exciting encounters for the mixed genre, maybe undead Jedi living off death or an anti-Force employing new or more twisted powers. Nope, it is regular zombies attacking regular non-zombies in the Star Wars universe. The 30 pages excerpt from "Outcast" was more entertaining.

Thank you.

I ordered this book based on it being in the Star Wars series, and read it without knowing much about the plot except that it was written by a horror author. The book was as dark and ominous as you would expect, with mutants, killers, diseases, corruption, thieves, etc. I think I expected a bit more plot. About halfway thru the story, some plot turns tried to make it more exciting, but the dialogue seemed stale and flat. You want to root for the bad guys to kill them off just in annoyance, but the whatever bad-thing was so vague and hard to relate to that couldn't really carry the book. If you like quasi-zombie/quasi-plague books, this is okay for a quick read. For plagues - Cobra Event or The Hot Zone are much better written and have stronger scare-factors. For Star Wars fans, this book could be skimmed or just read a summary later on wikipedia to get the entire plot encapsulated in a paragraph or two. The fan trailers for the book on youtube are wayyyyy better than it merits.