#duckywrites

The sound of the Skype call tone interrupted the calm silence of his bedroom. Riku tapped the answer button and set the tablet up to face him.

"Hey Kai. How was the drive over here?" "It was good! I really like Midgar so far!" Riku smiled at her enthusiasm for his home city. It was endearing and really cute. "Its so different then Destiny Islands." "Are you sure? I've been to the islands during the summer." Kairi laughed, leaning back into the hotel chair. The hotel she was staying in was cheap and run down. He offered to help pay for the hotel, but she refused, saying something about how the trip was about him. "You have a point, but there is a considerable difference between the islands and Midgar, Riku." "You're trying to sell a sweater that I've owned my entire life." Riku pointed out, smiling again. He definitely was happy that she was here in the city and he was looking forward to seeing her again. It had been a few years since they had visited their summer home, it was really nice to have that type of relaxed feeling again. "Oh! Sassy Sue over here. Come on Riku, don't look so dazed. I'm here in Midgar for you." "I have a feeling that you're not telling me the full story." "What do you mean?" Clearly she was playing innocent. He knew her well enough to see that. "Why would you come all the way from Destiny Islands to Midgar just to see me?" Kairi shrugged, and leaned forward to grab an envelope. She sat back and started to open it. The white envelope was ripped open and it looked used for a notebook as well. This only made him worry for a second. "Miss Evelon," She started to read the letter, trying to hide her mouth with the paper. It was easy to see she was beginning to smile. "We have reviewed your application and essay, and after careful considerations, we at Midgar University have accepted your application." Riku listened carefully and was absolute shocked. She had gotten accepted into MU too? He couldn't stop the ear to ear grin that appeared on his face. "Kairi! That's so cool! Congratulations!" The redhead put the letter and envelope back onto the desk, matching his grin with her own. "I didn't want to tell you until I was here, so we could tour the campus together!" To him, the way she said it sounded like a date. His cheeks turned a light pink at the thought. "Of course! I just can't believe you kept this from me!" He exclaimed, keeping the smile on his face. From the second floor, he heard the door open and close. Clearly it was his father, coming home from work. "I'm not sorry. Seeing your face made it all worthwhile." She chuckled, pushing her bangs out of her face. She noticed that he had turned away from the screen and towards his door. "Riku?" An older man's voice called faintly through the door. The boy turned back to the tablet and frowned. "I'll talk to you later, okay?" "Yeah of course. Text me later.." After waving to his friend, he ended the call and shut off the screen. Honestly, he hated to end the call there, but his dad called for him and it was just best to go. Leaving his tablet on the desk, he pushed out of his chair and headed towards the door. 'What could he possibly want now?' Riku thought to himself as he exited his bedroom and headed down the hallway towards the stairs. As he made it to the stairs, Kadaj poked his head out of his room and saw his youngest brother, giving him a knowingly smirk. "What do you want Kadaj? I don't have the time." The boy started for the stairs only to have his big brother block the stairway. "I just thought you would like to hear what I heard the other day." Kadaj crossed his arms over his chest. Out of all his brothers, Kadaj was the one he liked the least. He was always acting like he was better than everyone else and it drove Riku crazy. "I could hardly care less, 'Dajie." The older brother flinched at the childish nickname. "Let me pass, dad called for me." Kadaj moved out of the way, but as Riku started to move for the steps, he said something to get him to stop. "Dad was talking to the head administer of MU a few days ago." Riku turned swiftly and looked at his brother. His mind raced but the only question he wanted answered was 'Why?'. "And?" "And, you should be careful. Dad probably has something up his sleeve." Kadaj shrugged and turned back towards his room, leaving Riku to find the answers himself. He took one last look at his brother before proceeding down the stairs. What did he mean by be careful? Kadaj almost never tried to protect him, especially when it came to their father. There were many times he would throw Riku under the bus even if it was his fault. Riku's stomach twisted into knots as he reached the bottom of the stairs. Slowly he walked past the foyer and into the sitting room to the right of the stairs. Each step he took made his heart race faster and faster. His heart seemed to stop the moment he passed under the white arch and saw his father standing with his back to him, facing the large bay window. Rain decorated the glass with little splatters. If he wasn't so anxious at the moment, he would have thought the scene was so calming. "You called for me, dad?" Riku asked, taking a few steps forward towards his father, heart practically in his throat. Kadaj's warning kept echoing in his head, causing his already high anxiety to skyrocket. Sephiroth kept looking out the window as he spoke in a low monotone voice. "Take a seat, Riku." Obeying his father, he took a seat on the white leather couch, sitting as far away as he could. Was he scared of his father? No doubt about that. Whenever his father got angry, he would reserve himself into a cold and calculating manner and would attack with the determination to break the inner core of the