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meeting.

Looking across the room, I see the one who stands out from all the others.

Such grace upholds them.

Livelihood fills them.

Happiness glows in their eyes.

Sweet laughter is the only sound I hear.

Moving closer, I hear the sound of their voice, so strong, so pure, and I see their face so beautiful, shining brightly.

I watch carefully as they stand and walk my way, closer by the second.

They are only a few feet away now.

My hands are shaking with nervousness, my feet glued to the floor.

They walk closer, and then right by me.

The chance for a meeting gone, without even a simple hello.

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a midnight poem

sometimes by adelia chamberlain

Sometimes I watch the sunrise,
and think of all that will happen.

Sometimes I watch the sunset,
and think of all that happened.

Sometimes I watch the rain,
and think of how it cleanses a soul.

Sometimes I watch the lightning,
and think of how it represents anger.

Sometimes I watch the stars,
and think of all that is unknown.

Sometimes I watch the clouds,
and think of all that could be.

Sometimes I watch the snow,
and think of all it covers.

Sometimes I watch the waves,
and think of how far they’ve traveled.

Sometimes I watch the trees,
and think of all that can be missed.

Sometimes I watch the sun,
and think of all I want from life.

Sometimes I watch the moon,
and wonder if I’ll ever succeed

© 2018

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a four p.m. poem.

barricade by adelia chamberlain

A block of wall barricading the heart
Built on white slips of truth
And tiny black slips of lies
Mixed together in solid stone
Pristine white with ugly black scars

Armies push against the wall
Hoping it will break
They fire their cannons and their guns
Aiming for the black spots
Because of their perceived weakness

But what the armies will never understand
Is that the black slips of lies are the wall’s strongest points
For it is the lies that are told which bond together the truths
They make the truths stronger
The lies help the heart survive the day

When the armies bombard the wall guarding it
The truths help the heart survive the night
When the armies rest and all that remains
Is a block of wall barricading the heart
Mostly white with truth that glows through the night
And so the heart lives to fight another day

© 2018

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a two a.m. poem.

the darkened skies by adelia chamberlain

with bars of light from a moon so bright
or stars from millions of miles away
it brings with it a peaceful air
the kind that calms with a gentle breeze
and guides us to the land of dreams
while we all catch some zzzzz’s

the beauty of the darkened sky is something to behold
it does not heat or blind with sunrays
but it can help to make you whole
for if you let yourself experience it
you will come to see that
the middle of this thing called night
is as tranquil as a waveless sea

you can find peace here if you seek it
from these early hours of the day
and when you see the dawn on the horizon
everything might just be a little more okay
for the night arrives to heal the world
and it can, if you give it a chance

© 2018

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book review: aftermath: empire’s end by chuck wendig

Aftermath: Empire’s End is a canon novel written by Chuck Wendig and the final volume in The Aftermath Trilogy. It was first published by Del Rey on February 21, 2017. The novel features the Battle of Jakku, the final engagement of the Galactic Civil War.

Category:  Fantasy/Sci-Fi

Publisher’s Summary:  Following Star Wars: Aftermath and Star Wars: Aftermath: Life Debt, Chuck Wendig delivers the exhilarating conclusion to the New York Times bestselling trilogy set in the years between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens.

As the final showdown between the New Republic and the Empire draws near, all eyes turn to a once-isolated planet: Jakku.

The Battle of Endor shattered the Empire, scattering its remaining forces across the galaxy. But the months following the Rebellion’s victory have not been easy. The fledgling New Republic has suffered a devastating attack from the Imperial remnant, forcing the new democracy to escalate their hunt for the hidden enemy.

For her role in the deadly ambush, Grand Admiral Rae Sloane is the most wanted Imperial war criminal—and one-time rebel pilot Norra Wexley, back in service at Leia’s urgent request, is leading the hunt. But more than just loyalty to the New Republic drives Norra forward: Her husband was turned into a murderous pawn in Sloane’s assassination plot, and now she wants vengeance as much as justice.

