6. The Empire Strikes Back by Donald F. Glut (1980)
Summary: It is a dark time for the Rebellion. Although the Death Star has been destroyed, Imperial troops have driven the Rebel forces from their hidden base and pursued them across the galaxy.
Evading the dreaded Imperial Starfleet, a group of freedom fighters led by Luke Skywalker have established a new secret base on the remote ice world of Hoth.
The evil lord Darth Vader, obsessed with finding young Skywalker, has dispatched thousands of remote probes into the far reaches of space....
What it introduces:
YODA! (and Dagobah)
Lando and Bespin (and Lobot and Ugnauts)
Hoth and Tauntauns
AT-ATs
TIE Bombers and Interceptors
The Executor
The Emperor (on screen)
Vader is Luke's father!
Commentary: I'm going to start by saying I'm the weirdo who thinks Empire is actually the worst of the original trilogy. ANH is a classic. RotJ is fun. ESB drags hard in the middle, and I think my dad said, "Luke, I am your father!" (not the line!) to me too many times growing up for it to the impact it's supposed to. It was my dad's favorite, so I watched it a ton growing up. It became the default state of my Star Wars universe as a kid. Of course Han and Leia are always into each other, duh, Vader is always Luke's father, the Falcon is always falling apart, etc. It doesn't have the same emotional impact for me.
Which makes it even higher praise when I say this is the first good (remember, this came out before Han Solo and the Lost Legacy) Star Wars novel.
Standard novelization rules apply. Fewer deleted scenes than usual (the famous Wampa vs snowtrooper scene is out, but General Veers getting kamikazed is in) some dialogue is different ("You have all the breeding of a Bantha," instead of, "I'd sooner kiss a Wookie!" no "I know" since it was an ad-lib) Yoda is BLUE!
Which brings us to the biggest change. The Dagobah training sequence connects to the rest of the movie much better and doesn't drag as much. Mostly, because Yoda actually does things, rather than just sitting around doing Eastern philosophy. At several points, he chucks chunks of metal at Luke for him to slice, which gets a call back during the Bespin fight.
The other change I want to highlight is in the, "No, I am your father," exchange. Talking to my older friends who were alive at the time of the release, there was apparently a lot of debate (leaning towards the negative) over whether Vader was Luke's father or not. A lot of people thought he was lying. But on the page after he says it, Luke:
He didn’t want to believe Vader, tried convincing himself that it was Vader who lied to him—but somehow he could feel the truth in the Dark Lord’s words. But, if Darth Vader did speak the truth, why, he wondered, had Ben Kenobi lied to him? Why? His mind screamed louder than any wind the Dark Lord could ever summon against him.
Very little doubt. Kind of surprised that more people didn't read the novel.
Review: 4/5 Donald is a much stronger Star Wars writer than Foster. There's a couple of weird bumps (Wampas are always a "Wampa Ice Creature") but it's generally clean writing that fits with the movie. While there's not as much added as you often see in novelizations, the Dagobah changes really boost the pacing overall. Easy strong recommendation for any Star Wars fan, and solid for most people with any kind of Sci-Fi interest.
We'll wrap up the OT novels with Jedi next week, as we move into the close of what I'm calling the bronze age for Star Wars novels (historical and pretty good, but not peak).
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