person he was angry at. It was great for when he had served in the Wutai War, but being a father to someone with some mental issues was Riku's one way ticket to a nervous breakdown. Sephiroth turned towards his son with a blank expression on his face and took a seat on the other side of the couch, blatantly passing the armchair that he could have sat in. The house was an eerie calm as Riku waited for his father to speak. "I've pulled you out of Midgar University." Riku sat in shock the moment he heard those words. Did he even hear him right? Everything that he had worked for, vanished the moment his father opened his mouth. He sacrificed a lot of his free time to enter the university right after high school ended, mainly by making sure his GPA was a 4.0 and had several scholarships lined up. He even had a summer job lined up to pay for things that the scholarships didn't, like books or extra items. "Why would you do that?!" Anger flared inside of Riku, causing him to stand up and raise his voice. Never in his life had he even so much as gave his father a dirty look without immense fear he would retaliate in some way, but this was the last straw. His hands started to shake so bad he curled them into a ball and held them to his side. Sephiroth's eyebrows scrunched together and his aquamarine eyes hardened. The boy knew he screwed up bad, but his anger only clouded his judgement. "Sit down, Riku. I will not ask you again." "Not until you tell me why you ruined my life!" Riku turned around and took several steps away from his dad, running his hands through his long hair. He hardly got mad but when he did, he would absolutely loose it. His anger was one of the horrible traits he had gotten from his father. He knew better than to lash out at Sephiroth but there was clearly something else going down that only made Riku's nerve spike to fight mode. "Ruined your life?" Standing up, Sephiroth growled at his son. He crossed the room in three strides and grabbed his wrist, spinning the boy around. Shock crossed Riku's face as he stared at his dad, the anger subsiding rapidly. "You're the one that ruined my life. If it wasn't for your mother, I would have gotten rid of you a lot sooner." Time froze for Riku in that moment. The words echoed in his head, combining with the pain of his wrist being squeezed started to break him down, though he refused to let tears fall as he started to snap out of his paused state. "W-What?" The word came out as a croak. His mind was still processing what his father said. The grip on his hand was released, as Sephiroth stepped away from him. Clearly his goal was to hurt Riku beyond compare, and it worked. He stumbled back and hit his back against the pillar for the door. "I don't need to explain my actions to you. For your mother's sake, I'm sending you to a private college." Again, what? For his mother's sake? If Sephiroth hated him so much, why was he going out of his way to send him to a private college? Nothing was making sense, and it only made his head hurt with swarming thoughts. It was as if his father shook a nest of wasps and let it loose in his brain. "Private college?" Riku took a moment to let his heart calm down before speaking. His hand started to shake a bit. Combined with his racing heart, he could only assume he was on the verge of a anxiety attack. He had to leave the room soon or he wouldn't be able to hide his broken side, only which would be ridiculed by his father. There was a moment of silence between them as Sephiroth watched his son with cat-like eyes. Riku adverted his gaze down, his bangs covering his eyes to hide the tears that started to well up. He had to curl his hands tighter to keep them from shaking further. "Yes, private college. You leave in the morning." Morning? That wasn't much time to pack his things or say goodbye to his brothers. "M-May I be excused to pack?" The words were choked and wobbly, a side affect of his throat tightening. His eyes looked up through his screen of silver hair to see his father wave him away as if it didn't matter to him whether or not he was going to pack. Riku gave his father a curt bow before running back to his room upstairs, where he shut the door and fell against it. He slid down to the floor and covered his mouth to hide his uncontrollable sobbing as much as possible. How could his father do this to him? Unlike his brothers, he was as much as an exemplary son as he possibly could be. He would never miss curfew, always landed on the honor roll, and was always offered to help the family in every way he could. Riku couldn't possibly think of why his father hated him with such a passion that he would even say something like that. Even going as far as sending him away, only re-sparked the fire in his self-hatred pyre. All of this only made him cry harder, tears staining his shirt. As his started to calm down, and the anxiety pressure lowered, there was a chocobo wark that interrupted his thoughts. It was Kairi's personal text tone, one she set for him. It always reminded him of the time when he first met her. She had nearly bowled him over on a runaway chocobo, only to later teach him how to ride them. Riku crawled over to his desk and grabbed the phone, then resumed to sit on the floor with his back against the desk. Whenever he had his panic attacks being down on the floor helped ground him faster. He really didn't know why it helped but he wouldn't complain when he would come out of a panic attack faster. [Kairi: r u ok??? pls txt me] His fingers stumbled as he proceeded to type his response to her, causing him to rely on auto correct to fix his mistakes. [Riku: Are you at the hotel? I need to see you ASAP.] Barely half a minute later, her response came in.

