Review: Crimson Climb Is E.K. Johnston's Best Star Wars Book Yet
And I say that as a huge Ahsoka novel fan.
When survival is your only objective, and you’ll do anything to make surviving easier, what happens when you have to start sacrificing others to save yourself?
E.K. Johnston’s Crimson Climb is a fast-paced tale of trauma, resilience, and self-discovery. Han and Qi’ra have just been separated, and she now finds herself back in the White Worm sewers unsure of whether she will live or die.
Her journey from those sewers to becoming a trusted companion of Dryden Vos is, truly, a climb. Until now, we didn’t get to see how Qi’ra ended up on that yacht. Now we get to see the entire sequence of events. It’s brutal. It’s heartbreaking. It’s also more Qi’ra — and who’s going to complain about that?
Qi’ra was brilliantly written here, and Johnston points to Rae Carson and Mur Lafferty for helping to expand and enrich the character in their own books featuring her in the acknowledgments. The author took that source material and ran with it, in a good way. Reading those two books and then going straight into this one, Qi’ra is the same — familiar, as if three different authors hadn’t been responsible for writing her in books. That’s hard to do, but certainly not impossible — The High Republic writers do it. We see it again here, and it’s comforting, and then Johnston gets to develop the character even further. And she does a great job.
For some context, the book takes place over about a year and a half timespan, from that moment in the Solo movie where Han and Qi’ra are separated onward — but not leading up directly to where we meet up with her again in the movie. That’s 13 BBY to 12 BBY, for anyone who’s asking.
Some of this book feels like you’re reading a video game, and I personally love that. It’s also all about crime syndicates, so if you like drama of the organized crime variety, in Star Wars, you’re going to lose your mind over this book in a good way.
I’ve enjoyed E.K. Johnson’s past Star Wars books, so I had a feeling I was going to like this one too, but I may have liked it more than I expected to. I will say that this book is more action-heavy and suspenseful than her past novels, so if that was an issue for you before, it may be less of a hangup with this one.
It’s still the same author, though. So if you’re not a fan of the writing in general, there’s a chance you won’t love this book. But I can’t speak for you personally, so I’d encourage you to give it a try.
I’d also encourage you to give this book a try even if you’ve had other issues with this author’s previous books. I read Crimson Climb with common fan criticisms in mind, and personally didn’t find the issues people have pointed out in other books in this one. But I’m just one person, so I can’t speak outside of my own experience or any further on that. Do let me know if you disagree when you read it, though. Let’s talk about it. We’re a community for a reason.
Other things about the book I liked: The characters. EK Johnston is a master at building interesting, complex characters, and not just with her main characters either. Her stories are composed of full casts of characters who work together as an ensemble to drive the story forward, and in this book, it works exceptionally well.
I loved that although Qi’ra is reminded of Han at different points in the story, she doesn’t spend the entire book thinking about him or constantly trying to get to him. E.K. Johnston isn’t perfect — no author is — but she would never let a female character’s entire personality revolve around a man like that. I’m mostly joking. But it made such a difference with Padmé Amidala in the Queens books, and it matters for Qi’ra too. Qi’ra has other priorities. Han is, presumably, safe, and she can’t afford to expend valuable energy worrying about him. She has to worry about herself.
And I loved learning more about Crimson Dawn and how it operates. There’s so much interesting lore here. More, please.
I can’t wait to read this book again someday. I’m sure there were a lot of small details I missed, since I actually could not put it down once I started (and I tried). It’s truly something special, and I hope you give it the chance it deserves. You might even find things about it that you like. You could fall in love with it. There’s only one way to find out.
Crimson Climb by E.K. Johnston is available now wherever you get your Star Wars books.
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