I have had this book for a while, but never read it until now. What a ride, things move fast and furious. A great villain in Xizor and loved the maneuvering between the prince, Emperor and Vader. It was also great to see Luke more confident in his Force abilities. Ties up the space between Empire and Jedi perfectly. Loved Dash Rendar as well, cocky, self assured and can fly like crazy. I'm certain he and Han would not hit it off very well. Legends were the best of Star Wars books.

I remember thinking this was the coolest thing back in the day. Also arguing with a friend in elementary school who was convinced Episode One was going to be about Shadows of the Empire. I think the actual story is Lucas had promised all of the licensees of SW merchandise that there'd be a media event in whatever year this came out (96?), thinking the Special Editions would be done by then, but they hadn't finished on time, so he had them put this stuff out.

They did a great job making this feel like a movie.

A Quickie Review

Shadows of the Empire was probably the biggest non-movie Star Wars event up to that point. Though no film was made, a CD soundtrack was released, and there was a video/computer game for the Nintendo 64 and PC based on the book. However, even all that promotion doesn't take away from the actual novel's lackluster feel. Though not terrible, it's merely mediocre, and the Expanded Universe has much better fare to offer than this. Only read this if you love absolutely everything related to Lucas' space opera, or have an insatiable curiosity about this much-promoted book.

Content Concerns: As usual, there is violence, though none of it is bloody or graphic. More notable is the sexual content, where new villain Xizor attempts to seduce Princess Leia. Additionally, gambling gets a few mentions, and profanity is implied.

Score: 2.75/5

EDIT: I enjoyed it more the second time.

- A literary revelation
- this is the book you’ve been waiting for.
- like War & Peace but wayyy better.
- “my favorite book” ermpst hemingwey

Meh. I like Star Wars, but this book was just boring. No excitement, and knowing that the main characters would all for sure be alive at the end ruins it for me. Average writing at best too.

This is one of the few stories that are worthy of the original trilogy and would have made a fantastic Star Wars film.

If you're not familiar with it, in a nutshell, this is the story set between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi where Luke, Leia and co are trying to rescue Han from Boba Fett. The story ends when they're about to infiltrate Jabba's palace.

The development of Darth Vader's character in this is especially fantastic, as you get to see more into his mind than you do in the films.

It's a great story, and I'd definitely recommend any Star Wars fans to read it if they haven't already!

This review is part of a review series; the introduction can be found here, if you want to know more about this project.

n  Shadows of the Empiren
Threat of the Day: Xizor is wealthy, ruthless, cunning, and out for a personal vendetta against Vader, which leads him to pursuing both Leia and Luke in this action-packed mid-quel. A good mid-quel is extremely hard to write since your audience knows where the characters end up next; but Perry pulls it off with high quality prose, an entertaining villain, and fantastic action. 9/10
Thirsty for Skywalker, You Are: Thankfully no one was after Luke's saber this time, but Xizor does try to bed Leia. 7/10 Nerfs Herded
Best part: Threepio and Artoo trying to fly the Millenium Falcon
Worst line: "He wondered what she might be doing just now. Probably eating a fine meal or spending money on expensive entertainment. Females did love such things."
Would I revisit in 20 years: This is definitely one of the better EU/Legacy novels, so yes.
Overall 8/10

"Lucky for us they don’t know we are that stupid."

Oooooof this was a rough book to read.

This one takes place between movies 5 (Empire Strikes Back) and 6 (Return of the Jedi), and covers Luke, Leia, & co. on a mission to retrieve Han who is at this point in the story frozen in carbonite but not yet turned over to Jabba. Prince Xizor features heavily in the story in this one, and was one of the reasons my husband said I should read it. Xizor and Vadar are butting heads behind the scenes, and in an attempt to out-alpha each other, Vadar is trying to capture Luke alive while Xizor is trying to kill him first.

The writing is clunky in this one, especially during action scenes where the author starts ending his lines in em dashes rather than punctuation, switching to another POV within the same fight, ending that line with an em dash, switching again, and on and on until the author finally lets the sentence (scene?) end. It made things a bit hard to follow and seemed unnecessary. The author also had a tendency to have multiple points of view in each chapter, some only a paragraph or two long, which was kinda grating. Finally, the whole Xizor/Leia section was a whole lot of ick.

Not my favorite of the OG legacy books.

Set in the time between Episode V and Episode VI, "Shadows of the Empire" has Leia, Luke, Lando, Chewie and the droids looking for Han Solo, who has been frozen in carbonite and taken away by the bounty hunter Boba Fett. The heroes of the Rebellion are aided in their quest by a few other characters, including a hotshot, smart-aleck pilot named Dash Rendar who in many ways fills in for Han Solo who, for obvious reasons, does not appear in this book.

Meanwhile, we are introduced to Prince Xizor, a humanoid but reptilian alien who is the shadowy leader of an enormous interstellar crime syndicate. Xizor is attempting to curry favor with the Emperor, but Darth Vader sees him as a threat to his own favored status with his Master. When Xizor realizes that Vader has a weakness - namely his desire to capture his son and turn him to the Dark Side of the Force - he uses this knowledge against Vader, attempting to capture Luke himself and deliver his dead body to the Emperor.

This is one of those books in which there is a lot of plot, but not much happens. There are space battles, heroes captured by their enemies followed by daring escapes and even some cloak and dagger work, but none of it seems to amount to much in the end. One of the problems is in setting stakes - Vader, the Emperor and Xizor are all clearly manipulating various events to their own ends. Because of this none of the situations that our protagonists find themselves in seem particularly important. We know that things are moving toward a final showdown between our band of Rebels and Xizor and everything up until then just feels like smoke and mirrors.

I will mention one thing I did particularly like in this book, plus one thing that I really didn't care for. First, the good thing. Perry does a nice job of showing us various stages in Luke's evolution as a Jedi. We know that Luke's training was incomplete when he left Yoda and that he is shaken by his first duel with Vader in Episode V. But by the time Luke enters Jabba's palace in Episode VI, he has fully assumed his authority as a Jedi Knight. This book shows us how his confidence grows over several battles and other incidents where his Jedi training serves him in good stead.

The thing I really didn't care for was Xizor's attempted seduction of Princess Leia. I know a damsel in distress is a stock trope in melodramatic literature going back for hundreds of years. And I know that a sexually unsafe character can make a particularly nasty villain. But to have the character of Xizor essentially exude a "date rape" pheromone that overwhelms Leia and puts her in jeopardy seemed completely unnecessary here. Besides, part of the reason we like Leia as a character is because she doesn't play the "damsel in distress" card very often. She is much more likely to take control of her own destiny.

Oh, and one other little complaint, why don't Luke and the others know that Han will be taken to Jabba? The whole premise of the book is that they have to track Boba Fett and find out where he took Han. Wouldn't Fett just take Han to Jabba as quickly as he could to claim his reward?

Overall, this book is a very mixed bag. It is mildly entertaining, but uneven and ultimately, not particularly memorable.

I really enjoyed this. I’m a huge Star wars legends fan and I feel that this did a wonderful job at representing it. It has all the charm and childlike fun of the original film with the creative and awe inspiring ideas of the books. It’s been some time. I may need to reread it and collect my thoughts cause it’s probably just nostalgia talking but I love this book

Incredibly well-written story which bridges the gap between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi which is much more than a mere 'side quest'. In addition to familiar character development, the introduction of a very cool villain Prince Xizor as well as others not found in the films. Engaging, intriguing, this isn't a story of mere brute force but also guile. After reading, I was really hoping this would become a movie, but after seeing most movies butcher a good story, I think now this is best as a book and action figure series.