Today Dean admitted to himself that he was maybe in love with his best friend.

Castiel being a dude with a dong had thrown him off for a long time, sure. He had never considered that he might be anything other than straight. And he wasn’t even sure this situation counted, anyway. The body he was attracted to was male, but he didn’t know if angels even had genders.

Either way, Dean had never looked at another man the same way he looked at Castiel.

He couldn’t even begin to guess when he had actually fallen in love with him, but it was probably a long time ago.

It could have been the time Castiel healed Sam’s hand. A ghost threw his brother down a staircase and he crushed several bones in his right hand when he landed. And Cas, exhausted after fleeing the other angels all day and running on fumes, still came running and healed that hand, no questions asked.

Or maybe it was the time Cas sat with him and watched the entirety of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly before telling Dean that he had no idea what a cowboy was. Also, who exactly is Clint Eastwood? And why is it called a spaghetti western if no Italian food is involved?

Maybe there wasn’t one specific moment. Maybe it was just a little bit of everything that led up to today.

When he got back to the bunker in the late afternoon after a supply run, Cas wasn’t in his guest room. Or on the couch, or in the library, or in the war room. He peeked into the cavernous garage, thinking maybe he missed him the first time. He ducked into the firing range and then shook his head on his way out, feeling dumb for thinking that Cas would ever be in there. He eventually found the angel in the kitchen, attempting to cook of all things.

“Hey Cas, whatcha got going?” he asked. Cas was bent over, peering through the window on the front of the oven, focused intently on whatever he had in there. Dean circled to the other side of the island to get a better look inside. And at Cas’s ass, not that he’d ever admit it.

Cas started and moved to block Dean from looking through the glass. “I’m making a pie,” he said. Dean was immediately suspicious. Cas was refusing to make eye contact, looking anywhere but at the only other person in the room.

“Oh, I see.” Dean nudged him aside and crouched down to look in the oven. He frowned. “What kind there, buddy? Charcoal filled? Flame-broiled?” The pie had turned into a molten mound.

Cas squatted next to him to look. “It was meant to be filled with cherries,” he said, also frowning. “I think I may have made a grave error in the baking process.”

Dean straightened up and then glanced down at the temperature gauge. It was set at 500 degrees. “Christ, Cas, you can’t bake a pie at this temp!” He moved to turn the heat off, then grabbed the fire extinguisher before opening the oven door.

“Well, I wanted to surprise you, but I was distracted and got started later than expected. I thought it would bake faster this way,” Cas rushed out, flustered, and fanned at the smoke billowing off his creation. “But I think I may have had the wrong idea. But there’s coffee, and I got us A Fistful of Dollars at the store. I thought we could view it together.” He gestured quickly towards a steaming mug on the counter next to the new DVD, his movements panicked.

Dean finished venting the smoke and set the lava pie out to cool so he could throw it away. At least the bunker wouldn’t burn down today, though it had been too close for comfort. He shucked the oven mitts while he gathered his thoughts.

“Huh. That actually sounds great, even if the pie didn’t turn out too good,” Dean assured him. A strong swell of something rose in his chest, but he shoved it away. (It may have been affection, but love? No.)

He picked up the mug and took a sip, then quickly suppressed a gag. Cas had mixed up the salt and the sweetener again. He choked down the salty coffee anyway and replaced the mug on the counter.

Cas stared down at the pie on the counter next to them and sighed. “I apologize, Dean. I thought things would turn out better,” he murmured.

Dean grabbed him and pulled him into a warm hug. After a few seconds, he murmured, “I still think it turned out great. Let’s go watch some Eastwood, we can clean this up later.”

