Journey to Star Wars - Phasma (Star Wars)

STAR WARS: PHASMA is a book which I think really shows what the biggest problem with current Star Wars tie-in fiction is, which is the fact nothing is allowed to happen. This is the life story of Captain Phasma, the cowardly but dangerous leader of the First Order's Stormtroopers who brought down the shields of Starkiller Base when someone pointed a gun at her.
The entirety of the book is meant to reconcile the fact she's meant to be terrifying but rolled on her fellow Imperials at the first sign of trouble. About the only time I ever think a cowardly but dangerous villain has ever worked in my history of reading fiction was Cobra Commander in the old Sunbow cartoon--so I'm not sure if this dual characterization was ever meant to work.

So what is Phasma's deal? Basically, she's Furiosa from Mad Max: Fury Road. It turns out she grew up in a post-apocalypse PG-13 savage land where she developed no morals but how to survive. This is actually a pretty awesome backstory but is kind of muted by the fact Star Wars is family friendly so the level of desperation and evil on display is kind of muted. It's like when they did adaptations of Conan the Barbarian, Robocop, and Rambo for kids.

It doesn't help we're really not following Captain Phasma either but a Stormtrooper named Cardinal, who draws immediate questions like, "Do they have Cardinals in Star Wars? Birds or red-robed high ranking priests of the Catholic Church?" He's one of the "Good" Imperials who has been cheerfully educating thousands of children to be soldiers for the Empire before, OH MY FORCE, realizing that this is a bad thing.

I'm a big fan of Imperials and humanizing them. That's why I wrote Lucifer's Star as sort of an homage to Star Wars' villains I also note a lot of people dont seem to understand how indoctrination works as they seem to think being educated in soldiery from birth turns people into soulless robots when it actually just tends to turn them into mentally unstable fanatics as indoctrination isn't Hollywood mind-control. However, I do find it weird that the guy in charge of making ruthless killing machines doesn't seem to realize he's working for the bad guys--I wonder if he was a Grand Admiral Sloane appointment.

Overall, much of the book fails from the fact we don't really get to know Phasma much more than when we met her. She's a two-dimensional monster at the start of the story and remains a two-dimensional monster at the end. Cardinal is interesting as a character but I can't help but find him a bit unbelievable.

5/10

This is a fascinating book. If you've wondered where Phasma came from, what influenced her, how she got to where she is in the present day of the films... a lot of it is here. None of it is told in her POV until the end, but I think that works very well.

What readers should probably know, though, is that it's told by a rebel character who's trying to spin the story out as long as possible so that her First Order captor keeps her alive, so it can get longer than it might need to be in places. But the way the story is told and the timing it's told in is almost as important as its content. Little by little, we learn about Phasma's early life on a ruined planet, always on the edge of destruction, and the steps that led her to become a ruthless officer and a killing machine. Without giving anything away, I think the reason that Phasma never seems to be quite "explained" as a character... we don't exactly get that "aha, that's why she's the way she is" moment... is part of the point. Even with such an incredibly hard childhood and such grueling growing-up years, even with such punishing shaping experiences, everyone does not turn out the same way, and everyone does not choose the same terrible actions. I've never really been all that into Phasma, but this book does make her more interesting, and if you do want to know more about her and also about some of the internal workings of the First Order, I would recommend it.

. BTW... here's the spoiler part, I guess, so don't read it if you don't want to know her ultimate fate in the movie, or clues as to what might happen later on...

(spoiler space... oh, come on, why would you be reading this book if you haven't seen Last Jedi!!!)

Rian Johnson all but came out and said in a recent interview that Phasma will probably be back in Ep 9. He left some STRONG hints that JJ Abrams was going that way with the script... so I think we'll be seeing her again as a continuing character.

I enjoyed the fact that some species, specifically the Gand were used in this book. But some of the ideas, particularly what lead to the great disaster that decimated the world, were extremely simplistic and beneath being used as a plot point in Star Wars.

This book is a must for anyone interested in learning more about the newest Star Wars trilogy. This book answers many questions about how the First Order differs from the Galactic Empire, yet also leaves so much a mystery that it keeps the reader wanting more.

Excellent story, and brilliantly told. I was engaged throughout the novel. The only thing that bugged me was the author's excessive use of the phrase, "for all that," but that took nothing away from the story. Highly recommend it!

This book paints a better picture of Phasma than the movie ever did. Worth the read. This is more like I envisioned her before the Force Awakens came to the theaters. Hope they revive this character in episode VIII.

Fairly mundane and formulaic novel that really doesn't do anything to advance the Star Wars universe. Phasma should have been an interesting part of the cohort of villainous characters in the new trilogy but about all we get to learn from this background is that she's always angry. No sense of a journey or character development. The Star Wars universe can continue on without this novel and we really wouldn't care. And now, having seen The Last Jedi, we can see why they didn't really bother.

Watching The Force Awakens, I got a picture of Captain Phasma in my head: a chrome-plated officer who was a harsh instructor and capable of ordering heinous atrocities, but didn't have a lot of real grit in a pinch (or a trash compactor).

How wrong I was.

Phasma is the Captain's origin story, set on a desolate waste of a planet that evokes Mad Max and Fallout, telling how she leads a group of warriors and a shipwrecked First Order officer on a quest to get off-planet. We don't get a look inside Phasma's head, and that's for the best, as everyone slowly learns just what sort of monster she is.

Be warned, this is one of the grimmer Star Wars books in the canon, but highly recommended if you want some insight into Phasma's character (as well as a few other First Order officers).

This is book that even those like me who haven't ventured beyond the Star Wars films before. This is a book that long time fans and new one can enjoy, and be absolutely HOOKED. You won't want to put it down!

Even though it sheds light onto the mysterious Captain Plasma's past, the way the information is presented allows her to be just as enigmatic as before knowing more about her. Many people, including myself were left disappointed in her role in The Force Awakens, but this book remedies that. She's a total badass and she's ruthless until the end..... of the book. Her story is far from over.

I could not put this book down, the more I read the more I wanted to know! Not only does this book give a terrific backstory to a simple villain, and not only does it help us understand her reasoning for shutting down the shields on Starkiller Base in Episode VII, but it also gives us a view into the First Order as a military and as a way of thinking.
This book introduces 2 new great characters to the main line-up. A Resistance Spy and a First Order soldier named Captain Cardinal, and they both are great for their philosophy on the galaxy, but also their interactions with each other and other characters in the story. Delilah S. Dawson creates a truly strange world, but one that is both unique to Star Wars, and still has a Star Wars feel to it!

While it is often times difficult to recommend a Star Wars novel, as a die-hard fan of the mythology, the one aspect of the Extended Universe that always irked me was that non of it was canon. Sure, I loved that others branched off an wrote "what if" stories about all these wonderful characters, but I wish they had been rooted in truth, as acknowledged by Lucas and co. So, when Disney bought Lucasfilms and everything that went along with it, it made sense to re-label all the Extended Universe novels as "Legends." This was a solid, valid way to say that, while they were stories, they may or may NOT be true. This paved the way for Disney to carve out a true canon set of novels, which excited me greatly. My only real disappointment is that John Jackson Miller, my favorite Star Wars novelist, could not be included in canon after having written at least two masterpieces in "Kenobi" and "The Lost Tribe of the Sith."

Unfortunately, while I always enjoy seeing and reading (when I can) new Star Wars novels, the selection of newly canonized material hasn't really matched the excitement in reality that my hope had reached when first hearing the news. "A New Dawn" seemed unlike most of John Jackson Miller's work, which made sense since I had heard that a consultation group had been formed at Disney to ensure these new canonized books stayed within the larger strategy of books, movies, TV shows, etc. It was weak, in comparison. It lacked characters, even though they've gone on to be expanded in the TV show "Rebels," about whom I cared. It's a hard thing to say, but it bored me.

"Tarkin," "Heir to the Jedi" and "Bloodline" have gone on to improve the thread of stories surrounding the original trilogy, prequels and TV shows, but after reading Delilah S. Dawson's novel "Phasma," which tells the detailed and disturbing origin of the First Order's Captain Phasma, I feel like Disney has finally gotten into the right rhythm with its larger strategy.

Without causing an argument about how much of a rip-off "The Force Awakens" might have been of the original "Star Wars,' (later "A New Hope"), one thing that always bothered me about Episode VII is that the marketing around it heavily included Captain Phasma. As I type this review, I'm looking at a Captain Phasma Funko Pop, as well as two large movie cups from Cinemark and a special pair of 3D glasses, all in the image of Captain Phasma...a character with very little impact in Episode VII and about 5 minutes worth of screen time. Was he greater backstory cut from the film because there was just too much to tell? This lingering issue agitated me until yesterday.

Because I've been intrigued by Phasma since first seeing her picture in magazines and trailers, I was surprised and further intrigued by the fact that Disney was releasing a full-on Phasma novel as part of the "Journey to the Last Jedi," similar to the Episode VII novels that came out giving added weight and backstory to characters like Finn and Poe, characters featured prominently in "The Force Awakens." Does this mean Phasma actually plays a larger role in Episode VIII? Well, considering a comic book series is also being released, but guess is yes!

So, naturally, because I own every other Star Wars novel written, I was at my local Barnes & Noble on Force Friday II purchasing a copy of "Phasma." I'd already seen the ominous cover, so it didn't take much for me to crack it open Friday evening around 5:30 PM. By 10:00 AM Saturday morning, I'd read all 378 pages. I couldn't put it down. Delilah, who wrote her first Star Wars vignette, "The Perfect Weapon," my favorite from the pre-Episode VII onslaught of books and stories, also was given the charge to form the entire backstory of Captain Phasma. And it does not disappoint. Not for one. single. second.

Phasma is brutal. Vindictive. Pure evil. And she is exactly why the First Order troops make original trilogy-era Stormtroopers seem like kids on a pre-school playground. Delilah masterfully writes her origin around a connection to Episode VII, even the prequels, and, presuming, Episode VIII, which screams why the Extended Universe should have always been canon. Having these extra stories and building blocks of characters in these films and TV shows can only happen in books like "Phasma." Unlike many of the often weakly-written Star Wars novels, Delilah crafts what could be the script for a movie in an of itself. I didn't want it to end. And for a character that many call the "Jar-Jar" of Episode VII, this novel positions Phasma to be a devastating component of the rest of this trilogy. If not, it will have been a waste.