But Sloane, too, is on a furious quest: pursuing the treacherous Gallius Rax to the barren planet Jakku. As the true mastermind behind the Empire’s devastating attack, Rax has led the Empire to its defining moment. The cunning strategist has gathered the powerful remnants of the Empire’s war machine, preparing to execute the late Emperor Palpatine’s final plan. As the Imperial fleet orbits Jakku, an armada of Republic fighters closes in to finish what began at Endor. Norra and her crew soar into the heart of an apocalyptic clash that will leave land and sky alike scorched. And the future of the galaxy will finally be decided.

Review:  Norra Wexley’s singular need to find her husband Brentin and Grand Admiral Rae Sloane leads her and her crew to the planet of Jakku, where they discover the majority of the remnants of the Imperial fleet orbiting the planet.  Ordering her son Temmin to return to Chandrila to raise the alarm, Norra and Jas Emari use an escape pod to reach the planet’s surface.  Temmin orders his battle droid Mister Bones to take care of his mom and sends him in a second escape pod before he and Sinjir Rath Velus escape enemy fire and return to Chandrila.  And we’re off.

I’ll be honest.  There was hardly a page of this book that I didn’t enjoy.  It’s by far the best of the Aftermath trilogy and it’s portrayal and description of the battle of Jakku was fantastic.

The relationship between Rae Sloane and Brentin Wexley as they attempt to help each other achieve the same goal of capturing Gallius Rax while on opposite sides of the conflict was interesting.  Their interactions with Niima the Hutt, who I realized a couple of chapters after she first appeared has to be the namesake of the Niima Outpost Rey mentions in Star Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens, were very funny and action-packed, and when Norra and Jas ended up tangled up with Niima as well, the levels of comedy and action rose more.  Niima was a very different kind of Hutt to Jabba personality-wise, and it was a contrast that I really enjoyed.  Mister Bones reuniting with Norra was an emotional scene for many reasons, and even though I started out being really annoyed by that droid, I’ve grown to really love Mister Bones.

Political conspiracies were circling back with the New Republic as elections drew near, and this is an example of Star Wars politics done right.  I didn’t find any of these plotlines boring and tedious the way that thinking about the prequels from the opening words of the Phantom Menace‘s crawl does.  While the New Republic come to terms with how to deal with what’s happening at Jakku and how to proceed, our characters there face different points of decision when it comes to their future, and I thought that each decision was made in a way that I understood and that didn’t seem forced.

When the battle finally commences, the action is well-written and the various storylines that are occurring throughout it are weaved together seamlessly.  You get the points of view of people in orbit above the planet, and in the air and on the ground on the planet, and Wendig switches between them in a way that doesn’t seem like he’s trying to squeeze in too much for the scenes to handle.  There were moments that surprised me, character deaths and sacrifices that I didn’t see coming, and I really enjoyed Wendig’s writing.

That’s not to say that everything was perfect.  It doesn’t exactly explain why Jakku was so important to Palpatine that he would have Gallius Rax cause the final battle to occur in the planet’s atmosphere.  It becomes very clear throughout flashbacks that Palpatine knew that the battle he would have Rax stage there would be the final destruction of the Empire because Palpatine believed that the Empire should not outlive its Emperor, but as to why that battle needed to happen at Jakku, we’re still in the dark.  The interludes again mostly fell flat for me.  The ones with the Acolytes of the Beyond are the only memorable ones, and they have me questioning whether or not the Acolytes are the beginnings of the Knights of Ren.

Recommendation:  This book is fantastic.  It’s a great finish to a trilogy that didn’t start out the greatest but built momentum and turned into one of my favorite trilogies I’ve read in awhile.  I think that if you’re at all interested in how the final battle between the Empire and the New Republic played out you need to read this book.  I would suggest reading the entire trilogy to get a better grasp on the characters and where they are at the beginning of this one.  But definitely, read this.  I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

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book review: aftermath: life debt by chuck wendig

Aftermath: Life Debt is a canon novel written by Chuck Wendig and published by Del Rey, that is set between Star Wars: Episode VI: Return of the Jedi and Star Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens. It is the second book in The Aftermath Trilogy, which started with Aftermath, and was released on July 12, 2016.

