3.5 Stars
This was an interesting time period to read because it was set between the second and third movie in the original trilogy. It has some good character moments but it wasn't the most interesting story.

The book introduces Xizor, a gangster, into the Star Wars series. The author does a good job explaining the thoughts and actions of the original cast; but Xizor is odd and clunky. His organization really does not fit well into the genre.

A second reading, years later, and many EU books later, I am revising my opinion of this book. I will now say that this is one of the better EU books I have read. Perry maintains focus on the main heros of the genre - Leia, Luke, Lando, Chewie, and even the villains, Vader and Palpatine, while adding his own hero, Dash and his own villain Xizor. The look and feel of everything conforms nicely with the characters of the original trilogy.

The book takes place shortly after the events of Empire Strikes Back. Luke is something of a Jedi. Leia, Lando, and Chewie are desperately hunting Boba Fett. The Alliance and the Empire are simply there. Black Sun, the super evil (ok comically evil) crime syndicate is just there. Window dressing. Perry does not build any worlds. His focus is on characters. Everyone looks, feels, thinks, and acts like you would expect from Lucas' original trilogy. I cannot say this enough because so many authors start with those characters and add layers or complexity that is unnecessary.

The plot is not nearly as Byzantine as say Phantom Menace. There is subterfuge and plotting. Vader clearly disapproves of such machinations. But he was never known for his intellect. The mind games are simple and easy to follow as Xizor plays with fire to win the favor of the emperor and displace Vader. It sounds more complex than it really is. The plot is remarkably straight-forward and easy to follow. There are no surprises or left-turns.

The action is plain, but Perry does not draw it out needlessly. There are the obligatory space battles; but these are short and quick. Perry focuses on the dynamics between the various characters, rather than their actions. The civility between Xizor and Vader slowly erodes throughout the book until the climax battle - as short as it was.

Overall, I am happy to recommend it to fans of the genre.
It is a quick and enjoyable read.

A rather charming satire of that confusing but important event for Catholics - Vatician II. It playfully describes the struggle between Neo Scholasiticsm and the modernist Nouvelle Théologie for dominance over Catholic theology and the Papacy. The book's Starwars setting makes what would otherwise be a technical and dry matter quite fun. Hence you have Yves Cognar represented by Xizor (who literally runs a criminal organisation named the Black Sun) battling for influence and control against a Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange Darth Vader with a focus on the Liturgy which is cleverly represented by Luke Skywalker.

This means you get things like Cognar's famous rebuke of a conservative priest at the council being transformed into Xizor beating up a muscle-bound assassin and Garrigou-Lagrange's blistering critique of modernist theology in the Humani generis being shown as a space battle which destroys the palace of modernism.

Of course whilst this all well and good Perry has taken some liberties and suffered from a few holes - notably with Garrigou-Lagrange presence and probably would have benefited from Cardinal Cognars Journals which were published a few years after this was written. Still a quirky satire that is worthwhile if only for its novelty whilst still being an acceptable read to those who dont have an interest in the development of Catholic theology or ecclesiastical politics .

For 2020, I decided to reread (in publication order) all the Bantam-era Star Wars books that were released between 1991 and 1999; that shakes out to 38 adult novels and 5 anthologies of short stories & novellas.

This week’s focus: Shadows of the Empire by Steve Perry.

SOME HISTORY:

Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire was conceived as a multimedia project, telling one interconnected story through a novel, comic series, video game, trading cards, soundtrack, and toy line: essentially, "a movie project without the movie.” With the release of the Special Editions and Episode One pushed back to 1997 and 1999 respectively, Shadows served as a pilot for the wave of materials that were to come. The novel of Shadows of the Empire made it to number five on the New York Times bestseller list for the week of May 5, 1996, and was on the NYT list for six weeks.