The story of how she comes to join the First Order, her foundation for why she was chosen to lead the troopers, and even how she gets her chrome armor, are such deep insights peppered throughout "Phasma" and add strength to whom this woman will become. There isn't a lull in this story at all. And while these details all add to how she is who we know her to be today, the magic of the writing in this book is the fact that it is an impactful narrative around how she influences, manipulates and lies to the people around her; her selfish corruption from minute one. The insight we get into her psyche through writing is similar to the style of the writing about Darth Maul's psyche in the novel "Lockdown."

The beauty of the Star Wars world is that there is an equal amount of interest in the heroic deeds, courage and bravery of the good guys, than there is in the catalyst for corruption and evil in the bad guys. I get just as much excitement watching Luke blow up the Death Star as I did seeing Darth Vader slash open numerous Rebel troops at the end of "Rogue One." It's also probably why there are so many complaints about the prequels. Anakin's turn to the dark side, in the movies, was so poorly written and acted that something that had the potential to be emotionally-charging film did nothing more than collectively make its audience whimper and sigh. Luckily, novels like "Phasma" can add weight to these new characters and help us see the films in a different light. I know I'm going to watch Episode VII this week with different eyes about Phasma and, I'm sure, be foaming at the mouth as to how she impacts Episode VIII.

Not sure really what the author was going for but the most uninteresting backstory ever. Yes it does provide insight to Phasma but will it come to bear in the main story? I only kept reading to see how the present day characters impact the main movie storylines.

I don't know why I read this dreck. I care even less about Phasma after this read. It was rudimentary, episodic (not in an Ep. IV way), and predictable. What a waste of a great character - in print and on film.

I have been an avid Star Wars fan for two decades. This is one of my favorite novels in the new canon since Disney purchased the franchise. It fleshes out Phasma's character and where she came from. Worthwhile read for fans and anyone interested in the new films.

I have read most Star Wars novels since the thrawn trilogy way back when....I always look forward to a new Star Wars novel coming out but most have been hit or miss since Disney has started their own cannon ....this however delivers amazingly well....the story of phasma will make you look at her in a total new light ....highly recommend

It's a good book, but honestly, I am more attached to Cardinal than Phasma. I think that the tital character is fairly one dementional, and doesn't really grow through the story. Perhaps it's because the book is written as a second hand account of Phasma's journey instead of from her point of view.

It's a good book, but honestly, I am more attached to Cardinal than Phasma. I think that the tital character is fairly one dementional, and doesn't really grow through the story. Perhaps it's because the book is written as a second hand account of Phasma's journey instead of from her point of view.

I liked the way the story was told by Vi who was captured by Captain Cardinal and wanted to know how Captain Phasma ended up in the First Order. From the very beginning of the story Phasma was a warrior who even killed her parents, and injured her brother, Keldo. The story unfolds that Brendol's ship crashed and he used a pod to prevent from being killed. He ended up on Parnanasso and met by the warrior Phasma who wore a scary mask at that time. The story has many twists and turns but Captain Cardinal kept Vi a prisoner until he found how she killed Brendol but his son, Armitage was part of it. The problem Captain Cardinal had was he was jealous of Phasma, and couldn't leave it alone. In the end jealousy destroyed him and his droid couldn't prevent it. Siv, a one time confident to Phasma when she was a warrior, told the story to Vi. Vi was out of the interrogator but it doesn't say if she got was able to escape.

I've often found Star Wars a little bit boring because there are so few women characters and the ones who do exist are all pretty similar. This novel solves that problem and does so much more—an interesting backstory for Phasma and a few other characters (no spoilers)! It made me care a lot more about the First Order and the story leading up to the next movie. I think the book is approachably written and the story is great. Thank you so much, Delilah Dawson!!

This was my favorite Star Wars novel yet.

When I was in undergrad I studied memoir and the limits of memory in historical records extensively, and let me tell you Delilah S. Dawson very clearly is aware of the debate within the academic community around memory and the limits of understanding the past.

A story within a story, everything we learn in this book is second hand information, we are even told that the story is being embellished, but never what the points are that are not being told exactly they were originally.

Vi is an amazing new character, as are Siv and Archex, and I truly hope we will be seeing all of them again sometime in canon.

An engaging and deeply satisfying read, I can not recommend this book enough.

This was a disappointing attempt at telling a Star Wars story. could've been written in half the time the author spent to much on trying to develop a character from a third persons prospective it didn't want me to like or hate Phasma bc I think she is irrelevant to the overall story, in episode VII she was so easily forced too do what Finn wanted her to do. There's no way if she is as good and ruthless as she is portrayed in the book they could have not so easily overwhelmed her.

Writing is repetitive, obnoxiously repetitive, and annoyingly repetitive. You get the idea. I fast forwarded through about a fifth of this, up to two minutes at a time. Great concept for a story, poor execution.

I feel like this book was written for internet nerds that left TFA depreseed because the Phasma character sucked. It did not make the character better. Oh well. In 20 years her and Boba Fett can adorn the tshirts of Comic Book Guy.

I may be done with these "Journey to..." books. Phasma was barely a background character in Force Awakens, and this book led me to believe that she'd be an important part of Last Jedi. (MINOR MOVIE SPOILER AHEAD) It was a solid book, but Phasma was just as insignificant in Last Jedi. So why am I wasting my time with these books?

Catalyst was a great lead-in to Rogue One because it was a prelude to the movie. It told a story that was significant to the Star Wars universe and introduced us to many of the characters. Isn't that the point of the "Journey to..." series? How about we get the back story of Poe, or that Laura Dern character, or someone with significance to the story? Phasma was thrown in at the end of Last Jedi, almost as an afterthought, and knowing how she became a Stormtrooper added nothing for me. Even Hux's father is irrelevant to the movies. Sure, it gives you a better understanding of how the First Order works in general, but that wasn't what I was looking for with this book.

Canto Bight was equally disappointing in this respect. With "Journey to the Last Jedi" on their covers, I expected these books to offer something of significance to the Last Jedi story. They didn't.

This book is not actually about Phasma. While it's true that many of the adventures involve Phasma, we never actually get to understand what she herself is thinking, what she wants, or why she does the things that she does. All of the adventures are told through an onlooker, who is told through a spy. There are many moments where she whispers to people and the reader is never clued into what was said or what her personal dynamics are. At the end of reading, she is still just as elusive as ever, but maybe with a little more backstory thrown in. So in short, she is being set up to be a cold unthinking villain in the way that they originally wanted Kylo Ren to be.

The true protagonist of this book is Cardinal--The red helmeted Captain who's helmet appears on the back of the dust cover. He feels that Phasma is his rival, so he wants to even the playing field to come out ahead of her. We get to hear his thoughts and feelings-we eventually even come to understand why he dislikes Phasma so much. We are supposed to empathize with him because hes such a good and caring teacher that despite working for the First Order, is really just a good guy deep down. His story is very boring and cliche. If you want a better (edit, PHENOMENAL) story about someone who defects and joins a rebellion, I recommend Claudia Gray's "Lost Stars" book. You will not be disappointed. Additionally, Finn's story in "Before the Awakening" by Greg Rucka is equally compelling, and the information provided about Phasma in that book is about as informative as that which is in this Book.

Anyways, to make matters worse, there are false flags thrown out throughout the book to bait the reader into thinking there is information about Rey's origins. The flags are made so big to ensure that even the densest of fans understands what they're hinting at (A baby named "Frey" for example. "Fake Rey" (get it? Frey?)(I'm not joking this is a real thing that's in the book)). I'll save you some time and money: Rey is not Frey, and Rey's origins have nothing to do with the Phasma book. I was a sucker and got pulled in by their teasing, and I'm helping you to not make the same mistake.

Other than that, the writing is good in some places. Some of the adventures really are quite interesting, but many of the adventures felt tacked on, like Dawson needed to fulfill a word quota or something (ahem--the gladiator ripoff adventure, I'm looking at you---). They didn't add to the story and felt like they were just there to add bulk to the book. Would I have enjoyed it more without all of the Cardinal and Frey nonsense tacked on top? Probably. I would be focusing on Phasma right now instead of this Cardinal clown character or "Frey."

Also: Can Disney commission a novel about Finn already?

What a huge disappointment this book is. I generally enjoy reading all the new Star Wars novels but this is a total letdown. Possibly the worst Srar Wars book I have ever read. Read Catalyst instead. So much better.

I feel very conflicted about this novel. Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy it and I thought the new characters introduced in it were really interesting, but I went into this book thinking we were going to get Captain Phasma's perspective, and we never do. That being said, I think this was an interesting take because while this book is about Phasma, it's all second-hand accounts so I think we need to take in consideration the unreliable narrative.

If you thought Phasma had another layer to her, and maybe she had a softer side, you would be dead wrong! She is a cold blooded killer, and she doesn't really care about anyone else. You find out in the novel that she basically fakes her way into The New Order just to save her own butt. I can get down with a villain that doesn't really care about the First Order. Phasma is about power, and she wants to be the one that holds all the cards. I will admit that her character in the Star Wars films seems really two-dimensional, so I understand why other fans don't think she's a good character. I think this novel is a good place if you want to see why people like this character.

I think this book really hammers in the unreliable narrator, because we find out about Phasma from Vi Moradi, a rebel spy that is captured by Captain Cardinal. Cardinal is Phasma's rival in the First Order. She basically waltzed in and took over his command so he wants to know all her secrets so he can take her down. The story that Vi tells Cardinal is actually one that was told to her from someone that knew Phasma before she got off the rundown planet they were from. So the whole book I was wondering, "Is this how it really happened? Or is this just the story Vi wants to tell Cardinal?"

I liked Cardinal a lot, and the book ends with the audience not really knowing what is going to happen to Vi or him. I need another book about him! Cardinal believes in the order because Brendol Hux took him under his wing and gave him a purpose, where before he was a starving orphan on Jakku. So to him, the First Order means stability and purpose. He truly believes in what he is fighting for. Knowing Cardinal's background, it makes complete sense why he is on this side of the war. He thinks that what they are doing is right and just. I like these types of juxtapositions in Star Wars, because you can really see from his point of view why the resistance, and the rebellion that came before them, will do nothing to save the galaxy.