Category:  Fantasy/Sci-Fi

Publisher’s Summary:  The galaxy is changing, and with peace now a possibility, some dare to imagine new beginnings and new destinies. For Han Solo, that means settling his last outstanding debt, by helping Chewbacca liberate the Wookiees’ homeworld of Kashyyyk.

Meanwhile, Norra Wexley and her band of rebels pursue Admiral Rae Sloane and the remaining Imperial leadership across the galaxy. Sloane, increasingly wary of the mysterious fleet admiral, desperately searches for a means to save the crumbling Empire from oblivion. Even as Imperial forces fight to regain lost ground, Princess Leia and the New Republic seek to broker a lasting peace.

But the rebel’s hunt for Admiral Sloane is cut short after the disappearance of Han Solo and Chewbacca. Desperate to save them, Leia conscripts Norra, Sinjir, Jas, and the rest of their team to find the missing smugglers and help them in their fight for freedom.

Review:  If you read my review of the first book in this trilogy, you know that I didn’t find Aftermath to be very exciting.  It didn’t feel like much of a Star Wars book, and that’s sort of the whole point of these books.  So going into this one, I was a little apprehensive about what I might find.  I didn’t want another book like the first one.

I didn’t get another book like the first one.

Aftermath: Life Debt is wonderful.  There is so much at work in this book, from the origins of why the planet of Jakku is important to an assassination attempt that I did not see coming at all to discovering just how far Han Solo will go to find Chewbacca.  There are more characters from the Original Trilogy in this book, chief among them being Princess Leia Organa and Han Solo.  The team from Aftermath is still here, and they’ve been joined by a relatively minor character from the first book, Jom Barell.  Their mission is to hunt down and capture Imperial fugitives, and their first attempted capture is very exciting.  When they return to Chandrila, Princess Leia gives them an undercover mission strictly for her: find her husband, Han Solo, who is missing after a failed attempt to liberate the Wookiee planet Kashyyyk.  And just like that, we’re off on our adventure.

A lot of time is also spent with Rae Sloane, now Grand Admiral of the Imperial Navy and de facto leader of the Empire, but she is being controlled by the Fleet Admiral Gallius Rax, a man with a mysterious past that Sloane is desperate to uncover.  Rax puts together a Shadow Council to rule the Empire while allowing Sloane to remain its public face, and among the members of this council is Brendol Hux, father of General Hux, who is portrayed by Domnhall Gleeson in Star Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens.  This is the first time we learn of General Hux’s first name, Armitage, and that he is Brendol Hux’s bastard son.  Brendol doesn’t think very much of Armitage, but is determined that he’s going to make something of his weak-willed son.  Given what we saw in The Force Awakens, I’d say he succeeded.

One of my absolute favorite things about this book was the evolvement of the character of Sinjir Rath Velus, my favorite of the new characters introduced in the first book.  Wendig established in a rather nonchalant manner in the first book that Sinjir was homosexual, but in this book, he expands upon that, giving Sinjir a love story with a slicer named Conder Kyl.  I adored this relationship.   It’s not straightforward and it’s not simple, but it made Sinjir feel like a real person instead of just words on a page and I thoroughly appreciated that.

Princess Leia is pregnant in this book, and I really enjoyed all of the parts where she tuned into the Force and connected with her unborn son.  I always enjoy seeing Leia use the Force in any capacity, and reading about her using exercises that Luke had taught her on how to tap into the Force just made me smile.  There’s one scene in particular where Leia tries to reach out to a tree and ends up connected to her unborn son instead, and it’s just beautifully written.

The interludes that I thought were unnecessary in the first book are continued in this one, and I’m starting to see how they progress and connect, giving little pieces of life throughout the galaxy as this struggle between what’s left of the Empire and the fledgling New Republic goes on.  There is an ongoing one about a group called the Acolytes of the Beyond that is becoming interesting.  And the one about Jabba the Hutt’s beastmaster and his life after the death of both Jabba and his beloved rancor Pateesa was entertaining.

