Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge – A Crash of Fate is one of two novel-length books coming out this month that tie into the ambitious new Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge lands at Disneyland Resort in California and Walt Disney World in Florida. This particular story, written by Zoraida Córdova (Brooklyn Brujas), takes place after the events of the other one (Delilah S. Dawson’s Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge – Black Spire), though for some reason it is being released before it by about three weeks.
A Crash of Fate is not your average Star Wars novel, in that it focuses more on two star-crossed lovers and the events that pull them apart before thrusting them back together, rather than the epic battles between the Resistance and First Order– or Galactic Empire vs. Rebel Alliance or Trade Federation vs. Republic Forces, for that matter. Those conflicts are mentioned in passing, and the first listed serves as an occasional backdrop for the narrative, but above all this is the tale of two people in love.
Make no mistake– Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge – A Crash of Fate is a romance novel set in A Galaxy Far, Far Away. After a childhood prologue that tears the two protagonists asunder, chapters alternate between the perspectives of Izzy, a headstrong smuggler returning to the planet of Batuu after having left thirteen years earlier, and Jules, a kind-hearted but naive local farmboy who dreams of nothing more than seeing his departed best friend and would-be lover again.
Izzy is sent back to Black Spire Outpost more than a decade after her secretive parents evacuated the city overnight, on a mission to deliver a strange package to Dok-Ondar, owner of one of Disneyland’s most atmospheric new gift shops, the Den of Antiquities. There, she meet-cutes with Jules and the two immediately rekindle the lost closeness of their youth and fall head-over-heels in love with each other through a day of misadventures. The reader then spends the rest of the book listening to how attracted each of these characters is to the other. Seriously. This book should have been titled Star Wars: Get a Room.
There are some other minor complications, of course, such as a slimy ex-boyfriend-turned-villain, entanglements with Batuuan baddies and Izzy’s miscreant former crew, and a switched-briefcase subplot worthy of Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach, but all of this feels incidental compared to the two leads constantly pining over each other. A Crash of Fate is probably better written than Black Spire, but it’s also far less consequential in the grand scheme of Star Wars things.
Like Black Spire, this novel refamiliarizes us with a number of personalities guests will encounter (or at least hear about) around Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, such as cantina owner Oga Garra, mechanic Salju, popcorn entrepreneur Kat Saka, pirate-turned-businessman Hondo Ohnaka, and of course the eccentric Ithorian merchant Dok-Ondar himself. All of these people and aliens are enlisted as supporting players in the love story between Jules and Izzy, and the two also bring along their own casts of friends into the mix, but like many recent ancillary Star Wars stories, it’s hard to imagine we’ll ever see the minor faces introduced here again in the larger saga.
It’s clear Córdova had conversations with fellow Galaxy’s Edge author Dawson, because their two novels feel almost coordinated, with Izzy and Jules even briefly crossing paths with an unnamed Resistance soldier who sounds an awful lot like the latter’s creation Vi Moradi. It’s strange, then, that there are scattered contradictions between the details of the two books, such as the perceived distance between locations in Black Spire Outpost. While reading Black Spire, it was easier to imagine myself in the layout of the city established by the theme park land, while in A Crash of Fate the settlement comes across as quite a bit larger and more labyrinthine.
Fortunately, Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge – A Crash of Fate is a breeze to get through, with crystal-clear prose and fun dialogue worthy of the franchise. It’s technically being marketed as a Young Adult publication, but I think adults will enjoy it, so long as they know what to expect. There are hints of action, subterfuge, and danger in this story, but by and large it is more about a budding relationship than it is a high-flying adventure.
Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge – A Crash of Fate is available now wherever books are sold.