It was sometime during the movie that it occurred to him that what he was feeling might be more than platonic. They were sitting closer than they normally would, which was fine, really, and he could feel Cas’s eyes on him as the opening score played. Cas reached for his hand out of nowhere during the first act, and Dean hesitated for a moment, but eventually allowed their hands to tangle. Hand holding, alone here in the dark, was probably fine. No one else needed to know.

The Stranger was proving how fast on the draw he was when Castiel leaned in to rest his head on Dean’s shoulder. Dean was fine. It wasn’t much different than holding hands, right? The intense fluttering in his gut was fine. The sweating palms and goose flesh were fine, too. Even his rushing heart rate would calm down eventually.

As The Stranger was riding into the hills for the final shot of the movie, he gave it up and replaced “more than platonic” with what it actually was: he wanted Cas. He was in love with his best friend. And as Dan Savio’s score faded at the end of the credits, he decided that was okay with him.

After the movie, they walked back towards the bedrooms together. When Cas tried to let go of his hand at the entrance to his guest room, Dean took a breath and pulled him into a gentle kiss instead. Cas smiled against his mouth, and then pulled him into the room.

Bookstores are magical places, full of lore and adventures and heroes and villains. They contained tales of courageous knights and dark night skies, of heroin addiction and brave heroines.

More importantly, they offer an escape from your shitty, shitty life.

Sam knew this, and it’s why he spent so much time curled up in the corners of bookstores as a kid, reading the adventures of Sherlock Holmes and the wacky mishaps of Alice and her white rabbit. He would carry these adventures over to the manga section, which few customers in small Midwestern towns explored, and as he read he could pretend that the world on the other side of the shelves had ceased to exist.

These days, when Dean annoyed him, he would still sometimes sneak off to find the local bookstores, even though he was grown and most of the smaller ones didn’t have a manga section.

The store he’d found today was called LORD OF THE FILES. There was a chalkboard sign on the sidewalk outside the door. On it, in large letters, were written the words:

DAILY SPECIALS:

e.e. cummings and Walt Whitman and Lord Tennyson -- picked same-day!  

Perfectly tossed Stephen King and Kurt Vonnegut to start your meal!

Freshly grilled Margaret Atwood and Maya Angelou to savor and amaze!

Ian Fleming and J.K. Rowling to cleanse the tastebuds!

COME INSIDE AND FEED YOUR LITERARY APPETITE!

Sam thought their puns were crap. But going back to the motel meant going back to a majorly hungover and pissy Dean, so it would have to do.

Inside, he found cafe tables and chairs arranged to display the authors advertised outside, with signs suggesting he “try a sample” and that “rare first editions are available -- ask at the front desk!” These tables were largely untouched.

Several other tables and chairs were set up in front of the windows, but these held actual living customers, sipping coffees from the café next door and reading books he suspected they didn’t intend to purchase.

Sam didn’t think the owner of the store minded much. She was seated behind the front counter, a woman of at least sixty, with spectacles perched on her nose that would normally hang, he saw, from the end of the delicate chain hooked around her neck. She was reading a battered copy of “The Silence of the Lambs.” She had not looked up when he came in.

Posters on the wall advertised for the “Last Harry Potter Adventure -- Coming soon!” Dust hung in the air. The shelving had been painted at one point, but that paint had faded over time to a mushy no-color. Foot traffic had faded the green carpet in the aisles, and the wallpaper was peeling at the seams.

He skipped over the table displays and the seating near the front window and set out for the fiction section behind them. He ran his index finger over the spines of the titles on the shelves, head tilted to the right, looking for a story he could lose himself in for an hour or so. On a whim, he pulled out a book at random, noticed it had a pirate on the cover, and headed for the back of the store, looking for a quiet spot he could read in undisturbed.

Unfortunately, Sam had been so intent on getting lost in his new literary treasure that he forgot to look down and promptly tripped over something in the aisle.

“Hey man, what the fuck?!”

There was a young woman sitting on the ground, leaning up against the back wall in the corner with her legs outstretched. It was her legs that had tripped Sam, and he glared down at them for a moment while he regained his balance.

Apparently, the girl didn’t appreciate the look on his face. “Seriously, you just going to stand there looking like a mouth-breather, or are you going to say sorry?” she asked, scowling up at him.

Sam grimaced, but apologized. “Sorry,” he said to her. “I didn’t see you there.”