Recommendation:  This is a great improvement over the first book in the trilogy, and while it’s not up at the top of the list of all of the books I’ve read in the new Star Wars canon, it’s definitely a good book.  The mission of our main team is more interesting, the Imperial side of things is more intriguing, and the interludes begin to make sense.  Wendig’s writing style seems to have changed a bit from the first book, but it’s in a good way, because this book seemed like an easier read than the first book did.  Perhaps that’s just because I’m used to the new characters and I’m glad to see the characters we know from the Original Trilogy, but it was something I noticed.  I recommend this book to any Star Wars fans, but I am going to say that I think you should read Aftermath first.  Aftermath is not an easy read, but it will introduce you to our new characters, and I think that introduction is necessary for you to get the full emotional impact of Life Debt.

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book review: aftermath by chuck wendig

Aftermath is a canon novel by Chuck Wendig and published by Del Rey, that is set between Star Wars: Episode VI: Return of the Jedi and Star Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens. The novel is the first in The Aftermath Trilogy and is part of the Journey to Star Wars: The Force Awakens publishing project.  It was released on September 4, 2015. 

Category:  Fantasy/Sci-Fi

Publisher’s Summary:  The second Death Star has been destroyed, the Emperor killed, and Darth Vader struck down-—devastating blows against the Empire, with major victories for the Rebel Alliance. But the battle for freedom is far from over.

As the Empire reels from its critical defeats at the Battle of Endor, the Rebel Alliance—now a fledgling New Republic—presses its advantage by hunting down the enemy’s scattered forces before they can regroup and retaliate. But above the remote planet Akiva, an ominous show of the enemy’s strength is unfolding. Out on a lone reconnaissance mission, pilot Wedge Antilles watches Imperial Star Destroyers gather like birds of prey circling for a kill, but is taken captive before he can report back to the New Republic leaders.

Meanwhile, on the planet’s surface, former Rebel fighter Norra Wexley has returned to her native world—war weary, ready to reunite with her estranged son, and eager to build a new life in some distant place. But when Norra intercepts Wedge Antilles’s urgent distress call, she realizes her time as a freedom fighter is not yet over. What she doesn’t know is just how close the enemy is—or how decisive and dangerous her new mission will be.

Determined to preserve the Empire’s power, the surviving Imperial elite are converging on Akiva for a top-secret emergency summit—to consolidate their forces and rally for a counterstrike. But they haven’t reckoned on Norra and her newfound allies—her technical genius son, a Zabrak bounty hunter, and a reprobate Imperial defector—who are prepared to do whatever they must to end the Empire’s oppressive reign once and for all.

Review:  This book starts with a group of people trying to topple the statue of Emperor Palpatine on Coruscant, and when they do, a group of Imperial policemen show up and start firing into the crowd.  Two the characters we’re following in the scene pick up rocks to start throwing at the officers, realizing that the war is far from over.  It’s a good way to start the book, in my opinion, because it shows that while the emperor might be dead, it doesn’t mean that everything just immediately changes overnight.  This scene is there to set the tone, and I think it does a good job.

I knew going into this from talking with people that had already read it that this wasn’t going to be just a continuation of Star Wars: Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, so I wasn’t disappointed about the lack of characters from the Original Trilogy in this book.  Instead, we’re introduced to a new group of characters on a new planet, and I really appreciated that.  I’m always interested in expanding the Star Wars universe, and I was glad to see the new characters and a new planet.

