Star Wars: Death Troopers
Hardcover
By Joe Schreiber
LucasBooks
Release Date: October 13, 2009

Are you looking for a new adventure in the Star Wars Expanded Universe? Well if you are then you have to pick up Star Wars: Death Troopers. Obviously it is not the ordinary Star Wars story, but that is what makes it so great. All that and you get to add a zombie-like virus to the mix. Be warned though, this isn’t your grandmother’s zombie virus so you will be fairly interested in seeing what is different about these particular zombies.

The story centers around a prison barge called Purge that transports the galaxy’s worst criminals to their final destination. When the ship seems to have broken down, they find that their only refuge and only saving grace is a Star Destroyer that has been found to be empty and drifting in a rarely traveled region of space. Seem odd to you? Well it should because this is where the craziness is going to come to a head and you will see it all unfold from the eyes of a couple of fan favorites and some new characters as they fight to survive the whole ordeal.

I really loved the choices made regarding the setting and mood of the story. Joe Schreiber did a great job of setting up the mood as a horror story while not losing any part of the amazing Star Wars universe feel. I would be really interested to see more stories in this style told in the Expanded Universe. Of course I obviously don’t want the theme to be overdone and run into the ground, but a it was a refreshing change to the typical weight that comes with an E.U. story. To me it almost felt that the weight of continuity wasn’t needed in this case, which was great.

Since the book is short, the characters don’t get fully explored, but we do get enough to connect with them. This is a feat considering the entirety of the story is confined to about 230 pages. This is definitely a light read which to me is rather refreshing in the age of 500-600 page stories that take multiple days to read. Although that being said I do wish there was a little more to the story because I enjoyed it so much. Maybe we will get to see a follow up to the story since it was left a bit open ended.

Overall though I really enjoyed this romp through the E.U. and hope to hear more from Schreiber whether it is in the same style/theme or just a regular story. I suggest that if you are at all a fan of the Star Wars E.U., check out this interesting take on the characters.

I give Star Wars: Death Troopers a 4 out of 5.