Vi Moradi is a new character, that I don't think we have met before. I was also excited to see another woman of color in Star Wars, this time with the resistance! She is kind of a sarcastic jerk, which made me love her. There definitely has to be more to her story after this book, and I'm hoping Dawson gets to write more about her.

There are parts in Vi's story where I did feel like it dragged on, but overall I enjoyed this one. It wasn't what I thought it was going to be, but in the end I ended up liking it. I just need another book to tell me what happens to Vi and Cardinal!

This book could alternatively have been titled "Phasma: Featuring Cardinal" Although we learn the origin story of the indomitable and forbidding Captain of the First Order, we also learn about her counterpart captain, call sign Cardinal.
All-in-all, I'd have to say Phasma's origin was an interesting read. We get to know how her personality was shaped (turns out, she was always a ruthless, cold-blooded warrior/survivor), who her family were, and in what kind of environment she was raised. Although I'm a huge proponent that nurture shapes the person more so than nature, I may have to revise this thesis regarding Phasma. In her particular case, it seems both played a major role in the shaping the Phasma readers see on the screen.
The pace of the novel was just fine - it neither lagged, nor was so torrid it skipped over major points. The secondary characters served to add to our understanding of Phasma, and also propel the story forward. As to that, I wish we had more backstory on both Vi and Cardinal. I came to find both interesting in their own right, and wanted to know more about both of them. SPOILER - - - I'm glad the novel ended on a hopeful note for both characters, even if the ending was somewhat eye-rollingly incredulous. END SPOILER

This novel didn't produce any shocking revelations or insights about anyone on screen (Phasma or General Armitage Hux), and instead, just reinforced that they were who we thought they were. Still, I enjoyed the book for what it was, and can recommend it for those who have some free time to while away lost in the GFFA.

Star Wars: Phasma was written by Delilah S. Dawson. She wrote a short story for Star Wars in 2015, The Perfect Weapon. Phasma appears on the novel timeline after Bloodline.

SUMMARY: Vi Moradi, a resistance spy, sent by General Leia to verify the First Orders presence at a specific location. When Vi drops out of hyperspace, she is immediately captured, caught in a tractor beam from First Order ship, Absolution.

A red clad stormtrooper meets Vi when she's brought aboard his First Order destroyer. He quickly takes her to an isolated interrogation room before anyone else really notices. The trooper straps her into a torture chair and sends electrical shocks through her body. He gets straight to the point, making it clear he will do what it takes to get what he wants; information on Phasma.

Vi knows this trooper as Cardinal. What she doesn't know, is that Cardinal knows that she's a resistance spy, her name is Vi Moradi, and that she has family. Cardinal is aware that Vi recently visited Parnassos, Phasma's home world. He wants everything she's learned about Phasma. He believes Phasma is a threat to the First Order and she has already committed treason. He just needs to prove it.

The story Vi tells is of Phasma's life and how she was able to get off her desolate world of Parnassos. It was a tough time, leading up to her joining the First Order.

CHARACTERS: As always, I'm going to mention a few characters. With this novel, I'll go ahead and talk about three.

Phasma: She's a mighty warrior of the Scyre people of Parnassos, where the young rule over the elders. Parnassos is a barren world, its's hard to survive. While she's the fighter, her brother is the leader of the Scyre. She's hard edged, she's serious, and to her enemies, menacing. She doesn't speak often, when she does it's too the point. The other Scyre warriors look to her for guidance, and trust her with their lives. However, Phasma is a very selfish person. She's all about herself and keeps others at a distance. Her entire life, she still remains a bit of a mystery.

Siv: A Scyre warrior. She's also tough, yet emotional. It is her duty to pass on the ritual of the detraxors. The detraxors are used to extract the essence of life (the fluid) from the fallen Scyre bodies. They put the salve on their skin to protect from the elements, "your today will help our tomorrow." It's a mystical type tradition and it's up to Siv to continue this tradition by teaching it to others.

Cardinal: He taken under the wing of Brendol Hux, on Jakku. He was raised up as a First Order stormtroomer. He excelled in all his duties, granting him promotion after promotion. He became the right hand man of Hux, personal guard. Cardinal trains the youth to become stormtroopers, while Phasma fine tunes them and makes them great warriors. He's supposedly a tough guy, but he's a softy. He's angry that Phasma seems to get all the glory that should be his.

OVERALL THOUGHTS: Phasma is certainly entertaining, mostly. I've gotta say, I'm not a huge fan of the way this story was told. There were many times this novel stepped over the line from Star Wars and reality. We've got that classic line you've heard many times, "it tastes like chicken." So now we have chicken in Star Wars. There's also that ridiculous sand quote from Anakin, from the mouth of Phasma! I literally put the book down and walked away from it a few times with irritation. The Scyre warriors pull a Poe Dameron from The Force Awakens... they meet stormtroopers, and as you know they have ID numbers, not names. Well, PT-number number number... we're not gonna call you that, we'll call you Petey... Petey! LE-2003, you're Elly. That... is stupid! The mention of R&R time with umbrellas in drinks also irritated me... a lot.

The Detraxors thing, it's interesting, but it's extremely gross. Not complaining about that, thought it was a cool idea for the culture.

Do I recommend you read Star Wars: Phasma? Sure, parts are cool... but be prepared to get irritated by many earthly things.

RATING: I give this book a 2 out of 5.

This book was a steaming pile!!!

The book itself was well written, but it did nothing for me. Phasma was a minor character that contributed little to either The Force Awakens or The Last Jedi so giving her a book of her own was perhaps a bit of a stretch.

It seems as if the Disney/Lucasfilm story team realized that they had a female character that they could exploit so they decided to create a story for her...ANY STORY.

The only thing that the story teaches us about Phasma is that she will do whatever she has to in order to survive and move up the ranks and then in her two film appearances she's completely useless. She gets thrown in a garbage compactor in Force Awakens and then thrown into the burning remains of Snoke's ship in Last Jedi.

Someone in the Lucasfilm art department designed a cool chrome suit of Storm Trooper armor, they hired a well-known actress to wear the armor, and then they created a back story for her.

It's a bad rip-off of the evolution of Boba Fett.

Phasma wasn't very interesting before I read the book and she's no more interesting to me now.

So far, all we've seen of Phasma was the enigmatic Storm Trooper Captain, in chrome armor, powering down the shields when forced to in The Force Awakens. We never even saw her face.

So in the novel, we learn Phasma's true origins. The story is told via a framework - a Resistance spy, Vi Moradi, is captured by Captain Cardinal, Phasma's chief rival within the First Order. He forces her to tell him all she knows about Phasma, which she does, because it's not info directly about The Resistance, and she's hoping to turn him to her side. Phasma's life began on a once thriving planet that had been decimated about 150 years before her birth by some force. (I don't want to reveal too many surprises, and this book is full of them!) One of her old tribemates told the entire story of Phasma's youth, rise to power in the tribe, and eventual escape from the planet to Moradi. It's a story of survival at all costs, and illustrates just how good Phasma is at it.

I rather hope we see Captain Cardinal in The Last Jedi, as he grew on me even as he was interrogating Moradi. He goes from loyal First Order soldier with a grudge against Phasma to a conflicted man who's beginning to see how much he's been brainwashed. It's intriguing to read. The revelation that The First Order rewards the ruthless while overlooking those who play by its own rules also breaks him a little bit.

I really enjoyed this book, and I will definitely be picking up Bloodline and Princess of Alderaan, because I can never get enough Leia. If you're not a Star Wars fan, I'd definitely take a pass on this book, because it won't really mean anything. But as a fan, it's a fascinating look at the beginnings of a villain.

I read this actually a month b4 TLJ released in theaters. In hopes that I’d see Phasma in a diff light & be more excited about her. And while the novel was very good, she was still SO under-used in the film, I mean, even

if*SPOILER.Alert, she somehow surfaces in episode9, & why the hell cant it be done??just because we saw her fall a bit, through flames, doesn’t mean sh=t, overall, she’d still be sort of wasted. But, this novel what we learn of Phasma is being told by a Resistance spy Vi Moradi being held prisoner & interrogated by Phasmas rival-Capt. Cardinal, & it drags @ certain times due to Moradi desperately delaying her poss being executed, & @ same time, unbeknownst to Cardinal, she’s using reverse psychology on -Him! in the hopes, doubtful as it may be, to actually turn him, & bring him back to join the Resistance. And what she’s telling him of Phasma, she states was told to her by someone who grew up w/ Phasma on their horrid living conditioned post-apocalyptic planet Parnossas. In any event one thing is for certain, Phasma is a brutally psychotically evil person who knows of nothing except her own survival & advancement. (She’s really kind of scary!) •details of some inner workings of the First Order. •details of where stormtroopers come from •the origin of Phasmas Chrome Armor.... Worth the read!

Terrible book. Captain Phasma is such a one dimensional character that any backstory is completely unjustified. Her history is like reading the alternative dark history of a tall, white Pocahontas on an alien but still mainly human planet. And given that this is Disney, the regurgitated story probably suits. It's completely predictable and unbelievable as well. The book itself feels like it was rushed without much thought involved, or proper editing, as I lost count of the number of typos throughout the book. It also feels like fan fiction, written by a high school or college student as one of their final class projects. It's simply a poorly written page filler, with no real point other than to build more interest and hype in the upcoming Star Wars film. Unless you're desperate for more Star Wars fiction, or are completely bored, I wouldn't recommend this book.

After writing the Star Wars short story, The Perfect Weapon, Delilah S. Dawson returns to a galaxy far, far away with the full-length novel, Phasma. I’m a fan of Dawson’s work, and it’s great fun seeing her playing around in one of my favorite cinematic universes and helping to build and expand upon the new canon of expanded universe tie-ins centering around the trilogy of Star Wars films.

After being captured and taken aboard an Imperial ship, Resistance fighter Vi Moradi engages in a battle of wits with a crimson-clad Stormtrooper named Cardinal. He wants information on Captain Phasma, which Moradi possesses, and as the interrogation unfolds she shares with him the true story of Phasma – who she is, where she’s from, and the lengths she will go to in order to survive.