We do have two characters that have been previously known:  Wedge Antilles is obviously well known from the feature films, and Rae Sloane is a character from the previously published canon novel A New Dawn by John Jackson Miller.  Antilles doesn’t play that much of a part, though he is the catalyst for our band of heroes to make their assault on the remnants of the Empire that are on Akiva, while Sloane plays a large part in the story and I really enjoyed Wendig’s take on her character.  Sloane is a badass female character to add to the ever-growing list of badass female characters in the Star Wars universe.  My favorite of the new characters is Sinjir Rath Velus, a former Imperial Loyalty officer who abandoned the Imperial forces after the Battle of Endor.  Before he joins the adventure our heroes are on, he is doing nothing but sitting in bars drinking all day.  Once he learned of the Imperial blockade, he bargains with a local crime lord for safe passage off the planet but instead gets himself imprisoned.  With the help of bounty hunter Jas Emari, he frees himself and ends up joining our ragtag group of heroes.  Another character in here, Temmin Wexley, is portrayed as an adult by Greg Grunberg in the 2015 film Star Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens.

The mission the characters go on is not very interesting and exciting.  There were some moments that made me cheer and made me gasp, but they were few and far between.  The interludes were okay.  Sometimes I thought they were very unnecessary, but I’m guessing they play a larger part in the trilogy as a whole.  It was very obvious that this was the first part of a trilogy because of the way certain things played out, but there was enough there to make me somewhat okay with how this story wrapped up.  The characters are really the best thing about this book to me.  I wanted to spend more time with them but on a different mission.

Recommendation:  Overall, this book is kinda meh as a standalone story, but if you look at it as the first part of a trilogy, then it might be an okay first installment.  I’m hoping that all of this will have greater context by the time I’m done with the trilogy as a whole, and it’s making me glad that I’m reading these books after the entire trilogy has been released.  The main thing for me is that it feels more like a fantasy/sci-fi book than a Star Wars book, and I really wanted a Star Wars book.  If you’re interested in reading the entire trilogy, then I suggest you read it.  But if not, then this might be one that you might want to skip.

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book review: shockaholic by carrie fisher

Shockaholic is an autobiographical humor book by American actress and author Carrie Fisher, published by Simon & Schuster in 2011.  It is Fisher’s second memoir.

Category:  Autobiography/Memoir

Publisher’s Summary:  Infused with Carrie Fisher’s trademark incisive wit and on the heels of Wishful Drinking’s instant New York Times bestselling success, Shockaholic takes readers on another rollicking ride into her crazy life.

There is no shortage of people flocking to hear what Princess Leia has to say. Her previous hardcover, Wishful Drinking, was an instant New York Times bestseller and Carrie was featured everywhere on broadcast media and received rave reviews from coast to coast, including People (4 stars; one of their top 10 books of the year), Entertainment Weekly, New York Times, and scores of others.

Told with the same intimate style, brutal honesty, and uproarious wisdom that placed Wishful Drinking on the New York Times bestseller list for months, Shockaholic is the juicy account of Carrie Fisher’s life, focusing more on the Star Wars years and dishing about the various Hollywood relationships she’s formed since she was chosen to play Princess Leia at only nineteen years old. Fisher delves into the gritty details that made the movie—and herself—such a phenomenal success, admitting, “It isn’t all sweetness and light sabers.”

Review:  After hearing the story of her waking up next to a dead friend in Wishful Drinking, we hear more of the emotional and mental aftermath in Shockaholic.  The trauma of the situation led Fisher to renew her drug habit, and while I haven’t had substance abuse problems like she has nor have I woken up next to a dead friend, I can relate to the mental health side of things, which makes her emotional processes here very relatable to me.  Her constant thoughts about the impact of her behavior on her daughter Billie were both touching and heartbreaking, and I am glad that she was so open and honest about the electroconvulsive therapy and what it has done for her.  The more people with mental health struggles speak out about their diagnoses, treatments, situations, and circumstances, the more we may be able to break the stigma that surrounds mental illness in this country.

There are plenty of great stories in here.  From Bob Dylan calling her to ask her what would be good names for cologne to Elizabeth Taylor shoving her into a pool, Fisher shares these anecdotes in a funny, refreshing way that is uniquely her own.   There are more profound moments as well, such as Fisher sharing her thoughts and memories on Michael Jackson and the situations and circumstances that surrounded him while framing it with the story of spending his last Christmas Eve together with him and his children.  Her stories of Paul Simon and their relationship were witty, the ones of her stepfather Harry were quite funny, and the tale of her dinner with Chris Dodd, Ted Kennedy, and a few others was absolutely fantastic to read.

