I will never get tired of saying this; Captain Phasma as a character deserved better. When Phasma was introduced, I immediately gravitated toward her as a character. Her appearance is next level with the chromatic armor that she wears. The fact that she has such a strong presence in Finn’s backstory and could tell that his programming was wearing off shows how intuitive Phasma was. Captain Phasma should have lived into Rise of Skywalker, so Finn could have an epic showdown with Phasma, but I digress. When I heard about the Phasma novelization, I knew I wanted to read it eventually. The Star Wars novelizations have been a hit or a miss for me, but I’m happy to say that Star Wars Phasma was a hit.

Captain Phasma is a ruthless and formidable opponent. She uses her expertise to train Stormtroopers to fight for The First Order. Vi Moradi, a Resistance Spy, is sent to Phasma’s home world of Parnassos to gather useful intel about her. While heading to the rebel base, she’s captured by The First Order. She’s interrogated by Cardinal, a high-level guard who wants to take Phasma down as he sees her as competition. Vi relays everything she learned about Phasma to Cardinal in the hopes of buying her freedom and helping Cardinal eliminate Phasma.

If The Mummy and Mad Max were combined into a Star Wars story, that’s what I felt Phasma was. I think this book gives Phasma an extra edge that I don’t think the movies really did justice. Phasma is a warrior and was seen as a leader by her tribe on Parnassos. She leads a group of people to Brendol Hux’s crashed ship and the group has to fight their way off Parnassos to live a better life. An interesting scene involving a fighting arena shows Phasma’s capability of being a brutal leader. In Star Wars novelizations like this, it’s easy for the side characters to be forgettable. This book created characters that all served a purpose in the group. There was Siv who’s a warrior, but also the healer. Torben is the brute, and Gosta is the younger woman who doesn’t have Phasma’s edge but is still not someone to mess with. Brendol Hux was irritating and fit every stereotype about First Order officers. The Stormtroopers even had personalities and were given names by Phasma’s group. It was easy to keep everyone straight and care for everyone in the group.

The reason I read the Star Wars novelizations is to become more enriched with Star Wars as a franchise. I felt Phasma as a book had essential backstories for some of the characters in the sequels. I can’t reveal much without spoiling the book, but now that I have read Phasma, I feel like I could rewatch the sequels in a new light knowing what I know from this book.

I wasn’t sure what to expect with Phasma, but I enjoyed this book. This might be one of my favorite Star Wars novelizations that’s been published since Disney bought Star Wars. I was waffling between rating Phasma four or five stars. The only thing I’d add is this book was a little slow at times, however, once I dedicated time to read multiple sections at once, I ended up reading 250 pages in one sitting. For now, I’m rating this four stars, but I could see myself changing this rating in the future.