Shadows of The Empire!

This book is so bad that Blogger is losing my edits.

Wookiepedia link: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Star_Wars:_Shadows_of_the_Empire_(novel)

Cover:

Summary: Prince Xizor is a super badass and he's going to rape Leia and kill Luke and make the Emperor like him more than Darth Vader. Dash Rendar exists.

New Stuff:

Prince Xizor (and the Falleen): Lizardish people. Xizor is such a fucking badass. He's like, a 12th degree black belt and as smart as Thrawn. And he's horny and he can roofie you from across the room with his musk.

The Black Sun: The always very dangerous (but never very effective) mafia of Star Wars

Dash Rendar: Despite having Lando available, we need another scoundrel...

Summary: Prince Xizor is very badass and very horny. He's going to kill Luke, rape Leia, and make the Emperor like him more than Vader!

(Spoilers, none of these things happen.)

Commentary: This one was really disappointing. I was vaguely aware of the main plot points from the video games, comics, etc., but I never actually read it. It was the big release for the year, with tie-in games, comics, toys, etc. The EU is on full steam at this point, so the main book for the year must be good, right?

Wrong.

Starting off, why the hell is Steve Perry writing this? He's like, the shitty version of Kevin Anderson. He writes mediocre tie-in novels, but he doesn't know Star Wars. Things are called by the wrong name, Luke is somehow a better Jedi now than he will be in ~6 months in RotJ, characters "remember" parts of the movies they aren't present for (Leia remembers Han, Luke, and Ben convos from when she was on the Death Star) and he writes like AI (lots of weird metaphors, awkward rhythm, loose PoV, etc.)

I've done my share of shitting on KJA in this blog, but he knows Star Wars, because he basically got to steer the universe for half a decade. Apparently they wanted someone with experience in transmedia stuff, but KJA had that, Stackpole had that, why farm the keystone book for the year and your new series out to a new guy?

The writing sucks, the plot sucks (seriously, the Leia mind-control/pheromones/rape plot is the biggest plot point. They're supposed to be trying to rescue Han, but...), and I don't know why we needed Dash Rendar Han-Solo-But-Less-Competent-And-More-Of-An-Asshole. Lando is more than capable of stepping in as the "scoundrel", especially at this point where he's not a "respectable businessman."

Review: 1/5 Only because it's more coherent than the Hambly stuff. As a book, absolute garbage. It's so bad I can't even recommend it on the basis of "that cool time they tried to make a book so big it was like a new Star Wars movie!"

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

1. Splinter of the Mind's Eye (1978) by Alan Dean Foster

Image
Splinter of the Mind's Eye Sweet Ralph Macquarie cover art, courtesy of Wookiepedia! Summary: Luke and Leia crash on a swamp planet. Leia has PTSD. Luke has a crush on her. They go looking for the Kaiburr Crystal with cranky Force grandma and replacement Chewie twins. Darth Vader shows up and mostly kicks their asses, but he falls in a hole. What it introduces: Naming things X of the Y : Which would hold for 4 of the 9 movies, 70ish novels, and numerous video games, comics, etc. The Kaiburr Crystal: Shards of which would become the most desirable lightsaber focusing crystals in the later EU. Kyber crystals would make an appearance in the new canon as both lightsaber crystals and part of the Death Star's superlaser.  Commentary:   Splinter of the Mind's Eye is widely considered the first book in the Expanded Universe. It was published in 1978, about half a year after the original release of Star Wars/A New Hope.  Preceding it are a few of the Marvel Comics (which I'll be...
Read more

YJK8: Diversity Alliance

Image
 Alright, we can't hold the ridiculous name against them, since it was the 90s. We also can't blame them for this cover... BUT I can totally blame them for writing Boba Fett so badly that he had to get retconned out and replaced with his daughter in disguise. Boba Fett is in EVERYTHING at this point in the 90s, and no one else does such a crap job that he needs to get retconned.
Read more

How'd I Get Here? (I'm supposed to journal for ten minutes today.)

 As you might've saw on the other blog (no one reads this.) I'm doing a mental health calendar that work put out this month. Today is journaling. I've never been a big journaler in the traditional sense, I don't really think whatever random stuff I'm thinking or feeling that day is worth writing down and remembering. But, I've been doing these blog every day for almost a year and a half now, so jokes on me, I guess. Star Wars Classics began as a way to read something a little more relaxing in between the classics I was doing for the other blog. If you've followed along. It is, honestly, not really all that relaxing right now. The 1994-1995 class of  Star Wars  novels aren't very good. The Jedi Academy Trilogy is hamfisted, Courtship of Princess Leia is vaguely offensive and nonsensical,  Crystal Star  is just awkward, and Children of the Jedi  will hopefully be on my top 5 worst books for as long as I live. But I am looking forward to next year, The X-...
Read more