“Clearly you have no peripheral vision, twatwaffle,” she went on, undeterred. Her face was turning red, and she pointed at him for emphasis. “I’m having a goddamn rough day. Couldn’t you have looked before you dragged your knuckles over here? Or were you too busy having delusions of adequacy?”

Sam felt his mouth drop open in outrage. “Look, I said I was sorry! What do you want from me?” He leaned down over her as he spoke, trying to keep his voice at a respectful volume.

“I want for you to have looked before you bumbled your way over here, Sasquatch!” she said, not bothering to keep her voice down at all.

Sam felt the last of his patience go up in smoke. He’d dealt with Dean being an ass all morning. He didn’t need this shit.

“Jesus Christ lady, seriously?” he hissed. “I am sorry that I tripped over you, even though you were sitting in the middle of the floor in a public place. Next time, I’ll make sure to find a detour, since my use of this aisle has inconvenienced you enough that you feel the need to yell at me in a quiet bookstore!” His last words were much louder than the first, and he winced when he heard a sharp shushing noise from the front counter. At this, his anger drained out of him, and he lifted a hand to rub over his mouth.

At this, her face seemed to soften. “Sorry, mouth-breather,” she apologized. “I shouldn’t have gone off like that. Today has sucked major ass so far.” She grabbed the shelf behind her and pushed herself up to stand.

“Maybe we could start over?” Sam asked. He stuck out his hand. “My name is Sam Twatwaffle the Mouth-Breather, and I really hope you don’t kiss your mother with that mouth.”

“Hey! I’ll kiss who I damn well please, assmunch,” she said, laughing, and shook his hand. “My name’s (Y/N) and I have an attitude problem.”

“Nice to meet you,” Sam said. He motioned to her book. “What are you reading?”

“Oh, it’s nothing, just feeding an old hobby.” She closed the book and tucked it against her chest, but not before Sam caught a glimpse of the title.

“An old hobby, huh? You have a strange set of interests,” he said. The book was titled “A Complete History of Demonology”, and Sam knew it well.

She chuckled, unbothered by his assessment, and turned to put the book back on the shelf. For the first time, he had a chance to look her over.

She was dressed for an office job, but also wore chipped blue nail polish, and flames from a tattoo on the back of her neck peeked out over her collar. Her pants didn’t quite match her blazer, and there were wrinkles in her button-down shirt. She was not a businesswoman, even if her look was pretty convincing.

The girl made no move to increase the distance between them. She seemed completely comfortable standing next to him in the cramped aisle, despite their obvious size difference. As she searched for the slot for her book, she also reached up and pushed her chin-length hair behind one ear, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye. Then he noticed the bulge at the small of her back. This girl was packing heat. All of his observations about this girl suddenly clicked into place. He knew what she was.

He casually leaned against the shelf to her right. He was easily a foot taller, even with her heels. “So, any of the witnesses smell rotten eggs?” he asked.

She turned so fast she almost ran into him. Her eyes widened just a fraction, then narrowed as she looked up at him. He thought he was in for another tirade, but instead she snorted in a very ungraceful way. Then she began laughing so hard, he was shocked the owner didn’t tell her to quiet down.

“Oh god, that’s hilarious! How does a clumsy oaf like you even begin to hunt?” she said, snorting again. Then something seemed to dawn on her. “Oh shit! You wouldn’t happen to have a friend named Dean, would you?” she asked.

“Yeah I do, actually,” Sam answered. “He’s my brother…” He trailed off as the look on her face changed from amusement to chagrin. From her expression, Sam suspected that she knew Dean in a not-so-platonic way. Damn. Between her grin and her snorting and her creative insults, he had grown to like this girl, and it turned out she was probably one of his brother’s hit-and-runs. “You know him?” he asked resignedly.

“Yeah, I turned him down at the bar last night.” Sam blinked. “You know, the one down the road? I think it’s called The Blue Danube or something stupid like that. I could tell he was here hunting, but I wasn’t about to leave with him. He was wasted, dude.” She snorted again.

Realization dawned. “Oh, yeah! He mentioned you this morning!” Maybe they could be friends after all.

“How did you know he was talking about me?” she asked. “Plenty of girls turned him down last night. He really didn’t bring his A game.”

Sam broke eye contact with her, trying not to grin. “Well, um, I’m guessing you were the one that shot him down--”

“Didn’t I just say--” she interrupted.

“--and then called him a fuckmuppet?” Sam finished.