MY RECOLLECTION OF THE BOOK:

I remembered some of the original characters—Dash Rendar, Xizor, and Guri—but little of the plot. To be honest, I think I got the plot of the Nintendo 64 game confused with the plot of the novel, and the game is both heavily Dash-centric and covers a much wider span of time.

A BRIEF SUMMARY:

Han Solo is trapped in carbonite, and Leia, Luke, and Lando need to track down Boba Fett before they can rescue him. Meanwhile, Prince Xizor of the Black Sun criminal syndicate conspires to replace Darth Vader as the Emperor’s right hand man by killing Luke Skywalker...

THE CHARACTERS:

I felt like Perry had a pretty good grasp of our main trio! Luke is still struggling with the revelation about Vader, but he’s also growing and maturing as a Jedi. He builds his own lightsaber, and he gains new understanding of the Force. Leia is conflicted—she loves Han and wants him back at any cost, but Luke is still her best friend. So when it becomes obvious that someone’s trying to kill him, for better or worse she heads to Black Sun for intel. (This decision clearly falls on the side of “for worse.”) Lando fills in for Han, yet remains a distinctly different character. He’s smart, he’s suave, and he’s a little cranky about Han’s wonky upgrades to the Falcon.

But Han isn’t here, so Perry introduces a Han substitute: Dash Rendar. He’s a Corellian, he’s from a wealthy family that was kicked off Coruscant by the Emperor, he was thrown out of the Imperial Academy, he has a fancy fast ship and he’s a really good shot. Everyone says that Dash is such a great pilot, and if only he would help the Rebellion! He seems to be in direct competition with Han Solo, but he also feels a bit unnecessary. We don’t need a budget Han Solo, and I would rather have the trio feeling Han’s loss than a hasty substitute smuggler inserted to fill the gap.

I liked Perry’s depiction of Vader. He wants to bring Luke over to the Dark Side, but he still has enough free time to dig into Xizor’s stratagems—and very deviously destroy him. The Emperor is hovering in the background, manipulating the situation like a puppet master. Perry seems to imply, though, that leaking the Death Star II plans to the Bothans is originally Xizor’s idea, and I very much doubt that.

Xizor is royalty, he’s hugely wealthy, he’s the third most prominent person in the Empire, but he’s also independent from all that? Idk. I don’t like Xizor, because outside of his unsettling subplot with Leia, he’s boring. He doesn’t really do anything. I can appreciate he’s an intelligent schemer, but I am very glad that he’s (presumed) dead at the end.

Guri is a human replica droid, the Star Wars equivalent to Blade Runner’s replicants. I liked her as a character, because it’s fun to have a powerful woman running around, but I felt like she was potential rather than an actual fleshed-out character. The existence of a droid that can pass for a human opens up so many ethical and philosophical questions that Perry doesn’t touch on at all. And Xizor boasts that he paid 9 million credits for Guri. That...doesn’t sound like very much? Was she on sale??

ISSUES:

Because Shadows is an interquel, filling the gap between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, Perry relies a bit too heavily on flashbacks/memories from ESB. The prologue shows us the scene between Vader and Palpatine in ESB, but from the perspective of Xizor. In the first chapter, Leia has a nightmare that retells the carbonite scene and Luke remembers the cave on Dagobah in great detail while walking on a tightrope. Limited use of flashbacks are helpful to get the reader situated, but these are overly lengthy and ultimately unnecessary.

Perry offers up the backstory behind some elements from RotJ, like Leia’s Boushh disguise and Luke’s black Jedi garb. But the explanations behind them aren’t particularly intriguing. Guri gives Leia the Boushh costume so she can sneak into Coruscant, and Leia keeps it. Dash gets Luke some new clothes on Coruscant, and I guess Luke liked them so much that he kept wearing them into the next film. I guess I’m annoyed because Leia and Luke didn’t actively acquire these items; heck, her Boushh disguise gets a more interesting backstory in the Forces of Destiny cartoon! (S2 E6: Bounty Hunted)

There's also a weird disconnect at times. Leia has to don a disguise to sneak onto Coruscant, but Luke & Lando and then Dash just...hide behind a freighter? And apparently everyone knows this trick? I thought that Coruscant had planetary shields and floating attack stations and all that! Knowing that the Millenium Falcon and the Outrider and Rogue Squadron were duking it out in the skies of Coruscant years before the New Republic tried to retake the planet strikes me as improbable, to say the least.

