Doctor Aphra teams up with Darth Vader in the original script to last year’s audiobook production, itself an expanded adaptation of the critically acclaimed Marvel Star Wars comics series.
They say the first kiss lasts forever, well in this excerpt from Sarah Kuhn’s Star Wars: Doctor Aphra scripted novel, star-crossed lovers Chelli Lona Aphra and Sana Starros put that theory to the test.
This printed version of last year’s audio-drama, directed by Kevin Thomsen and starring Emily Woo Zeller (Aphra) and Nicole Lewis (Starros), follows Del Rey’s latest trend of providing readers with hardcover versions of the script. They did the same with 2019’s Dooku: Jedi Lost by Cavan Scott, with the scripted version coming out later that same year. Sarah’s words, along with Zeller’s amazing performance, make this audio drama genuinely great and as an avid reader it’s wonderful to have the script in my hands, and it looks beautiful on my shelf!
This scene between Aphra and Starros was a new addition from Kuhn who said this to StarWars.com last year, “Many of the new scenes involve Sana Starros — I have always been intrigued by that relationship, because I love both of those characters and a lot of what we’ve seen is the bitter aftermath of them. And even in that bitter aftermath, they have so much chemistry!”
You can check out my interview with Sarah HERE!
The embargo doesn’t lift until tomorrow but in the meantime, check out this short excerpt courtesy of Penguin Random House/Del Rey books…
SANA STARROS:
What is that insane woman doing?
APHRA (narration):
My head whipped around—and I saw her. She was standing on the ground below, hands on her hips, head cocked to the side. Looking thoroughly perturbed.
SANA STARROS:
Aphra? Is that you? Do you have a death wish or are you just a complete fool?
APHRA (narration):
I . . . Void, this next part is so humiliating.
I let go. I fell. And I crashed right into Sana Starros, who broke my fall and probably saved me from breaking my neck.
SANA STARROS:
Oof.
APHRA (narration):
“But Chelli,” you’re saying. “Why did you let go?”
That’s the humiliating part. I just . . . her voice. Her eyes. Her whole . . . everything. Distracted me. Like they always did.
And then she spoke again.
SANA STARROS:
I don’t know if we’ve formally met. I’m Sana Starros. And that was the most reckless, harebrained, absolutely nonsensical—
APHRA:
I know your name.
APHRA (narration):
That’s when I kissed her for the first time.
To this day, I don’t know why she kissed me back. She always seemed too . . . sensible for someone like me. Studious Sana. Perfect, wrinkle-free clothes, nose in a book, always so serious.
But for some reason . . . she threw her common sense out the window. And we were inseparable all through my university days. Right up until . . .
No, we don’t need to get into that now.
Recording: Please mark this highly embarrassing sequence for possible deletion. Mark it as much as you can.
Star Wars: Doctor Aphra comes out Tuesday, April 6th, pre-order a copy by clicking HERE!
Cover art by Kevin Tong.
*Reprinted from STAR WARS: DOCTOR APHRA by Sarah Kuhn. Published by Del Rey, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.