The story that got to me the most though was the theme that ran throughout the book, and that was Fisher’s relationship with her father, Eddie Fisher.  From not liking him very much to becoming drug buddies to their relationship during the final months of his life, Fisher gives an emotional yet honest take on growing up with a father who had left before she was the age of three and sort of floated around the peripheral of her existence for years afterward.  It’s a difficult to understand relationship while at the same time being a sign of how people grow emotionally as they grow older.  And Fisher’s final reflections on her now deceased father are touching and poignant.

And the Star Wars stories.  Who doesn’t love Star Wars stories?

Recommendation: I miss Carrie Fisher so much.  Her brutal honesty and insightful wisdom and tremendous wit are on display here once again, and while Wishful Drinking was perhaps funnier overall, there are moments in this book that had me laughing hysterically (see: her fake commercial for a fake psych drug).  She also speaks more about her experiences with electroconvulsive therapy and what led her to the decision to have it, and to the mental health struggles and substance abuse problems that she’d struggled with for the majority of her adult life.  Because of all of these reasons, to me, Shockaholic is an essential read.

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book review: wishful drinking by carrie fisher

Wishful Drinking is an autobiographical humor book by American actress and author Carrie Fisher, published by Simon & Schuster in 2008. Fisher’s book was based on her one-woman stage show, which she developed with writer/director Joshua Ravetch.

Category:  Autobiography/Memoir

Publisher’s Summary:  In Wishful Drinking, Carrie Fisher tells the true and intoxicating story of her life with inimitable wit. Born to celebrity parents, she was picked to play a princess in a little movie called Star Wars when only 19 years old. “But it isn’t all sweetness and light sabers.” Alas, aside from a demanding career and her role as a single mother (not to mention the hyperspace hairdo), Carrie also spends her free time battling addiction, weathering the wild ride of manic depression and lounging around various mental institutions. It’s an incredible tale – from having Elizabeth Taylor as a stepmother, to marrying (and divorcing) Paul Simon, from having the father of her daughter leave her for a man, to ultimately waking up one morning and finding a friend dead beside her in bed.

Review:  Carrie Fisher is a mother f’ing goddess.  She’s so refreshing and every word I read made me more sad about the fact that she’s gone.  As someone who struggles with mental illness, her candid take on what she’s been through and her open admission to undergoing electroconvulsive therapy made me feel more accepted, more welcome in the world.  I haven’t undergone that particular treatment but I think the more people who are open about their mental health struggles and what they do to help them, the better it is when it comes to fighting the stigma that surrounds mental illness as a whole.

I also thoroughly enjoyed hearing about Carrie’s family and her life growing up.  As the daughter of Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, she grew up in a world that few people can imagine, and the little insights she gives into it were interesting.  Particular highlights are her describing what she and her brother used to do when playing in her mother’s closet, the story of when her brother accidentally shot himself in the leg, or the story of when her mother came up with the idea for her to have her stepfather’s child because it would have nice eyes.

And all of the Star Wars stories, oh, all of the Star Wars stories.  She tells the best Star Wars stories, like the story of the famous hairstyle or the various merchandise that she became or how George Lucas told her she couldn’t wear a bra under the white dress she wore in the first movie because there’s no underwear in space.

Her reflection on her substance abuse and drug addiction problems was poignant and honest, and I appreciated that so much.  I have never suffered from these issues, but the psychological issues that go along with them are things that I have faced and again, hearing someone who has faced the same things talk about them is just so important to me.  Her descriptions of how she processes things is just so similar to mine that it’s almost frightening, but hearing them is almost validation of my processes, and validation is kind of a thing I search for.

Recommendation:  Carrie Fisher is a tremendous writer, and this book is full of wit, wisdom, and honesty.  Her candid talk about her mental illness and struggles means the world to me as someone who has a mental illness, and I relate to her more than I can say.  It’s a wonderful read that makes me miss her more than I have in months.  I highly recommend this.