Dawson does a superb job painting a vivid portrait of Phasma, giving this character an engaging history and motivation. While the filmic depiction of Phasma in The Force Awakens was fairly forgettable, her novelized origin story is far from it. Dawson takes us around the apocalyptic world of Parnassos and the Scyre clan Phasma has sworn allegiance to. What emerges from this, in the wake of a crashed Imperial ship and the rescue of its crew by Phasma and her fighters, is a story of survival in a harsh desert world where life is short and brutal, and survival and murder often go hand in hand. Dawson puts a decidedly Mad Max-style spin on her Star Wars story here, and it’s a welcome change of pace.

My only wish/hope is that we get to see more of Vi Moradi in the future. Although Moradi is our gateway into Phasma’s history, there’s not a lot of room for her to shine elsewhere with so much of the narrative space occupying a time ten years in the past. Phasma becomes wonderfully fleshed out and whole, and is certainly a more engaging character here than in her (thus far) single movie appearance, but I really wanted to learn more about Moradi as the book wore on. She’s an engaging Resistance fighter and Dawson does such a good job writing Moradi and her repartee with Cardinal that it’s impossible not to want more of her, or for her to be the singular narrative focus.

On the narration front, January LaVoy does a terrific job bringing Phasma, both the book and the character, to life. This was my first time listening to LaVoy’s work and I was suitably impressed. She keeps the pace moving nicely and adopts an array of inflections to separate character’s dialogue. As is typical of other Star Wars audiobook productions, the narration is accompanied by a host of sound effects and music, helping to amplify the urgency of the narration or underscore the more emotionally resonant beats. The various audio elements work together to create a highly polished and well-produced audiobook, and one that fits firmly within the stylistic realm of the Star Wars universe.

Phasma is, quite simply, the Mad Max origin tale of the First Order’s shiny chrome Captain. The Force Awakens promised us a badass villain and fell short of the mark. In Phasma, Delilah S. Dawson makes up for that and delivers the butt kicking, back stabbing villain we hoped for. Or at least the one I was hoping for. But this journey might not be for everyone as it eschews some of the typical Star Wars story elements in order to do something a bit different.

Everything starts with Vi Moradi. Vi is a new character, and she’s part of the framing story for the book. As an agent for the Resistance, she’s sent out to snoop on a part of space the First Order may be in. Unfortunately for her, she gets caught. This leads her to a figure known as Captain Cardinal. Cardinal is in charge of training the children of the First Order. But Cardinal has become wary of things and is convinced that Captain Phasma is corrupting everything the First Order stands for. He wants her taken out, and Vi Moradi is his key. From there on out, Vi tells Cardinal everything she knows about Phasma. She reveals the captain’s homeworld, her people, how she escaped to join the First Order, and the many betrayals she’s committed along the way.

Thus the book takes breaks between the interrogation of Vi by her captor, and the unraveling origin story of Phasma. It’s an interesting way to tell the story, laying out some pieces of the First Order’s current state, as well as building out Phasma’s backstory. But Phasma is definitely the focus of both tales. Through her story, we get to see the small village she came from, the harsh conditions she grew up in, and the bold decisions she made to earn her escape from her planet and thus winning acceptance into the First Order. The book accomplishes a lot and reveals quite a bit about the character. We learn about her name, her family, her obsession with armor, how she got her armor, how she joined the First Order, and there’s an explanation for her actions in The Force Awakens. It even lays out the groundwork for the spear we’ve seen her with in The Last Jedi. Phasma is much more than a faithful brainwashed soldier. She’s a creature of her own making.

Yet all of that only scratches the surface of what happens in this book. Calling it a Mad Max original tale isn’t too far from the truth as there’s some wild car combat and gladiator fights. The people of Phasma’s homeworld are a rough and ready bunch scraping by with whatever they can get. Some of the story is more Lord of the Flies than Mad Max as the survivors struggle to rule themselves in a survival of the fittest situation. There’s harsh environments, extreme violence, and some fairly disgusting monsters, some of whom are fellow humans. However, those very things are also the elements that stray a bit from the norm in regards to the Star Wars films. Not every Star Wars fan may dig a book that explores the darker side of the galaxy. On the other hand, this isn’t a cheery story about our heroes. This is a story about the villains. And to understand Phasma, you have to go into the shadows to see what lurks there.

As an exploration of Captain Phasma, this book not only lays out the backstory for the character, but justifies her existence. Delilah S. Dawson cooks up a story that’s dark, gripping and entertaining. From hero to villain, readers get to see why Phasma is the way she is and the long journey that has led her to the ranks of the First Order. It’s a road paved in violence and sacrifice, and shielded behind a mask. For anyone looking to learn more about the character, this book is a must read. I give it a five out of five.

4.5/5

"Phasma will do anything to survive."

This book was so good that it gets one of my mini-storytimes! So, The Force Awakens is my favorite Star Wars movie(try to change my mind and I will fight you). I have NO CHILL when it comes to TFA- literally zero chill. It's, in my opinion, an almost perfect movie. Except! Except! NOT. ENOUGH. PHASMA. My Phasma hype before TFA graced the big screens was unbelievable, and then she was barely in the movie! No character development, no backstory, not a whole lot of anything Phasma-related. So it's safe to say that when I heard about PHASMA being a Journey to The Last Jedi book and that it promised to tell me SECRETS about my mysterious, chrome-plated, trash compactor bound goddess, I might have freaked out just a little.

IT. DID NOT. DISAPPOINT.

Thank the maker! This book was so good.

PHASMA is very interesting because it follows two intertwining stories. The first is of Vi Moradi, a Resistance spy who is captured by a captain in the First Order. Captain Cardinal wants info from Vi on his rival, the one and only Captain Phasma. So the second storyline is Vi telling Cardinal the stories she has gathered in her spy-times about Phasma.

At first I was a little thrown off by how this book is written. The chapters that follow Phasma's backstory read like a story being told- which is what they are, so after the initial shock of 'Phasma Bedtime Stories' I actually began to REALLY appreciate the way these were written. It just felt so unique and appropriate for the story.

Vi and Cardinal's chapters were also really well done. I fell so hard for both of these characters, they were developed fantastically and I honestly could have read an entire book about just the two of them interacting.

Phasma's origin story was incredible. I absolutely love where this book went with her character. Her ruthlessness and cunning were so enthralling to read. All of her actions felt true to character and compounded to build up and image for me of who Phasma really is. And that final scene...wow. I just about fell out of my chair reading it. Side note: I really hope this plays into The Last Jedi. Now that I know understand Phasma I want EVERYBODY to understand her!

My one complaint, and it's seriously the only thing keeping this book from hitting 5/5 for me, is that some of the dialogue felt a bit stilted. If it had just been in Phasma's chapters I might have let it slide, as her people were quite primitive. But it popped up occasionally throughout the entire book. The way some things were said just felt a little...lifeless? But that by no means kept me from reading.

PHASMA is probably my favorite Star Wars book. If you liked THRAWN, then you'll love this one. I'll forever have my fingers crossed that PHASMA gets some sort of follow up, because the ending is a whopper. I'm absolutely loving these Star Wars villain books, they keep getting stronger in both writing and storytelling, so I can't wait to see what the future holds for Star Wars books!

One of the problems of writing about a mysterious, tough character is that in doing so you remove some of the mystery and thus risk removing some of the toughness as well.

In a neat bit of stunt writing, Dawson tells Phasma's backstory from several removes. Captain Cardinal of the First Order captures Vi, a resistance spy who's been digging into Phasma's past, and interrogates her to find out what she knows. The frame tale is Cardinal and Vi, but the story Vi relates was mostly told to her by Siv, who was part of Phasma's tribe before Phasma left Parnassos, a truly desolate hole of a planet where everything is poisonous and will kill you. So while we get to see what happened to Phasma, it's from Siv's POV, so the mystery and toughness of Phasma are preserved.

Vi was a delightful addition to the universe, and so was Cardinal. In fact, I found Cardinal the most compelling character, especially in the last few chapters, because he had the strongest character arc. Phasma herself is pretty obviously the same person throughout, only who she is becomes clearer and clearer the more Vi reveals of the story Siv told her.

This was definitely the dose of Phasma that I was hoping to get in TLJ from the trailers, etc.--dangerous, ruthless, and very shiny.

It's been years since I picked up a Star Wars Expanded Universe novel (Expanded Universe being the catch-all term for the Star Wars stories outside the movies -- novels, comics, video games, etc.), but I clearly remember one of the defining flaws of said universe being that all too often, the characters created by the authors would take center stage, either pushing the official characters out of the limelight or one-upping them at every opportunity. I could forgive this in some novels, especially those that took place long before the movie characters were born, but it especially annoyed me in novels that were supposed to be about canon characters. "Dark Lord: Rise of Darth Vader" was a huge offender here, and it was annoying in "Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter" even though I still consider that one a decent, even good book. So despite the Expanded Universe receiving a reboot in recent years and a new set of authors taking up the reins, I was hesitant to pick up a new EU novel.

I made an exception for "Phasma," however -- I desperately wanted the character to be awesome and was disappointed by her appearance in "The Force Awakens." It was my hope that a novel dedicated to the character would not only flesh out her backstory and let the reader learn more about this enigmatic villain, but give us the awesome character we were promised but didn't get in "The Force Awakens." Alas, "Phasma" was a disappointment -- while we do learn the origins of Phasma, the book elects to focus far more on the author's own characters, promoting them at the expense of the title character and reducing her to little more than a cliche villain in her own story.

"Phasma" tells the story of Vi, a Resistance spy who is captured by the First Order on her way to deliver valuable intel to General Organa. Instead of being imprisoned by the Order, however, she is taken to a secret chamber and interrogated by Cardinal, a crimson-armored First Order officer who wants to see Phasma put out of power and believes Vi has information that can help him overthrow her. At first Vi resists, but eventually an uneasy truce is forged between the two, and Vi slowly tells Cardinal the story of... not Phasma precisely, but of Siv, a tribeswoman on a ruined world whose tribe -- of which Phasma is a co-leader -- fights tooth and nail to survive. When a First Order ship crashes on the planet and its officer, Brendol Hux, promises sanctuary and a better life with the First Order if they help him get back to his ship, Phasma, Siv, and a select group of other tribespeople flee their tribe and set out on a dangerous quest to find the ship. But Siv is quickly realizing that Phasma does not have her people's best interests in mind, and has an altogether different goal in aiding the First Order...

