I am giving this book a 5 out of 5. I don’t know if this was really perfect or if I’m just actually reading something good after the Callista trilogy and Splinter of the Minds Eye - but I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

I enjoyed the exploration of time period between Empire and RotJ. There are a lot of previously unexplored plot points from Jedi like:
- How did Leia get Boushh’s armor
- How did Luke build his green saber
- When did Lando and Luke get close
- What was everyone up to for all of that time
- Just how many Bothans did did to bring us this information

This was a very enjoyable journey from start to finish and included a number of fun new characters like Prince Xizor, Dash Rendar, and Guri.

This was a great read that really expands the known universe while preparing us for what happens in episode six.

Well... this one was not very good. Too much gross creepiness by the villain, for one thing.
I did like the Vader stuff (seeing him actually struggle and also seeing his plans), and I enjoyed seeing the pieces set up for Return of the Jedi.
I enjoyed Luke, Lando, Chewie, etc., but some of Leia's chapters were... not fun, because of the gross villain stuff.
Definitely not my favorite Star Wars book.

Awesome book, great self-conntained story.

This one was okay, but ended up dragging a bit. It's set between the second and third movie and I thought it would be more about working on a plan to rescue Han, but it was mostly about an attempt on Luke's life and working to defeat that. And, okay, but I know how that turns out!

You do get to see into Darth Vader's thoughts, and it's fun to see Leia thinking, "Okay, I love Han, but I also feel connected to Luke!"

But I finished this a few days ago and can't tell you much about the actual plot.

(Also, my ebook copy didn't have line breaks between scene switches. That didn't make for the best reading experience.)

This book was hard to get into. It has several main characters resulting in lots of short scenes and POV shifts to go along with and even worse, no attempts at smoothing transitions. The writing style is uneven as well, filled with second person idioms and tense shifts. It's not egregiously bad as to be unreadable but annoying mistakes all the same. This book felt like it was written by and for people with ADD. The short scenes and POV shifts broke story momentum and there was nothing to entice me to keep reading. Reading it felt like a chore, and life's too short to waste on a book that couldn't grab my attention within the first 10%.

This was my first foray into reading a genre book from a franchise. I've been watching the original Star Wars films with my daughter. We haven't watched Return of the Jedi yet and, somehow, during some Web meandering, I discovered this book was written in the '90s to fill some narrative gaps between the TESB & RotJ. I like to try things I wouldn't normally do and reading a Star Wars book is definitely one of them. The writing was all over the place in quality, in my opinion. There'd be passages where the content masked the simplistic writing, but once the story was mired down in an action sequence, the whole thing just got ridiculous. I don't think I'd ever seen exclamation points outside of dialogue in a book that wasn't aimed at children. "Luke's lightsaber blocked the thrust!"
One interesting character was introduced (Prince Zixor) and one absolutely shameless, ridiculous ersatz Han Solo character was introduced (Dash Rendar). All in all, I don't regret reading it, but don't think I'll come back to the SW literary galaxy anytime soon.

It was alright. I dont think this is something I would have sought out for myself and it’s definitely a bit corny, but I definitely saw the appeal for others who enjoy. Maybe I’ll read another in the series

For a book set in a pivotal gap between "Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi", it is less than the sum of its parts. Izor is a character made up of 100% cardboard, either over the top in his deviousness, or downright dull. Luke's journey through his final training steps doesn't have the sense of urgency it SHOULD have, and the entire novel is held together only by the power of the relationship between Vader & Palpatine. It could have been so much more...

Just a side note before I begin: I wanted to mention this book got me to 66% in my 2023 Reading Goal. Star Wars fans will understand.

Anyway, I'm sure this is a classic in most people's eyes, but it took a while for me to get into it. I so wanted to love this book, as it was written by one of my favorite media tie-in authors, Steve Perry. He wrote Predator: Turnabout, Alien vs Predator, Prey, Indiana Jones and the Army of the Dead (not a good book) and well; you get the idea.

About 200 pages in, the story started to pick up, but the thing about these older Legends novels, is most, if not all, played it too safe.

This novel, in particular, takes place in between Episode V: the Empire Strikes Back and Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (my personal favorite). It's a nice little side-story for those wanting more Star Wars content, despite having literally hundreds of other novels to choose from.

That being said, it wasn't horrible, just took some time to get into and played it a little too safe imo. Thankfully, the characters acted like themselves, which I can't say the same for most spinoff novels based on film, television, etc.

Star Wars at some of it's finest! Set between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, Shadows of the Empire succeeds in being a Star Wars story that does many things, and does them well.

Providing an origin for Luke's green lightsaber, Leia's bounty hunter disguise, as well as Luke's increased Force prowess, the events of this book are written well so as to enrich the characters, while still leaving them at a solid jumping-off point for where we see them in their next cinematic outing. The characters receive development, but not so much that it feels like they're back-pedaled in Return of the Jedi.

And, alas, this was the book which gave us a fantastic new villain; Prince Xizor. While he's no Grand Admiral Thrawn, Xizor is still a fairly solid villain, and a wonderful foil to Vader.

All around, just a good, solid Star Wars Legends read. Strongly recommend for Star Wars fans, especially if you have not been digging Disney's newer stuff.

something i really enjoyed about this book was the fact that it sometimes spoke from Vaders point of view. in the movies, strictly episodes 4-6 you dont know a lot about him. if you can read this book strictly from the point of view of someone who hasnt seen episodes 1-3 or the end of the 6th episode, then its incredibly intriguing. otherwise the book it still very interesting. the best part for me was the insight on Darth Vader.

I will not pretend that this is the best Star Wars book ever written. I have issues with the way that Steve Perry writes (especially with the way he writes about women), and at times the book feels like it's packed with just a little bit too much filler. I was never bored reading it, but I wanted to get back to the action. That said, when it's good it's really good! And it's good a lot of the time. Xizor is predictably miserable to read about, but about halfway through the book I started to feel like Perry wasn't really taking him seriously as a character, which made all of his ego stroking a bit easier to stomach. He became easier to