Rebel Force #5: Trapped

By Alex Wheeler

Published by Scholastic

Adrick's Rating:   3 out of 4

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When valuable prisoner Lune Divinian disappears from his cell on Yavin 4, Luke is determined to find him. As the sole link to X-7, the assassin sent to kill Luke, Div is the only hope to staying a step ahead of the Empire

Across the galaxy, X-7 has escaped from Imperial custody. Caught between the past and the present, X-7 must fight the only battle for which he’s not prepared: the battle with his identity. But his desperate confusion makes him more dangerous than ever.

A chance encounter and a figure from the past bring X-7, Luke, and Div together for a final showdown that will reveal everything—or destroy them all.

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Adrick:

    I will admit, with the Rebel Force books being released so far apart, it’s sometimes difficult for me to recall the details of each individual entry. That said, Trapped is probably the best book in the entire series, and would deserve mention on a list of best Star Wars young adult books. (Maybe one day I’ll get around to making such a list.)

One of the reasons I enjoyed the book was seeing Luke wrestling with the ethical dilemmas that come with being a Rebel. Luke makes a choice not to torture a prisoner as it would not be right, either for a Jedi or an Alliance member. In a time when Star Wars literature has been treading some pretty murky waters, it’s nice to see the characters making some positive choices.

It would be difficult to summarize the plot and the ways in which this book stands out from the others in the series without giving the surprises away. Wheeler has done an outstanding job of setting the stakes high for all of the characters, building on almost a decade’s worth of story established in Jude Watson’s Jedi series. At the same time, she makes the adventure relevant to the classic era film characters.

Wheeler also dares to go for the unexpected in this installment, and I can’t really say more without giving it away. If you think you know what was to come from reading the other books (and I certainly did) you’ll be pleasantly surprised. I’ve been slow to warm to the overall storyline of Rebel Force, and the execution has been pretty uneven in the past, but this installment was excellent and I’m looking forward to seeing the conclusion in #6: Uprising.

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Adrick:

    Very little to mention here, save for the casual use of a Chiss in a Rebellion-era story — I realize that continuity errors are inevitable, but this is really something I feel should have been caught.

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Adrick:

    The fates of many of Watson’s characters from the previous series are pretty grim—no happy endings there.

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