“There was no shortage of nightmares aboard the Imperial Prison Barge Purge.”
The Purge loses its engines and tries to salvage parts from a nearby abandoned Star Destroyer only to bring back something more than material . . . something deadly . . . and hungry.
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TITLE:
STAR WARS: DEATH TROOPERS
WRITER:
by Joe Schreiber
GENRE:
Horror Book, Horror Novel, Humor, Science Fiction,
DESCRIPTORS:
Prisoners, Guards, Warden, Criminals, Sickness, Derelict Ships, Zombies,
CHARACTERS
Trig Longo, A teenage (barely) prisoner, a grifter and son of the late Von Longo.
Kale Longo, The older teenage prisoner, a grifter and son of the late Von Longo.
Zahara Cody, Medical officer.
Jareth Sartoris, Captain of the guard who killed Von Longo while interrogating him.
SUMMARY:
Imperial Prison Barge Purge is heading for a detention center when the thrusters break down stranding them in a seldom traveled region of the Empire. On board are the Longo brothers, still coming to terms with their father’s death and a medical officer who has lost the trust of the barge’s staff because of her humane treatment of the prisoners.
The warden, Kloth, sends Captain Sartoris and a team of guards, engineers and storm troopers to a near by derelict star destroyer to salvage parts to repair the Purge. On the destroyer, Sartoris splits the group into two teams. His team finds the material they need but return with one of their engineers sick. The other team never returns.
Of course many of the crew were eaten before they could change over — torn to pieces and . . . well, consumed, I suppose is the word.
As the killing sickness sweeps throughout the Purge, Zahara and the 2-1B droid, Waste, are overwhelmed by sheer numbers of sick people as well as the fact that the sickness does not show up on the computer scanners. Meanwhile, the Longo brothers seem to be one of the few people immune to the sickness but that doesn’t help them much as Aur Myss, the new leader of the Delphanian Face Gang has put an steep contract on their heads.
Within a day the entire ship is dead save the Sartoris, the Longo boys, Zahara and two harden criminals in solitary. And that’s when the dead begin to rise.
APPEAL:
Star Wars: Death Troopers is one of the fastest most fun reads I’ve had all year. When I was done I grabbed the MP3 audiobook version and ran through the story a second time. Despite the fact that this was a horror novel, it was set in the Star Wars Universe which means the action is going to go fast. Joe Schreiber adapts his zombie novel to that pace very well.
Joe Schriber does an excellent job of characterization. Zahara Cody, the doctor not trusted by the staff who knows this is her last trip and possibly the last time she’ll ever be a doctor. Trig and Kale Longo, sons of a grifter who have not only lost their freedom but also their father. Jareth Sartoris, the career officer in the Empire who has been self-destructing for some time now.
I’ll drop by again next time I feel like getting abused. If you live that long, which I doubt.
Other characters in the book, get very little stage time until they die but Mr. Schriber does an excellent job of making them memorable — Gat the prisoner who is actually nice to Zahara, Armitage, the guard with the soul of a painter, ICO Wembly who may be the only decent guard aboard the ship — certainly the heaviest, and many others.
When the sickness killed off all but six people on The Purge I was a little surprised. You expect to witness the zombie induced deaths of a bunch of second string characters before the protagonist gets into serious danger. Not so here. You spend most of the story waiting to see who of the six will fall while they try to find ways off the Purge.
These zombies have features not normally seen in zombies — and things that actually increased the tension. For instance, they scream and moan but in a pattern . . . they communicate with each other. . . .
Set in the Star Wars Universe, the story is expected to fit within that well designed structure. This novel happens about a year before Star Wars IV: A New Hope — the first movie filmed in this series. The Empire is strong and crushing the Rebels. Darth Vader is the terrifying right hand of the Emperor. Within this framework, Death Troopers fits quite nicely.
NOTE:
I’ve heard that Joe Schriber is working on a second Star Wars novel, possibly a prequel to this story. If so please read Death Troopers first so that the surprises are fresh and not spoiled by a prequel.
READALIKES:
I’ve encountered few books that read like Star Wars: Death Troopers. The horror in outer space fare like Aliens tends to mover slower with deep shadows and claustrophobia. Still, you might like Earth Hive (Aliens, Book 1), Nightmare Asylum (Aliens, Book 2), and The Female War (Aliens, Book 3), the first three novels in the Dark Horse adaptation of their Aliens stories which pick up where the movies left off. These stories make use of the science fiction environs to enhance the tension in the stories.