Dawson's writing is servicable, nicely descriptive and moving along at a nice pace. I never felt that the story lagged or got bogged down in unnecessary details. She's good at giving us a believable culture and outlining its workings while not breaking the flow of the story, and at portraying the inner workings of the First Order and its modus operandi when it comes to training new recruits. And despite really not wanting to like the new characters... I did come to sympathize with Cardinal, and rather enjoyed learning more about him and seeing him struggle with his own doubts and ambitions as the novel progressed. I just wish it hadn't come at the expense of other factors...

The story itself has been described as "Star Wars meets Mad Max," and it's not an inaccurate description -- Phasma's homeworld is a post-apocalyptic wasteland, complete with droid cults, roving bands of scavengers, savage tribes, hideously mutated wildlife, and even a city of cannibals whose lives revolve around a bloody gladiator arena. One can almost be forgiven for wondering if they've picked up a novel from the wrong Expanded Universe by mistake at times. I'm not saying there's no place for "Mad Max" style adventures in Star Wars, but it's rather jarring to read about some of the cliches of post-apocalyptic fiction in a space opera novel, especially when little is done to make them fresh and original or even fit into the Star Wars universe.

As for the characters... if you were expecting Phasma to get "face time" in her own novel, you'll be disappointed to learn that she only gets ONE scene from her point of view in the entire novel. The rest of the book (with the exception of a single scene from General Hux's POV) is focused on the author's characters -- Vi, Cardinal, and Siv. I can sort of forgive this in an ordinary novel... but when a character's name is not only featured in the freaking title of the book, but IS the freaking title, I expect the book to be about THEM. I ended up learning far more about the author's characters than about Phasma, which shouldn't happen in a book called "Phasma." And learning all our information about Phasma second-hand or third-hand (most of the story is told by Vi relating the happenings as told by Siv) means that we get little insight into what makes Phasma tick.

I've seen other reviewers argue that this story is not supposed to make Phasma a sympathetic character, that sometimes a villain is just a villain, but I have a hard time believing that Phasma was always a monster or that she didn't have some underlying reason for throwing her lot in with the First Order beyond "it's all about me getting power." And while some people might like the framing device of this novel, I found it obnoxious. I wanted a novel about Phasma, not about a Resistance spy telling stories about Phasma that were in turn told to her by an acquaintance of Phasma.

Also, minor nitpick -- both Vi and Cardinal are given code names that belong to Earth birds (Vi's Resistance code name is Starling). While I suppose Star Wars has always incorporated some elements of Earth (the Millennium Falcon's name, and even the very first Star Wars novelization infamously references ducks), it's still jarring when these crop up in a novel. And while Cardinal does have other meanings besides the name of a bird, the bird is clearly referenced in the text.

Maybe I went into this book expecting too much... but I can't help but feel cheated. For being a book called "Phasma," Phasma herself gets little exploration in these pages. When I come away from a book called "Phasma" having learned more about a random snarky Resistance spy, a random whiny First Order officer, and a random tribeswoman from a wasteland planet than I learned about the freaking title character, then the story has failed in my opinion. And this novel makes me very hesitant to pick up another EU novel from the "new EU." I just hope Phasma gets a worthy appearance in "The Last Jedi," or I am going to be very upset...

This book drags you kicking and screaming through Captain Phasma's origin story and up to her pre-TFA present. Spoiler alert: it's a horrifying kaleidoscope of nightmares.

My personal theory about Phasma was that she was one of the rabid, feral Jakku kids who became the first gen First Order stormtroopers. Wrong! Actually, Cardinal is this person.

Phasma, on the other hand, is from a planet that is basically post-apocalyptic Dune, where she lived as a primitive Fremen. Her journey takes the form of an "and then there were none" odyssey across a desert where one grotesque travesty piles upon another until it's surprising anyone could come out of that and be human at all. Betrayal, cannibalism, appalling mutated wildlife, flesh-eating insects, new and even more depraved Mad Max micro-civilizations hidden around every corner, etc.

Really, if the Death Star could ever be used to execute a mercy killing, it would be Phasma's entire home planet.

Phasma herself is apparently an ambitious sociopath with no motivation except that of survival and power-seeking. You start out thinking "okay, Phasma is just a ruthless warrior in defense of her tribe, that's cool" until eventually everything is stripped down and you realize she only really cares about herself. She is hyped both in the backstory and the present-day storyline as the ultimate predator: never truly bested by anyone and a cosmic danger to anyone who cannot make himself useful to her.

They had better actually utilize her in a real way in the next few movies, or else I'm going to be very puzzled. There's no point in the franchise's weird obsession over Phasma unless she actually does something eventually, right?

Other notes:

• General Hux Sr. muses about sand. "Course and rough. Irritating. Gets everywhere," he says. This is possibly the Easter egg I least anticipated encountering in this book.

• The fanfiction writers nailed General Hux Jr. exactly right.

• There is a ton of sweet, sweet information on the First Order's stormtrooper indoctrination programs.

• Poor, poor Cardinal. I'm not quite sure how a wild-eyed denizen of Lord of the Flies Jakku, enhanced by the secret Hux programming from Empire's End that made these kids into a mindless killing swarm, could have become such a blind, idealistic moron. Like... really.

It was obvious from very early on in Phasma's backstory that it was all leading up to a Phasma-and-Hux Jr. conspiracy resulting in the death of Hux Sr. It's the dream team of calculating, twisted sociopaths. OF COURSE HUX WAS PARTY TO THE MURDER OF HIS FATHER. OF COURSE HE WAS, CARDINAL, YOU SAD FOOL.

• I was hoping there might be a Finn cameo, but there wasn't. He's probably too old to fit in the timeline, anyway. :(

Probably the best of the Disney era SW books I've read. Told as a story within a story, Phasma's and the framing story both work.

Vi is a rebellion spy captured by the First Order. One of their officers wants information on Phasma and is willing to torture her to get it. So Vi slowly delves out Phasma's life on Parnassas as told to her by someone who grew up with her. Parnassas is a dying planet, her people struggling to survive. When General Brendal Hux crash lands on Parnassus, Phasma sees it as an opportunity to escape the planet to a new life. So she and her warriors take Gen. Hux across the post-apocalyptic landscape to his ship.

While Vi is telling Phasma's story, she's trying to win Cardinal over to her side. Cardinal is looking for a reason to get rid of his rival Phasma. Hopefully, we'll actually see some of these characters in Last Jedi.

I got this free as swag at Dragon*Con 2018. I only go to around page 264 before I quit. Even the Cartoon Clone Wars is better written. The prison telling a story about someone else is cliché. I knew I was in trouble with dungeon on the Star Destroyer because no one cleans that deeply. Phasma is evil, mean, and wins. Her people stagger from near death every chapter. The secondary and lesser character are cartoon evil. As in 1950s Flash Gordon cartoon evil. Again this one a few books so bad I could not finish. Adds nothing to new canon. And I loved Foster's "splinter of the mind's eye" with it laughable force rubies.

NO SPOILERS - I read it within 24 hours, couldn't put it down. I hate Phasma but I'll take anything I can get until TLJ.
My review - this is a great story. You could even take any Star Wars reference out of it and it'd be good on its own. It's a journey story and there's plenty of action and violence. A little gruesome at times - cannibilism and suicide are present. Premise is that a Resistance spy has been sent to learn Phasma's back story, and the spy is captured by someone in the First Order who also wants that same intel.
I found it to be a page turner, but I think at times the author tries too hard to show how awesome Phasma is. We never see her viewpoint or get inside her head, as the story is all told from other character viewpoints. We learn early on that Phasma comes from a backwoods planet with little chance of surviving past age 30, and it makes me wonder if Disney pushed this story because of the poor initial reception of the character. I had assumed after TFA that Phasma came up through the ranks as a child much like her stormtroopers -definitely not the case. After reading how Phasma only cares about her own agenda, it basically addresses the whole 'Why was Phasma a pushover in TFA?' Answer: she is a survivalist and serves herself.
There are two very interesting characters introduced - the Resistance spy and the First Order character driving the storyline. I really hope we'll get to see more of these two in future novels.

This was really a very interesting story. Full disclosure, I haven't read many of the newer Star Wars novels, but I was interested in seeing what they're doing in the run-up to the next movie, and I trusted that Dawson would do it well. I wasn't disappointed, even though this turned out to be a darker story than I had expected; it is about the rise of the very model of a modern Stormtrooper general, after all. It was just closer in tone to Empire Strikes Back than to New Hope, or Force Awakens. We also get to see more of the fascist ideology of the New Order, and the different sorts of characters that are attracted to its ideals. Anyway, definitely a good Star Wars read, especially if you're interested in more backstory for the movies.

It's been years since I picked up a Star Wars Expanded Universe novel (Expanded Universe being the catch-all term for the Star Wars stories outside the movies -- novels, comics, video games, etc.), but I clearly remember one of the defining flaws of said universe being that all too often, the characters created by the authors would take center stage, either pushing the official characters out of the limelight or one-upping them at every opportunity. I could forgive this in some novels, especially those that took place long before the movie characters were born, but it especially annoyed me in novels that were supposed to be about canon characters. "Dark Lord: Rise of Darth Vader" was a huge offender here, and it was annoying in "Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter" even though I still consider that one a decent, even good book. So despite the Expanded Universe receiving a reboot in recent years and a new set of authors taking up the reins, I was hesitant to pick up a new EU novel.

I made an exception for "Phasma," however -- I desperately wanted the character to be awesome and was disappointed by her appearance in "The Force Awakens." It was my hope that a novel dedicated to the character would not only flesh out her backstory and let the reader learn more about this enigmatic villain, but give us the awesome character we were promised but didn't get in "The Force Awakens." Alas, "Phasma" was a disappointment -- while we do learn the origins of Phasma, the book elects to focus far more on the author's own characters, promoting them at the expense of the title character and reducing her to little more than a cliche villain in her own story.

