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When Lucasfilm approved a Star Wars zombie horror novel, someone somewhere made a decision that was either very brave or very foolish. Having read the result, I’d call it brave. Death Troopers is not a great novel, but it is a genuinely entertaining one that earns its premise completely.
It also has two of the most unexpected cameos in Star Wars Legends fiction, which I will not spoil but which made me put the book down and laugh out loud when they arrived.
What’s It About?
An Imperial prison barge breaks down in deep space and pulls alongside an abandoned Star Destroyer to salvage parts. A boarding party finds the Star Destroyer empty — except for something in the lower levels. A virus spreads through the prison barge. Most of the crew and prisoners die. Then they come back.
The setting is the height of the Galactic Empire, several years before the original trilogy. The main characters are two teenage brothers — Trig and Kale Longo — imprisoned for their father’s debts, and a prison doctor named Zahara Cody who quickly becomes the most competent person in any given crisis.
Does the Horror Work in Star Wars?
Better than you’d expect. Schreiber leans into the claustrophobia of the abandoned Star Destroyer — the dark corridors, the malfunctioning lights, the scale — and the Star Wars universe turns out to be a reasonable container for zombie fiction. Blasters against the infected work differently than shotguns, and the specific biology of the Imperial virus gives the horror its own flavour rather than being a straightforward genre transplant.
The tone is darker than most Star Wars fiction. Characters die in ways that wouldn’t be out of place in a straight horror novel, and Schreiber doesn’t shy away from the visceral realities of a zombie outbreak.
The Cameos
I said I wouldn’t spoil them. What I will say is: if you’re a fan of the original trilogy, the appearance of two very famous characters in this context is handled with complete seriousness, works better than it should, and retroactively makes Death Troopers more interesting within the larger canon. The moment when Trig realises who he’s talking to is genuinely well done.
What Doesn’t Quite Work
Trig and Kale are thin protagonists. Zahara is considerably more interesting than either of them. The novel is short — around 280 pages — which is the right call given the premise, but means character development is thin across the board.
The zombie mythology is functional rather than original. Schreiber is clearly more interested in executing the horror set-pieces than in developing new ideas about what the infected are or what they want.
Who Should Read It?
Star Wars fans who are also horror readers — this is obviously made for you. Horror readers who are also Star Wars fans. Anyone who wants to spend a fast, entertaining afternoon with a pulpy sci-fi horror novel that takes its premise completely seriously. It’s not literature. It is a very good version of exactly what it sets out to be.
Rating: 3.5/5
Rated 4.1 Stars on Amazon. Buy Death Troopers here.
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Check out Sunset In the East — a mind-bending short story collection from Ben Luxon.
