David's Review of X-wing: Iron Fist

4/5 Rancors - Iron Fist is the sixth book in the X-wing series and the second one by Aaron Allston after four by Michael Stackpole. In both of Mr. Allston's books, we follow the adventures of Wraith Squadron, a group of skilled pilots put together by Wedge Antilles basically to wreak havoc on Warlord Zsinj. The members of Wraith Squadron can certainly fly, but they are also competent commandos, snipers, spies, and infiltrators. The cast of characters has not changed dramatically from the previous book. They are an interesting mix of humans and aliens, and Antilles gives them a lot of freedom to innovate as they move from fight to fight.

In this book the members of Wraith Squadron changed tactics and posed as a pirate band in order to gain Zsinj's confidence and join his loose organization of raiders. In order to pull this off, they participate in several raids as pirates and manage to attract the attention of Warlord Zsinj. I found some of these raids to be confusing and kind of helter-skelter. However, Mr. Allston makes up for that with a huge battle at the end of the book. He also manages to leave plenty of room for the next book in the series.

Each of the books in the X-wing series includes a list of characters at the front of the book. The list also specifies species and home planets. This information is very handy and helps the reader to draw a mental picture of individuals, especially if you go to the trouble to read about the species in some of the Star Wars reference books such as The New Essential Guide to Alien Species. The characters are uniformly interesting even though some of their exploits are completely over the top. That really shouldn't bother most readers. If you are worried about things being over the top, you wouldn't be a Star Wars fan anyway.

The next book, X-wing: Solo Command, will continue the adventures of Wraith Squadron, and I look forward to it.