"Phasma" tells the story of Vi, a Resistance spy who is captured by the First Order on her way to deliver valuable intel to General Organa. Instead of being imprisoned by the Order, however, she is taken to a secret chamber and interrogated by Cardinal, a crimson-armored First Order officer who wants to see Phasma put out of power and believes Vi has information that can help him overthrow her. At first Vi resists, but eventually an uneasy truce is forged between the two, and Vi slowly tells Cardinal the story of... not Phasma precisely, but of Siv, a tribeswoman on a ruined world whose tribe -- of which Phasma is a co-leader -- fights tooth and nail to survive. When a First Order ship crashes on the planet and its officer, Brendol Hux, promises sanctuary and a better life with the First Order if they help him get back to his ship, Phasma, Siv, and a select group of other tribespeople flee their tribe and set out on a dangerous quest to find the ship. But Siv is quickly realizing that Phasma does not have her people's best interests in mind, and has an altogether different goal in aiding the First Order...

Dawson's writing is servicable, nicely descriptive and moving along at a nice pace. I never felt that the story lagged or got bogged down in unnecessary details. She's good at giving us a believable culture and outlining its workings while not breaking the flow of the story, and at portraying the inner workings of the First Order and its modus operandi when it comes to training new recruits. And despite really not wanting to like the new characters... I did come to sympathize with Cardinal, and rather enjoyed learning more about him and seeing him struggle with his own doubts and ambitions as the novel progressed. I just wish it hadn't come at the expense of other factors...

The story itself has been described as "Star Wars meets Mad Max," and it's not an inaccurate description -- Phasma's homeworld is a post-apocalyptic wasteland, complete with droid cults, roving bands of scavengers, savage tribes, hideously mutated wildlife, and even a city of cannibals whose lives revolve around a bloody gladiator arena. One can almost be forgiven for wondering if they've picked up a novel from the wrong Expanded Universe by mistake at times. I'm not saying there's no place for "Mad Max" style adventures in Star Wars, but it's rather jarring to read about some of the cliches of post-apocalyptic fiction in a space opera novel, especially when little is done to make them fresh and original or even fit into the Star Wars universe.

As for the characters... if you were expecting Phasma to get "face time" in her own novel, you'll be disappointed to learn that she only gets ONE scene from her point of view in the entire novel. The rest of the book (with the exception of a single scene from General Hux's POV) is focused on the author's characters -- Vi, Cardinal, and Siv. I can sort of forgive this in an ordinary novel... but when a character's name is not only featured in the freaking title of the book, but IS the freaking title, I expect the book to be about THEM. I ended up learning far more about the author's characters than about Phasma, which shouldn't happen in a book called "Phasma." And learning all our information about Phasma second-hand or third-hand (most of the story is told by Vi relating the happenings as told by Siv) means that we get little insight into what makes Phasma tick.

I've seen other reviewers argue that this story is not supposed to make Phasma a sympathetic character, that sometimes a villain is just a villain, but I have a hard time believing that Phasma was always a monster or that she didn't have some underlying reason for throwing her lot in with the First Order beyond "it's all about me getting power." And while some people might like the framing device of this novel, I found it obnoxious. I wanted a novel about Phasma, not about a Resistance spy telling stories about Phasma that were in turn told to her by an acquaintance of Phasma.

Also, minor nitpick -- both Vi and Cardinal are given code names that belong to Earth birds (Vi's Resistance code name is Starling). While I suppose Star Wars has always incorporated some elements of Earth (the Millennium Falcon's name, and even the very first Star Wars novelization infamously references ducks), it's still jarring when these crop up in a novel. And while Cardinal does have other meanings besides the name of a bird, the bird is clearly referenced in the text.

Maybe I went into this book expecting too much... but I can't help but feel cheated. For being a book called "Phasma," Phasma herself gets little exploration in these pages. When I come away from a book called "Phasma" having learned more about a random snarky Resistance spy, a random whiny First Order officer, and a random tribeswoman from a wasteland planet than I learned about the freaking title character, then the story has failed in my opinion. And this novel makes me very hesitant to pick up another EU novel from the "new EU." I just hope Phasma gets a worthy appearance in "The Last Jedi," or I am going to be very upset...

This book drags you kicking and screaming through Captain Phasma's origin story and up to her pre-TFA present. Spoiler alert: it's a horrifying kaleidoscope of nightmares.

My personal theory about Phasma was that she was one of the rabid, feral Jakku kids who became the first gen First Order stormtroopers. Wrong! Actually, Cardinal is this person.

Phasma, on the other hand, is from a planet that is basically post-apocalyptic Dune, where she lived as a primitive Fremen. Her journey takes the form of an "and then there were none" odyssey across a desert where one grotesque travesty piles upon another until it's surprising anyone could come out of that and be human at all. Betrayal, cannibalism, appalling mutated wildlife, flesh-eating insects, new and even more depraved Mad Max micro-civilizations hidden around every corner, etc.

Really, if the Death Star could ever be used to execute a mercy killing, it would be Phasma's entire home planet.

Phasma herself is apparently an ambitious sociopath with no motivation except that of survival and power-seeking. You start out thinking "okay, Phasma is just a ruthless warrior in defense of her tribe, that's cool" until eventually everything is stripped down and you realize she only really cares about herself. She is hyped both in the backstory and the present-day storyline as the ultimate predator: never truly bested by anyone and a cosmic danger to anyone who cannot make himself useful to her.

They had better actually utilize her in a real way in the next few movies, or else I'm going to be very puzzled. There's no point in the franchise's weird obsession over Phasma unless she actually does something eventually, right?

Other notes:

• General Hux Sr. muses about sand. "Course and rough. Irritating. Gets everywhere," he says. This is possibly the Easter egg I least anticipated encountering in this book.

• The fanfiction writers nailed General Hux Jr. exactly right.

• There is a ton of sweet, sweet information on the First Order's stormtrooper indoctrination programs.

• Poor, poor Cardinal. I'm not quite sure how a wild-eyed denizen of Lord of the Flies Jakku, enhanced by the secret Hux programming from Empire's End that made these kids into a mindless killing swarm, could have become such a blind, idealistic moron. Like... really.

It was obvious from very early on in Phasma's backstory that it was all leading up to a Phasma-and-Hux Jr. conspiracy resulting in the death of Hux Sr. It's the dream team of calculating, twisted sociopaths. OF COURSE HUX WAS PARTY TO THE MURDER OF HIS FATHER. OF COURSE HE WAS, CARDINAL, YOU SAD FOOL.

• I was hoping there might be a Finn cameo, but there wasn't. He's probably too old to fit in the timeline, anyway. :(

Probably the best of the Disney era SW books I've read. Told as a story within a story, Phasma's and the framing story both work.

Vi is a rebellion spy captured by the First Order. One of their officers wants information on Phasma and is willing to torture her to get it. So Vi slowly delves out Phasma's life on Parnassas as told to her by someone who grew up with her. Parnassas is a dying planet, her people struggling to survive. When General Brendal Hux crash lands on Parnassus, Phasma sees it as an opportunity to escape the planet to a new life. So she and her warriors take Gen. Hux across the post-apocalyptic landscape to his ship.

While Vi is telling Phasma's story, she's trying to win Cardinal over to her side. Cardinal is looking for a reason to get rid of his rival Phasma. Hopefully, we'll actually see some of these characters in Last Jedi.

I got this free as swag at Dragon*Con 2018. I only go to around page 264 before I quit. Even the Cartoon Clone Wars is better written. The prison telling a story about someone else is cliché. I knew I was in trouble with dungeon on the Star Destroyer because no one cleans that deeply. Phasma is evil, mean, and wins. Her people stagger from near death every chapter. The secondary and lesser character are cartoon evil. As in 1950s Flash Gordon cartoon evil. Again this one a few books so bad I could not finish. Adds nothing to new canon. And I loved Foster's "splinter of the mind's eye" with it laughable force rubies.

NO SPOILERS - I read it within 24 hours, couldn't put it down. I hate Phasma but I'll take anything I can get until TLJ.
My review - this is a great story. You could even take any Star Wars reference out of it and it'd be good on its own. It's a journey story and there's plenty of action and violence. A little gruesome at times - cannibilism and suicide are present. Premise is that a Resistance spy has been sent to learn Phasma's back story, and the spy is captured by someone in the First Order who also wants that same intel.
I found it to be a page turner, but I think at times the author tries too hard to show how awesome Phasma is. We never see her viewpoint or get inside her head, as the story is all told from other character viewpoints. We learn early on that Phasma comes from a backwoods planet with little chance of surviving past age 30, and it makes me wonder if Disney pushed this story because of the poor initial reception of the character. I had assumed after TFA that Phasma came up through the ranks as a child much like her stormtroopers -definitely not the case. After reading how Phasma only cares about her own agenda, it basically addresses the whole 'Why was Phasma a pushover in TFA?' Answer: she is a survivalist and serves herself.
There are two very interesting characters introduced - the Resistance spy and the First Order character driving the storyline. I really hope we'll get to see more of these two in future novels.

This was really a very interesting story. Full disclosure, I haven't read many of the newer Star Wars novels, but I was interested in seeing what they're doing in the run-up to the next movie, and I trusted that Dawson would do it well. I wasn't disappointed, even though this turned out to be a darker story than I had expected; it is about the rise of the very model of a modern Stormtrooper general, after all. It was just closer in tone to Empire Strikes Back than to New Hope, or Force Awakens. We also get to see more of the fascist ideology of the New Order, and the different sorts of characters that are attracted to its ideals. Anyway, definitely a good Star Wars read, especially if you're interested in more backstory for the movies.

This book was nothing I expected it to be and it was everything I didn't know I needed. This book is about survival of the fittest on a planet that is actively trying to kill you and your family. The entire book. It's not really about Phasma or the First Order, it's about survival and how far you're willing to go to keep yourself alive. It isn't about blasters and princesses and wizards, it's about what happens to people when the world goes to hell. I really, REALLY loved it. All of the characters are fabulous. The survival horror is balanced out with humor in all the right places. The call-backs to the films are well executed. And, all in all, I really did not want it to end. I highly recommend this book for anyone who just wants a side of Star Wars that they didn't know was missing.

