The MC knows the movies but I cant categorized this fic as a shameless self insert power trip the way many fanfictions unfortunately are. I have not watched the movies but this the story is not hard to follow and whats great about this fic is that the MC is not a force user (cant OP his way through problems) allowing for a better plot, epic battles and great characters. Here is the summary for the story:

Born to a not unimportant, not important planet in the Inner Rim, Rain never placed much thought into his future. After all, the galaxy is vast, and peaceful living should not be hard to find. Two decades later, armies are marshalled, and warships grace the stars, propelled aloft the wings of war.

Armed with the knowledge of nine movies and some scant trivia, Rain is forced into joining the galactic conflict. On the losing side.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/72498/sublight-drive-star-wars/chapter/1301259/chapter-1
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/sublight-drive-star-wars.1095425/#post-92880029

 

Great job, 5/5

 

IVe enjoyed this too. Ironically I have never seen any star wars movie (or read a book). Obviously I know some basic stuff from just... like.. being alive. But im relatively blind and ive enjoyed this one a good deal. A few parts i was a bit meh on probably because it got a bit too technical into the universe and I couldnt follow.

But if the story can hold my attention and keep me engaged when I dont even like star wars its doing pretty well.

 

I hate the !SelfInsert trope in general, it's usually a very cheap vehicle for the author. When it comes up, it still makes me cringe everytime. Still, when you look past it, it does what it is supposed to. Get the author to writing about space battles without having to worry about complicated plots & setups.

And that is basically most of the story and it has quite the charm. Droid subordinates, the odd pesky human politics & spacebattles is what this story is all about. When the 4th wall is not hammered by movie references, you can enjoy the moment even if there a bunch of other issues.

An example of the issues, is the main character. Gender is being kept in the air as far as I read, which works fine for the most part. But in general the character lacks any kind of definition. The issue here is not (a missing) sex, but that most of the inner dialogue shown is muddled with movie reflection. You could project anyone and anything into the character (which people in the story often do), leaving things a bit vague for the most part. But we dodge someone reflecting on his old Bolton dick, which is a big plus.

Another issue is the jumping POVs that sometimes leave you(or atleast me) wonder which characters perspective you are reading, but not in a interesting George R.R. Martin way.

Mary Sue vibes, while failure in combat by the main character is implied and sometimes shown, everything often works out way too neat. Especially the first few battles 'with innovative tactics that totally caught the republic off guard' just seem lazy.

I really like the space combat stuff and feel as the story progresses, the author keeps getting better. But sometimes the flowery speech gets a bit out of hand: "Republic turbolasers punched gaping holes in Separatist deflectors. Separatist warheads screamed back in response, acrid smoke licking the heavens." We are in space bro! Tone it down.

Overall I found myself pleasantly surprised by what I read and look forward to see where this goes.

 

I'm about 10 chapters in, and although I've enjoyed myself so far, I also have a lot of problems with it.

I've read a few similar stories with a character like Darth Vader going back in time to become a CIS admiral, and although this scratches some of the same itches that those fics do, the SI doesn't have much of a personal connection to the cause or the franchise, so unless you like reading about space battles and surface level intergalactic politics there isn't much here.

Most of the characters the SI interacts with are either OCs or very minor ones from the franchise, and while that definitely helps the world of the fic feel a lot larger than SW fics usually do, the main characters who appear are all a bit too OOC or bland for my tastes. They do serve the story and the world building though well though. Dooku the character is quite poorly written for example, but his impact on the politics of the CIS is developed in a very interesting way.

A lot of the other POV chapters also feel unnecessary, and they take up valuable screen time that could be spent on the SI. As it is they don't get all that much character development or characterisation for that matter, aside from coming across as an opportunistic military genius. The author also has a very odd blend of canon and prequels era legends material that sort of fits together, but does take me out of the story a bit.

I'd say that this is worth a read if anything in my review jumped out at you, but if you dislike SI stories, this probably won't change your opinion on them.

3/5

 

This is one of those stories where it feels like an interesting concept, but isn't pulling me in with any real hook.

I like some of the development we've seen of the MC, but it's very sparse.

The combat is fun. It also feels contrived half the time. The political side of the story is interesting, but feels like it's lagging massively. The general plan they enact to get momentum for the politics feels like a pure luck play.

I also dislike some of the perspective shifts. I want the story to have a better pace than what we see.

I've enjoyed the story so far, but it's like an editor away from being awesome.

3/5

I'd probably bump it up if if felt like the story started to accelerate in these upcoming chapters.

 

About a year later, and this story is in the endgame (confirmed in author notes in October, this is the final arc).

I've been quite impressed by it, and that's speaking as someone who has never been a fan of the whole prequels/Clone Wars period (I preferred the earlier novels). Overall I'd probably give it 4 stars.

Strengths include:

- A self-insert with just enough knowledge and power to make ripples, but not enough to take control of everything. He is a clever (though not unbeatable) tactician, but he is not the top of the heap, and his knowledge of canon events is very basic (eg he knows Palpatine is a Sith), so the whole story has involved him trying to push things in a better direction but having very mixed results with it.

- Excellent antagonists. With Dooku's influence being weakened by Rain's actions, the Separatists are no longer just generically evil, which results in a much more morally mixed conflict, where the two sides need to fight for one reason or another, but many of the participants on each side are actually good people in various ways, and the reader can cheer for Rain's victories but especially cheer when people manage to pull off an alternative to fighting, or rearrange the "sides" to unite against a mutual enemy. And the actual villains of the piece don't just stay still as the galaxy changes around them, they adapt their plans and remain as threatening as ever.

- Great action scenes. Fights are won through clever strategy as often as firepower, and the author does a solid job of showing them rather than telling.

Areas for improvement might include the amount of background knowledge needed to properly appreciate it (it's not bad in that regard, but it feels like there's a degree of assumed knowledge that makes it a little harder to follow), more explanation of how Rain came to be a master tactician (although it's interesting to read his exploits regardless), and arguably a slightly tighter pace (the level of detail can be interesting, and it does move along, but sometimes it feels like it's dragging a bit).