Review: Shadows of the Empire

[winter]

One of the few rules I have is that I don’t do Star Wars Extended Universe. Basically, it’s movie or bust for me – I might gleam a gem or two of inspiration from an interview with Lucas or from the novelisations, but if it wasn’t in the movies, it’s not canon. I also consider 99% of the EU to be mass-rpoduced drivel.

Shadows of the Empire, which fyrie made me read, is part of that 1%.

I’m not saying the book is perfect. But it’s highly enjoyable. All characterisations ring true, all interactions seem real, intra-movie introspection is plausible. And then there’s Vader.

Shadows takes place between TESB and ROTJ, so Vader is. And he’s written perfectly – impressive, impulsive, and just bratty (in a mature way) enough to make me believe this is both the villain I adored in the Original Trilogy and the rebel Jedi I grew surprisingly fond of in the prequels. Mind you, the book came out in 1996 – several years before we even got a look at Yippee Kid in TPM, never mind Hayden.

It’s not a dazzling intellectual endeavour – hello, Star Wars – but it’s certainly enjoyable. I would have preferred for Xizor to get his arse kicked worse, though: this was one fictional character that I was plotting how to assassinate fifty pages into the book. (I decided sabotaging his physical-training machine would have been the most elegant way.)

In other news, I’m still working on the Coldfire FST. I was listening to HIM’s version of Wicked Game yesterday and I realised it’s the perfect Gerald/Damien song:

The world was on fire, no one could save me but you
It's strange what desire will make foolish people do
I'd never dreamed that I'd need somebody like you

Yes, this FST is going to be highly on crack.

Comments

[-leareth.livejournal.com]

Ever read the books with Grand Admiral Thrawn by Timothy Zahn? Post ROTJ, but damned good :P

[winter]

You know, I really wasn't expecting to end up with a list of EU must reads when I posted this ;) Still, thanks!

[-leareth.livejournal.com]

Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, and The Last Command is te trilogy that /started/ the EU *g* and the ones that have most re-read quality out of all the SWEU books.

[moustachios.livejournal.com]

I *love* Traitor, by Matthew Stover. The rest of the NJO is kind of one big blurry Vong mush in my mind, but that book stands out, partly because it's unusually painful to read (it's mostly Jacen being tortured), and partly because I rather like Vergere.

Destiny's Way and Star by Star are good too, although I like RD and RS better.

[carmentalis.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I might give those three a try. It's been a while since I touched any SW, so I could use something new.

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

As long as people are at it... a lot of the EU does sound like stuff I wouldn't really care for (and I am mostly blissfully ignoring it, or morphing it based on summary... my first fandom was X-Men comics, which may or may not tell you anything, so I'll point out that it sometimes seems that that's what their pro writers are doing to prior canon, so as a ficcer I felt entirely justified), but a friend recommended Sean Stewart's Yoda: Dark Rendezvous as the best Yoda and the best Dooku characterization he'd seen. With good OCs, as well.

So I read it, and now I am being eaten by plotbunnies.

You might like it. It even has vampire imagery. ;) Well, a little.

[winter]

Oh dear. It seems there's a vast conspiracy to drag me into the EU ;)

(And in comparison to X-Men, I'm sure even Star Wars EU is a blessing of straight storytelling and people, like, actually staying dead once they're down. I mean, what did Palpatine have, two or three clones? He should hire one of the Summerses as a survival consultant. Or possibly Sinister.)

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

It's odd, because I don't even want to read most of it myself. (And I liked the Young Jedi Knights series for a while.) But I did like this one very much.

I can't talk about people staying dead, though. I never want to leave them that way either. ;) (Of course, certain parties have pointed out that comic book resurrections would not have reached the point of a joke, if comic book deaths or "deaths" were used more prudently, with less of killing off "for effect" or just to get rid of them characters everyone should know will be wanted later. I'm sure the likelihood of resurrection or retcons makes people feel more free to kill them cheaply, too, though.)

[lanthirel.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the review. :) I've heard so many bad things about the EU, that I haven't read much at all. (I still remember the awfulness of reading SitME--Leia is not the film character, and Luke, who grew up on a desert planet, knows how to swim!? A good friend got all over poor ole A. D. Foster at a con on that one, esp. since we love his regular SF so much.)

I tend to wait on reading good reviews and getting positive reports from friends, and even then I will read a few pages in the bookstore to get a feel of the book and make sure that it's worth my $7.99 (what a price for a paperback!). I genereally don't buy many hardbacks at full price. The only brand-new hbs in recent years that I have purchased have been the last two HP novels (I didn't want to wait a year on the pb) and the RotS novelization, and none of these were purchased at anything like full price. I have discovered that overstock.com does have some SW books, so may look there for good deals. I love bargin books and remainders. :)

Btw, have you read the RotS novelization? For that type of work, I thought it was wonderful. :)

[winter]

Oh, I read Stover's novelisation and promptly adored it for the slashy hints, of course ;)

I'm much the same about new books, aided by the fact that it's rather hard to get hardbacks out here. I tend to buy English books based on multiple recommendations and some reading - the last one I can remember buying sight-unseen was Coldfire, but there I'd read tons of fanfic and decided it was just my kind of thing. (And I was right, too.)

[lanthirel.livejournal.com]

Ole X-Man fan here. :) One of my best friends in college let me read her Neal Adams illo'ed X-Man comics that she had stashed away from when her older brother didn't want them any more. And another good friend got me into the revival, for which I thank both of them. Happily read X-Men and assorted books for many years afterwards, and only mostly gave up comics over a decade ago when I found myself living for a while in a very rural area with no decent comic book store within a 2-3 hour+ drive. (Quite a shock to this townie gal, I tell you. *smiles*) The number of X-Men titles then was almost too much; I see over the years that it's just grown. *shakes head*

I don't like retcons in comic books or TV shows (what Enterprise was doing to TOS history bugged me, so I stopped watching the show early in the second season). I didn't like the way Jean Gray was killed off in 1980 (was it that long ago? ye gods and little fishes!), but we just dealt with the fact that she was dead. When they brought her back, I was displeased. I loved the character, but thought that whole story arc was as pointless as killing off Spock in the 2nd Trek movie and not lettting him stay decently dead, which alas gave us the 3rd and 4th movies (okay, so I like the whales, but still) wherein Spock gets back together in the 3rd one, but only at the end, and then spends all of 4 getting his act together. All this stuff smacks of soap operas. :(

Jim Starlin's "The Death of Captain Marvel" was a *great* book. If anyone tells me that they brought him back after all that, I shall be unhappy. You can see how little I've kept up with comic books in recent years.

[lanthirel.livejournal.com]

I kind of figured you had, but didn't want to make an assumption. :) I just realized that I need one SW icon here, even if my other LJ (deidrecorwyn) has tons of them. *grins*

Stover's slashy bits in the RotS novel are love. :)

What's Coldfire, precious? I love too much reading my comfort reads to keep up with all the new stuff out there. And then there's good!fic. But still, a good review might send me wondering about something new.

[lanthirel.livejournal.com]

Really, more writers need to read that site that has all the things that one should not do if one becomes an Evil Overlord. :) The most amusing thing about that site is that for almost every example he lists of what not to do, I can think of a movie in which the villian did just that stupid thing and of course failed in the end. James Bond movies and the like are good for this, of course. *wicked grin*

[winter]

I believe I squeed about it at length here and in other posts tagged with the coldfire tag. Three books of not-quite-fantasy, not-quite-sf, with the best pair of enemies/bestfriends/(prospective lovers) ever. It's eaten me whole, on a level comparable only with Tanz.