I asked for this book for Christmas and wasn't sure what exactly to expect from it - mostly I was interested in learning more about the mysterious Captain Phasma who I was disappointed I hadn't had more screen time in the recent films, and figured it would be some sort of space adventure tale. Well, there was definitely adventure, but it was also at other moments suspenseful, gruesome, hopeful, and emotional. I enjoyed vicariously exploring Phasma's deadly homeworld and learning more about the daily lives of Stormtroopers. Finally, the author's writing was excellent - it painted vivid pictures of settings while moving the plot along crisply. I highly recommend.

Very, VERY boring backstory for what I thought was a great new character in the Star Wars universe. The parts where the story is being relayed from her home planet are very repetitive. To the point of they were predictable. Maybe it was because of the way the story was being told WITHIN the actual book (it's a story within a story) but I ended up with no real impression of why Phasma was doing what she was doing, other than survival. Which I guess is good enough for some but I wanted something deeper from her. I would in no way recommend this.

I am having so much trouble rating this book. On the one hand, it's objectively fairly well written, with clean prose and good pacing (at least for the last 2/3, I thought the beginning had some issues with POV shifting relating to the frame tale device). On the other, we literally only get Phasma's POV for the last of 44 chapters. The rest of the book is a secondhand retelling of an outsider's perspective on certain incidents in Phasma's past. ::squints:: This wasn't really what I signed on for. It's not a bad book, but it's not what I was looking for or, I think, what most people will be expecting when they pick up a copy.

Well...I now know Phasma's backstory. And I wish I didn't. Spoiler alert: she's basically Conan the Barbarian. Seriously.

None of this story makes any sense. I'll ignore that the planet she is from is geologically absurd. Instead let's focus for a moment on the tribe Phasma comes from. It's somehow vaguely aware of the greater universe but still shockingly naïve. They know what spaceships are and how to harvest them and they can harvest biochemicles from the dead to make complex salves but they don't know what the word 'military,' 'city,' or even 'door' mean. Seriously, doors seem magical. You'd think that their society had been stranded on this planet for hundreds of years. But no...it's been about a hundred. A hundred years and they've forgotten doors. I'm suppose to believe that Phasma went from illiterate warrior princess of Viking-world to having the authority and knowhow to turn off Starkiller Base's entire shield in about a decade?

I could nitpick more but the illogical nonsense isn't the real issue (although it is regularly a hilarious one). The main problem is the stories structure. It could have been a short story. Very little important happens. It's rambling. It goes on huge tangents (let's become miners for several chapters for some reason!). In fact the whole thing is really just a string of episodic tangents that pad the page count and distract from the goal.

It feels very little like a Star Wars book. I will grant that it is fascinating. But...sadly, not in a good way.

I picked this book up hoping for a swiftly paced action adventure story about a ruthless chrome-clad First Order soldier leading her troops into desperate battles on exotic alien worlds to reconquer domains lost after the fall of the empire.
Maybe she’d get stuck behind enemy lines and we’d see her leading her troops to victory and safety and feel a begrudging respect for her.
Instead all I got was Furiosa fan fic presented in a destracting, obfuscating narrative framing device that never failed to halt the flow of the story at every turn.
Wendig-disciple Dawson falls into the same rushed-deadline narrative Sarlacc of her mentor and author of the disappointing Aftermath trilogy.
Skip this one.

This was the first Star Wars book I’ve read; I’ve always been worried that I might get bogged down by the lore and fictional terminology used, or might be confused by characters I’d never heard of. I picked up Phasma because of my interest in her character and the positive reviews on the store, and it didn’t disappoint. I found myself reading it in the car and the bath and staying up late to finish it, something I rarely do with books. I found myself skimming some parts, and I rolled my eyes a little at the narration, but it was still overall very good, with lots of action and in my opinion a great characterization of Phasma and Brendol Hux. I was surprised by how much I liked the original characters, Cardinal and Vi Moradi, and I really want to read more about them. There were no parts of this book that I disliked or found boring.

In Phasma, Delilah S. Dawson shows us the brutal and opportunistic survivor that dwells behind the shiny armor we glimpse on screen. The novel shows us a different kind of Star Wars story than most - Jedi and the Force don’t warrant so much as a footnote here – yet the story retains that essential Star Wars spirit.

The plot revolves around Brendol Hux (Armitage’s father) crash landing on the wasteland world of Parnassos. More desolate even than Tatooine (at least in this region), he recruits a tribal leader (Phasma) to guide him to a working ship. Along the way, they encounter other survivors, wildlife, and the remnants of a tribe Phasma has abandoned. The story is one part Moses in the Desert, one part Mad Max (Could Arratu Station be any more Thunderdome?), and one part Hannibal Lecter; together it’s a fun ride. Simultaneously, we meet a rebel spy who has been searching into Phasma’s history, and Phasma’s greatest rival within the first order.

Aside from the main plotline, Phasma does an excellent job at building both the world of Parnassos and of the First Order. Parnassos is filled with predators and hazards; death lurks at every corner. The cultural adaptations of the tribal groups that vie for survival are carefully constructed and illustrated; the values of independence and interdependence are shown quite vividly. Although never fully illuminated, there’s also a compelling subplot explaining the abandonment of this part of Parnassos due to corporate exploitation and greed. Within the First Order, we learn more about how troops are trained and refined; we learn about power struggles and dynamics that are only hinted at in the films; and we learn the vaguest morsels about past imperial heroes like Rae Sloane. I still want to see more of the First Order’s formation and operation captured in literary form, but this is a good first taste.

We don’t see a great deal of change within the character of Phasma in this novel; rather we see other characters change to understand her differently; only in the end is the clinically detached nature of her quest for survival fully exhibited. The structures through which we see Phasma is interesting; with few exceptions it’s a retelling of a story told by someone with an axe to grind against Phasma. At the same time it doesn’t feel bitter or biased; there’s a sense of disillusionment more than anything else. Other characters show more depth; we are treated to righteous struggle in the Cardinal, Vi’s compassionate but calculated manipulations, and Siv’s underlying innocence. The contrasts between Vi and Phasma are interesting; while both are manipulative and prone to violence, there’s an underlying sense of justice in Vi that’s missing in Phasma.

Overall, the story is a great deal of fun. If you’re looking for a story about the wars of Star Wars then you’ll need to go elsewhere; but if you want a smaller story grounded in survival, trust, and insanity then you’ve found the right book.

Delilah S. Dawson knocked this book out of the park. We are given an extremely compelling backstory to Phasma,where she comes from and the type of person she really is. The side characters here are all just as engaging and well written on top of it. Cardinal was a true stand out and possibly the only person in the First Order with a true sense of honor and integrity. I hope to see a continuation of where the story left off,I am itching to know what happened to a few of the key characters at the end of this tale.

Phasma was an okay Star Wars book. Ironically, I far more enjoyed the parts with Vi and Cardinal than I did Phasma’s long origin story. It was nice seeing the author give a reason for why Phasma quickly gave up Starkiller Base in The Force Awakens. I would have preferred seeing Phasma at different parts in her life versus a few weeks, but thems the breaks. Hopefully she stays dead after The Last Jedi and doesn’t come back in Episode IX.

I've read several of the new Star Wars canon books, and this is the best so far. I, too, absolutely could not put it down until I'd finished. If you think the idea of reading a simple origin story sounds boring, you won't be disappointed--there are many dimensions to this plot, covering not only Phasma's roots on the post-apocalyptic world of Parnassos, but also depths of intrigue in the First Order she would later join. This story pulls back many curtains, answers questions, lifts masks--and not only the ones you're expecting. The character of Cardinal is especially compelling, and Hux fans won't be disappointed, but the star is of course Captain Phasma, who as it turns out is every bit as devious as she is mysterious. This book lets our villains be villains in pretty spectacular fashion, while maybe throwing us a hero or two we didn't expect. I loved it.

As with all the hype before TFA, I was looking forward to getting an interesting back story on the undeniably flashy (and tacky) new villain, but just like the TFA, this novel was a big let down in my opinion.

Sure, all the plot pieces are there to explain how and why she's so revered within the First Order, but they're just there, and nothing more.

The problem with all of these "Journey to _____“ new canon novels is that they're being packaged along with the new Disney films, and as a result churned out through a development process inferior to a novel unattached to a huge marketing campaign. (Darth Plagueis, Darth Bane Trilogy, Tarkin)

I can say hands down that this is the most predictable Star Wars novel I've read, and I've read them all. From start to finish its almost painfully easy to discern who's going to betray who, who's going to be sacrificed, and where its all going to end up during Phasma's transformation (which turns out to not be much of a transformation at all, outside of a stormtrooper outfit)

What's even more transparent is the continuing "push" for more and more "strong" (i.e traditionally masculine) female characters in Star Wars, something that real fans know was never missing from the EU. (Mara Jade, Admiral Isaard, Padme Amidaala, Darth Zannah, Princess Leia etc etc). So in addition to painfully simplistic plots, we get flat and one dimensional, non-sensical, and completely unrelatable female protagonists/antagonist like Nora Wexley (GA Sloan, and Arinda Price are waaaay more interesting than Nora), Captain Phasma, and Ray (the strongest Jedi ever without any training)....and always at the expense of laughably disposable male characters (Jom Borrell, Finn, every male in Phasmas clan)

Phasma herself turns out to be nothing more than a lying, murdering, backstabbing savage, whom I would thoroughly enjoy seeing brutalize and vanquish her enemies...except that she seems to have no greater purpose or goal except "survival". She has no love interest, and seemingly no emotions except for her inexplicable rage (not directed at anyone in particular since she murders the only people she ever knew, and doesn't even know how to read)

The Feminist agenda is further highlighted by the plight of Phasma's obsolete male successor, " Captain Cardinal" (a red stormtrooper), the perfect soldier who uncharacteristically breaks the rules to investigate Phasmas's past, only to literally lay down in the final showdown. Really?