One of the problems here is that despite Perry’s decent characterizations and exciting action sequences, the story is remarkably static. Despite their best efforts, we know that Han isn’t rescued until RotJ, and that Luke won’t face Vader again for a while. So in a sense, you know how everything is going to end, and Xizor and Black Sun don’t feel like much of a viable threat. (Not to mention that Lando absolutely trashes Xizor’s Palace, and then Vader blows up his skyhook. I think Black Sun will be out of the running for a while…)

But my biggest issue was the following: I think one of the main reasons I never reread Shadows is because the Xizor & Leia plotline deeply unsettled me. Essentially, Xizor is a rich and powerful man who has never been told no. But it goes beyond that: he sexually harasses Leia, but he also attempts to remove her agency. Xizor is a Falleen, and apparently they can give off pheromones that can completely overpower someone’s will. So it’s not enough that Leia has to fend off the advances of a creep, but she has to attempt to do so while she’s drugged. Leia is a strong lady, and she gets her mind back and fights him off, but these scenes were so uncomfortable that I almost abandoned the book. When I read Star Wars books, I’m usually looking for escapism, not nightmare fuel.

IN CONCLUSION:

Shadows is a decent Star Wars story, with some thrilling action scenes at the climax. Perry has a good handle on the canon characters, and it fills in the gap adequately between two pieces of existing canon. Unfortunately, Dash is a disappointing character who can’t match up to Han’s legacy, and Xizor makes me really uncomfortable. It’s worth a read, though, if not a reread.


Next up: Wedge's Gamble by Michael A. Stackpole.

My YouTube review: https://youtu.be/52nVYMD14bc

Wanted to read some garbage fiction as an escape from my academic reading load. This was perfect. It’s trash.

I can easily guess why George Lucas never went on to make his planned third trilogy (Episodes 7-9) by perusing the sci-fi section of any bookstore: he didn't need to. There are a slew of other writers who have carried on the Star Wars mythos. Probably better than Lucas's movies would have been, in my opinion. I have read a small handful of the Star Wars novels, and some are better than others. Back in the mid-'90s, best-selling sci-fi author Steve Perry jumped on the Star Wars bandwagon with his novel "Shadows of the Empire", a continuation of the events of Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, before the events of Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. It's basically a filler novel, completely superfluous, but entertaining nonetheless. It's also one of the better Star Wars novels I have read, second only to the terrific Timothy Zahn three-book series. Perry's book does several things well: 1) It develops Darth Vader's character by giving us insight into his reasons for wanting Luke Skywalker alive, at first for strategic reasons (bringing Luke to the Dark Side would make the Empire more powerful) and gradually for more familial reasons (deep deep down, Vader truly does love his son), leading to his eventual redemption in ROTJ. 2) It helps to explain Leia's inexplicable turn-around in TESB from being completely indifferent to Han to falling in love with him, as we see a fully-developed independent woman who thinks she knows what she wants in a man, until she meets the ruggedly charming Han Solo, who throws her whole world-view out of whack. 3) It also foreshadows Leia's own powers of the Force, which Vader begins to pick up on. Perry also knows how to write action/adventure and keep the pace at break-neck speed. A good read for uber-geeks like me who love Star Wars.

"Stand back. Let's see if it will stop a lightsaber."
Han Solo is locked in carbonite, in the possession of Boba Fett. Luke, Lando, Leia, and Chewie are desperately searching for the bounty hunter, in the hopes of rescuing Han. Meanwhile, Prince Xizor of the Black Sun is angling to destroy his rival and destroyer of his family, Darth Vader.
NOTE: Based on the audiobook and what I remember of the novel I read years ago.