She barked out a laugh. “Oh yeah! That was one of my better insults of the night!” Her eyes lit up, and her mouth turned up into a smirk at the memory.

“He told me he thought you were a lesbian.”

Her smirk morphed into outrage. “Are you fucking serious?! Just because I turned him down? You tell that cockknob--”

“Calm down!” Sam cut in hastily, before they could get shushed again. “I got it. I’ll make sure to tell him it was because --”

“-- He’s a Grade A Jackass.” She seemed very adamant he got the message.

“Right. He’s a Grade A Jackass. Next time I see him, I’ll tell him, ‘(Y/N) thinks you don’t deserve sex because you’re a Grade A jackass.’”

“Good.” She nodded. Now that they had worked that out, she turned back to pick her book back off the shelf. “So… since there’s no sulfur involved, do you have any idea what could kill six people, in their homes and without even touching them, by internal decapitation?”

“Huh,” Sam said, thinking back to the reports that had brought them to this town. “We haven’t gotten a chance to talk to the coroner. You mean their skulls separated from their spine without any external damage?”

“Just like that. Makes you wanna vom, huh?” She shuddered. “It’s freaking eerie, even for me.”

“Just a bit.” Sam made a face. “Could be a witch. How much research have you done? Where are you staying? We could compare notes.”

She held up the book. “You’re looking at my research. I’m staying at the Eagle Motel.”

“Hey, us too!” He wondered which room she was in.

“Well, duh, Iron Giant. There’s only one motel in this shithole town. Hey, do you think the name was an intentional reference? Like, are we able to check out any time we like, but we can never leave?” She started giggling again.

He chuckled. “Dunno, but I’ll bring Dean by later. He should be feeling better by then.” At least he hoped so. He wanted to see her call Dean a jackass to his face. It would be priceless, and Sam would make sure to capture it on video.

“For sure. I’m in room five. Say eight? I’m gonna grab some dinner first.”

He nodded. “Yeah, we’ll be there. Eight.”

“Good, don’t be late. Now, sorry, but I need to get some reading in.” She smiled, and then walked away, heading toward the fiction section, back the way he had come. She grabbed the first book she saw on the first display, and settled at one of the tables in the window. Sam turned and sat on the floor, right where she’d been sitting five minutes ago before he’d run her over.

He looked down at his book. He had picked up “Treasure Island” by Robert Louis Stevenson. Sam had read it before, but he cracked the spine and dove in anyway.

An hour later, he looked up, and (Y/N) was still at the table. A plastic bag sat at her elbow, and he saw the corner of the demon book poking out of the top. She was still reading whatever book she had grabbed from the display. Sam went back to his own reading.

The next time he looked up, her book had been replaced on the display, and she was leaving. As she closed the door behind her, the bell tied to the door handle rang once, a clear, high note, and then she was gone.

Sam returned his book to the shelf, and then ducked out himself. On the short walk back to the motel he tipped his head back and inhaled the cool fall air. He found himself looking forward to the evening.

Of all the sci-fi novels I get the pleasure of reading, Star Wars novels are my absolute favorite, and this novel is a fine addition to the Disney Star Wars canon. Phasma tells the backstory of our favorite First Order captain, and fleshes out the character (and the First Order as a whole) in a much-needed way. 

This story is told through a Resistance spy passing along her intelligence to a mysterious enemy of Phasma, and begins with the captain’s early life on a planet that is dying for unknown reasons. She and her band of warriors lead a rough hunter-gatherer nomadic existence, which is disrupted when Brendol Hux crash lands on the system. Phasma learns he is looking for the fiercest warriors in the galaxy to join the First Order, and she decides her best chance to get off-planet is to prove she’s the genuine article.  

Overall, the world building in this novel is incredible, and I could tell Dawson had taken great care to make her new planet feel spacious. Parnassos comes complete with a few separate cultures and many different terrains, and I felt the tedium of Brendol and Phasma’s travels in a way I wouldn’t normally in a sci-fi novel. As a warning however, it takes a lot of pages to build a world this size, and so this novel feels longer than normal Star Wars books.

Additionally, Phasma herself feels as though she has more agency in this story than the movies. We all know she can be incredibly intimidating in the films, but is underutilized in my opinion. This story made her both deadly and sympathetic, which I found impressive considering the level of pain she inflicts on many other characters. It’s also important to note that beyond the captain herself, there are many other fearsome female warriors that take center stage in this story, which I appreciated.