DeMaria, Rusel

AVERAGE REVIEW SCORE:

2 out of 5

(1 book)

Star Wars: TIE Fighter - The Stele Chronicles

3 ABY.  Young swoop racer Maarek Stele is taken from his homeworld by the Galactic Empire and put to work as a mechanic.  However, after saving an Admiral's life whilst test-piloting a TIE Fighter, he is enrolled in the Imperial Academy to train as a combat pilot.

This novella is something of a curiosity.  It was originally packaged with the iconic 'TIE Fighter' PC game and acts as both an introduction to the player character (never actually named or given any personality in the game itself) as well as a real-world manual for playing the game, with Stele being taught the same keyboard controls you'll need when playing.  A similar thing had been done previously with the 'X-Wing' game and 'The Farlander Papers'.

Unfortunately, the prose sections of this book are written without much flair and, due to where the character starts, not much of real interest happens to Stele here (he later goes on to fight traitors, pilot experimental ships and work with Grand Admiral Thrawn - but that's all in the game itself).  So, as a novella it's distinctly lacking but, to be fair to it, it's absolutely the best computer game manual I've ever read.  So there's that.

2 out of 5

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