I Liked:
Steve Perry is given a difficult task: bridge the gap between The Empire Strikes Backand Return of the Jedi. This is difficult because he has to write an interesting book, yet keep continuity. Most authors just have to write a plausible future Luke, Leia, and Han; this job is far more difficult. And for the most part, Perry does an impressive job.
The characters were fairly strong, namely Luke and Leia. I liked how Perry lead Luke into being the sedate Jedi we see in Return of the Jedi, making him grow from the brash apprentice in Empire Strikes Back. One moment I particularly was fond of was Luke returning to Obi-Wan's hovel to build his lightsaber. I loved this little bit of continuity. Leia was also well done, conflicted about her feelings to Han, wondering how he felt, nervous, yet still strong even in the face of Prince Xizor's advances (which were fine to me as he was using pheromones on her--in fact, I thought it made her look stronger to be able to withstand his biological advances).
As for our bad guys, we rarely get to see Darth Vader in the helmet, and at the time, this novel was novel (har har) in that we got a Vader point of view. Since most Bantam books were strictly post-Jedi, Vader got omitted completely, which was a shame, as he was such an interesting character. Here, I enjoyed how Perry had Vader try to use the Dark Side to heal himself, but always fail, as his joy for being healed won out.
Lastly, I oddly liked how it was unclear whether or not Prince Xizor died (at least, that's the way I heard it).

I Didn't Like:
The first thing I didn't like was how much Dash Rendar was like Han Solo. Now, I've heard that the character was created for the game, so maybe Perry had very little choice in how Dash was supposed to be. Okay, I understand that. But still, couldn't Perry have tried a wee bit harder to make Dash unique and not so much like Han? I couldn't help but wince when I read him in a scene.
Xizor is often uplifted as this really great villain, and I am just unsure why. Sure, he plots and schemes in this book, but, partly because he is doomed to fail, nothing happens of it. All he does is exercise, change clothes, and seduce women. I wish Perry had allowed Xizor some way of winning something, just so I could be assured he was a real threat, instead of a dandified playboy. And I almost didn't even want to start reading the novel when Xizor miraculously knows that Vader is Anakin Skywalker. No one knows that! How does he?
Another problem I have is how this book feels like filler. Other than a few nice tie-ins (Leia getting the Boushh costume, the thermal detonator, Luke's lightsaber, the Bothan spies), the whole book is just filler. We all know the outcome, there is little suspense, there is little to engage us. It doesn't help when circumstances keep repeating themselves (Leia gets kidnapped to lure Luke to Coruscant, like done in Empire, Dash Rendar returns to help like Han returned to help Luke in A New Hope, Luke and Lando hide in a surprisingly dense asteroid field, and so on).

My last complaint is about Perry's writing style. I found it quite juvenile, filled with simple, embarrassing sentences. Here is one such example:
[Luke:] "Stand back. Let's see if it will stop a lightsaber."
The door would not stop a lightsaber. They went through and continued to climb.
Not only does the above excerpt contain an unnecessary and embarrassing line of dialogue made of pure cheese, the narration is boring, uninspired, and uninteresting. I have no idea how Luke sliced the door, where, if he cut a chunk or the whole thing off, if there were people right behind him or anything. In fact, all this scene does is give us filler, more padding to drag out the big escape.

Dialogue/Sexual Situation/Violence:
Light to none spattering of mild profanity.
Prince Xizor fancies himself a player and makes the moves on Leia.
We have space battles, attempted murders, lightsaber battles, rescues, kidnappings, etc.

Overall:
One of the better Star Wars novels out there, Shadows of the Empire is entertaining but not hugely memorable. Not a bad book to put on your reading list, but I wouldn't rush out to read it anytime soon.