Lets not forget feeble old Brendle Hux...a man ingenious enough to be trusted with the allocation and development of the human resources needed to build the First Order (namely orphaned children), but foolish enough to cast aside his most decorated soldier and trusted guard...for a crazy woman he just met, and witnessed betray and murder everyone she knows. Really?

Even the setting in "Phasma" is lazy, 42 untitled chapters get you one planet, and one star destroyer...the ENTIRE plot takes place in two places, and the final showdown between protagonist/antagonist neatly comes together because of "an assembly" of high ranking officers (don't they facetime with hologram projectors?).

The writing itself is mediocre, its certainly vivid enough at critical points, but not very Star Wars specific, and generic enough for just about any adventure/action novel. (The characters travel in "GAV's" for half of the book..."GAV"s...you can google that). I noticed the author resorts to the adjective "clipped" at least 100 times during dialogue between characters....yawn.

No meticulous and methodical Sith, no cold and calculating bounty hunters, no conflicted Jedi, not even a competent and fiercly loyal Thrawn/Tarkin type here, no twist at the end...nothing.

"Phasma" should have been left a comic book.

I could go on and on here, but I'd be making more of an effort than the author did to meet her 90 day deadline.

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Nearly the entire story was a flashback about a couple characters that you know survive. The entire story offered no excitement, not intrigue, there was nothing at stake the entire time. This was a poor way to tell a story and it does not make me think Phasma is interesting in the least. If anything, given how Finn (a janitor) bests her in combat in Force Awakens and Last Jedi It makes me think that she and the rest of the storm troopers are a bunch of chumps.

For this book to be good there needed to be a real time element to phasma and she should have been recalling the story first hand.

I must say that it wasn't what i expected and a part of me kind of hoped that the whole thing was a complex false flag and the whole thing was either made up or heavily embellished. Was it a good and an enjoyable read? I thought so, but I was hoping at times that Vi was taking Cardinal on a ride.

Wow! Delilah Dawson manages to make me both despise and admire Phasma at the same time.

This is Mad Max meets Star Wars. And it's an interesting adventure that will keep you entranced and maybe a bit repulsed.

Not for younger fans. Maybe 13 and up? But it's well worth checking out before you see Phasma in the next movie.

The new canon is improving this was far more coherent than the other books we have had past RotJ. I did enjoy the hand to hand elements, and the fact that the characters were characters I care about. I recommend it, though I am left wanting more.

Wow! What a great story. It really fleshes out Phasma's ruthless, selfish, survivalist nature. It helps explain some of her actions in TFA and sets her up as a formidable and intriguing character for the future.

I'm usually not one for bashing others opinions of things but if anyone tells you this book is anything less than phenomenal they're a fool. Only downside to this book is how in love you'll be with Phasma and how disappointed you'll be with her screen time in movies.

The book is about Phasma, and she's not even the main character!!! She is a story told by a person who knew a person who knew her. Seriously, save yourself time by skipping it. Also, the story sucks. It has nothing to do with the Star Wars universe and could be any scifi story in any universe. Garbage.

While the story has a dystopian/epic fantasy feel for most of the book, it was well written and interesting. Some of the feel reminded me of KOTOR, which can only be a good thing. All in all a very good story.

It was ok. The author used for many pieces of other novels to make Phasma’s background. There were some elements of this book that just didn’t work, at all. Finished it, but Phasma is still as uninteresting as she was before I read this book.

the actual phasma bits were less interesting than the Vi/Cardinal parts. i really wanted insight into Phasma's character and this did nothing to really provide depth to her character. i was really hoping this would have been better. i guess on the plus side, it did make me interested in Cardinal. give me more about him.

I understand everyone has different tastes when it comes to Star Wars novels. But I personally thought this book was outstanding. Plenty of action and battles to satisfy the most avid Star Wars fan. Yet not a typical Star Wars story, not once (okay maybe once) was the Jedi or Sith even mentioned. Don't let the negative reviews keep you from reading this, pick it up and judge for yourself.

Bloated 380 page book that could have been written as a 100 page novella. Rips of themes from the Frank Herbert classic Dune, but written in the juvenille script of the crapfest that is Brain Hebert's work. Gets +1 because it actually explains why Phasma rolled over when Han Solo put a gun to her head, she is loyal only to herself. Gets another +1 because the author looks hot in her dust jacket photo, and hot chicks always get a +1

This started off promising, but crashed and burned. I can't even finish it. The author went off on so many useless and meaningless tangents, all with the same endings and leading back to the same place. Any one of the other proven Star Wars authors could have done a better job in their sleep. A complete dud that should end up in the dollar store.
Don't waste your money like I did.

Spoiler----Emergency Brake says that he doesn't have a lot of time to hear nonsense, so the spy tells him a story that would have taken at minimum 4 hours to tell......not a very effective use of time from the writer.

This is written in the same unreadable childish style of Chuck Wendig's books. Are all the new Star Wars authors incapable of telling a story in past tense?
"She sighs and pulls a bag from the floor" ...
'Sorry brother", she says." ...
Absolutely unreadable!
I miss Timothy Zahn, James Luceno and the other "Legends" authors ... :-(

This is for the audiobook version. I found this book absolutely dreadful. I realize Phasma is supposed to be a bad guy but in the story she's completely unlikable and because of that uninteresting. This would have been a better comic book or short story.

Brilliant, brutal, and at times quite heart wrenching. The audiobook version of the novel is immersive and has exquisite sound effects and music to really draw the listener in. It was just as satisfying as having a movie to watch, but with an even longer period of enjoyment. This book offers an intriguing insight into the past of Captain Phasma, and her meteoric rise through the First Order ranks, and offers some details into the lives of other ranking members of the Order. A truly fascinating work that kept me on the edge of my seat all the way through. I might just have to listen again.

When we first meet Captain Phasma, she is the leader of the troupe of stormtroopers that are on the ship with Kylo Ren, who critiques Fin on his poor performance in following orders to kill everyone. Little do we know, but kill or be killed, has been the way of life for Phasma for a long time and not just something learned by joining the First Order. I may have some spoilers telling this review so beware.
Phasma, as she is portrayed in both book and on screen, is a tall woman of stature bigger than even the men around her. But no one has seen her face except for the now-dead leader of the First Order, who took her and the few remaining survivors of Parnassos, the planet she came from. It is rumored that she is scared so she hides behind her mask.
Phasma is a fierce warrior constantly upgrading her skills and adapting her attack styles to whatever she faces quickly. She also has an ability to learn fast all skills, starting with language both written and spoken. From an untrained, she became a Captain within a year of joining the First Order in full competition to the one who trained her--the Cardinal who wears a red stormtrooper uniform with the cape to distinguish himself.
Cardinal has captured a Rebel spy named Viv who has information about Phasma but he finds the information insufficient to remove Phasma out of the First Order. He is forced to try to deal with her in a face to face combat battle but he loses when he is knifed with the poison knife he tried to use on Phasma. But Viv, whom he had let free to escape, rescues him and takes him to Parnasso where he will get medical treatment for his injuries. I get the impression we will see more of him facing Phasma but from the Rebel side.
One thing I get from this story is that Phasma trusts no one but herself to get what she wants. She may appear to be the ideal solder (stormtrooper) but that's not her end goal. I am going to leave the story of her chrome uniform for you to find out by reading the book.​

Captain Phasma was this huge surprise in ‘The Force Awakens’, a Female Storm Trooper, and a Chrome Plated Captain at that, full of mystery and looking spectacular. And then of course she was one of the most disappointing characters in the movie, with bare minutes in the movie and those she got, she was captured like a deaf newbie and thrown in a trash compactor. So much for the mighty Captain. Thankfully the film did have a fantastic Female lead in the form of Rey…
However, now we get to learn the background of this dark and mysterious character who is so easy to defeat. (Although to be fair, those helmets must impair your peripheral view something shocking!)
To discover the enigma that is Phasma, we learn that she has a counterpart, Cardinal, who was actually the first Storm Trooper to have a name, not just a number in the First Order, and he has Red Armour. He has caught a Resistance Spy, Vi Moradi, who he starts to torture for information on Phasma, as he wants to discredit her, and bring her down, get her removed from the Order.
And so begins the rather slow story of Phasma’s past, her upbringing on the planet Parnassos and how she started out as a warrior and creature born unto death. Phasma has no interest in anyone else’s welfare or future except her own, and she is willing to do anything to meet these goals. Unfortunately, it is a little cliché, and has been done before, barbaric tribe for whatever reason, overgrown slab of meat that only knows how to kill, takes on the leader who is maimed as he/she makes bad decisions and is going to lead tribe to bad end. Only this time, we have a few bonuses in that the First Order crash on the planet, so they are in the middle as well. And the hulking brute is Phasma if you hadn’t worked it out already.
The story has some interesting aspects, it gives us a good intro to some characters that hopefully we will see in future movies or stories – Vi, Cardinal and Siv, but at the same time, the character of Phasma is a loathsome horrendous psychopath without any redeeming qualities.
This is one of those things that is difficult, there is no possible way that she is a role model for Women, not unless you want to encourage your child to be something that only improves themselves through Genocide, or just being something that even Darth Vader might have locked his chambers to. But at the same time, we all Idolise Darth Vader, who is at the same time, a mass murderer, of children no less. So why shouldn’t she be idolised?
At the end of the day, all she is trying to do is live, thrive and be the best at what she does, it just happens to be killing, repeatedly.
Overall, this book did drag the story out a bit, the scenes between Vi and Cardinal where quite amusing, Vi has a sense of humour, which you kind of needed to balance out the Phasmacide on other pages.
One thing of interest is that Phasma is from the Ancient Greek for ‘Apparition, Omen, Prodigy, Phantom or Monster’, all of which fits the character of Captain Phasma from this book.
If you are a die-hard Star Wars fan, you will probably get something out of it, otherwise, it might be a bit too much like a lot of other stories of the same ilk.
I would have liked to have seen something a little less stereotyped for her, and a story with a bit more uniqueness. So many opportunities, the grandchild of a Clone and a Jedi or a Clone offspring, something a bit different than this. Disappointing.

A nice composition of background information on Phasma and her acceptance into the first order. Its a nice read and reasonably well written. Not an overly compelling read through out the book but it did manage to get me through a couple of long night shifts