I liked the introduction of new characters in the story.

Loved it fit with the 5 and 6
They should have done it in a movie.

(Read in 2014, review from 2024)

"Shadows of the Empire" was a multimedia Star Wars story from the 1990s that filled in the gaps of the year between "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi" . I missed out on the game/comic/novel as a kid so I didn't have the nostalgia-filter when I checked out the novel in college. When I did I couldn't stand it and had no idea why it was so popular among Star Wars fans at one point.

There are some cool parts like Luke building his ROTJ lightsaber and continuing to improve as a Jedi trainee. But otherwise the book's plot reads like a bad video game adaptation with some atrocious dialogue and plot points. I particularly found it annoying how the characters would ask for the time or monetary amounts in this, what author writes it that way? Returning characters like Vader and Palpatine likewise read like completely different people than the films and other EU depictions.

As for the new characters, I honestly don't see the appeal. Dash Rendar felt like a brand store version of Han but with only Han's worst traits from when he first appeared (guess this proves I prefer Kyle Katarn) . Xizor meanwhile was simultaneously OP but also a really uncomfortable creep which felt like a lazy way to show his villainy yet somehow it feels like a fetish.

At the time of reading Lucasfilm had hit a redo button for the EU's continuity. Truthfully I don't mind that Shadows of the Empire was a casualty of this

A great novel set between the Empire strikes back and Return of the Jedi. Nostalgia lead me to read this book and really happy I finally have. Great new editions with Prince Xizor and Dash Rendar, characters I was aware of but did not know too much about. It's a fun book to get more detail of what Luke's training may have been between the episodes. In all its a fun read.

***SPOILERS ABOUND***

The 3-stars on this review should be taken as 3-stars for a Star Wars book, not for just any book.
I don't think that it's fair to read these puffed up pieces of fan-fiction as actual books and the rating reflects this.

I have known about Shadows of the Empire since it was released in 1996. I was in middle school and I totally bought in to the marketing. I collected Star Wars figures at the time, and despite not having read the central piece in the media onslaught, I got figures for Xizor, Dash Rendar, and even Chewbacca in his transvestite bounty hunter disguise.

For the past 16 years, I had just assumed that this was a rather epic story centered around Dash Rendar, and that the quality control was comparatively higher than other, less promoted Star Wars novels.

I was wrong.

The first thing that struck me was how weak the writing in the initial chapters is. I'm not sure if the writing improves as the novel progresses, or if I simply became accustomed to it. Regardless, the writing is not fantastic.

I also found the characterization to be rather poor. Darth Vader stands out in particular. Take this scene, for example. Xizor supplies the Empire with the location of an unguarded Rebel base, to which Vader replies "I'll have my agents check it out." He'll WHAT?? I cannot imagine Vader ever saying "check it out". How about "I'll send my agents to investigate" or...ANYTHING but "check it out". Vader's dialogue was constantly off-key.

Also, Dash Rendar's existence baffles me. He was left completely one-dimensional, given very little "screen-time", and the roles he fulfills could have been accomplished by Wedge or another one of the already existing side characters who also appear in the book. ***SPOILER*** His sudden death and the emotional weight we're apparently supposed to feel was, at most, shrug-worthy. Why was this character created? The most obvious answer is to sell merchandise. Hell, I bought the toy. The design of the toy was infinitely cooler than his portrayal in the book.

To wrap things up, I also didn't like the way they shoe-horned in connections to Return of the Jedi. The Bothan acquisition of the Death Star plans, Leia and the Boushh suit, and...probably some other things. I didn't think the inclusion of these connections was clever. Moreover, they took me out of the fantasy and served as a reminder that there were human hands guiding the story.

Was Shadows of the Empire entertaining? Sure. But given the push behind it, I expected more. Most of my satisfaction comes from finally reading this piece of Star Wars history. If you aren't interested in that, I'd say skip it.