You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by isauldur
Shadows of the Empire by Steve Perry
2.0
Overall, not a bad book exactly, but I did have two major problems with it. 1. The pacing and lack of plot, and 2. The villain.
For a novel that is pretty much just a side quest, this book really did feel a lot like just a bunch of side quests. Mainly because it doesn't really have a plot, and instead it's a series of events that happen to the gang as either Vader or Xizor try to capture/kill them. There's no real buildup though, and what little tension you could get from a prequel (it is a prequel to Return of the Jedi) kinda falls flat because the villain isn't all that intimidating.
Ok, let me talk about the villain a little bit. There's two villains here, Vader and Xizor, and obviously the crummy villain is...Vader. Haha, nah, of course it's Xizor. You see, he's the head of a crime organization called Black Sun, and he is (allegedly) so close to the Emperor that Palpatine has Vader and Xizor compete for his "affection" like two rival brothers. Here's the thing, though. Xizor is kind of very lame. Literally the whole book we're told (key word being told) that he's muscular and strong and smart and powerful and capable....but we never get to see any of it. He fights once early in the book, but it doesn't do anything for him because he's just fighting some random underling. He spends the rest of the book in his office just waiting for his "plans" to work. And his plans are basically to pay someone to kill Luke. This is sort of the plot, trying to figure out who's trying to kill Luke. But because we as readers know this from the very start, there's no mystery and it makes the characters' investigations feel tedious. He's basically the Godfather without charisma. Or Terry Silver without the hands-on approach to vengeance. He just sits in his bathtub, someone tells him something, and he just Bond Villains like "Hmm, yes, all according to plan."
Honestly, if Xizor had been more interesting or more intimidating, this could have been a cool adventure. There's a few slice of life things here that help expand the world, but not enough to make the book stand out.
For a novel that is pretty much just a side quest, this book really did feel a lot like just a bunch of side quests. Mainly because it doesn't really have a plot, and instead it's a series of events that happen to the gang as either Vader or Xizor try to capture/kill them. There's no real buildup though, and what little tension you could get from a prequel (it is a prequel to Return of the Jedi) kinda falls flat because the villain isn't all that intimidating.
Ok, let me talk about the villain a little bit. There's two villains here, Vader and Xizor, and obviously the crummy villain is...Vader. Haha, nah, of course it's Xizor. You see, he's the head of a crime organization called Black Sun, and he is (allegedly) so close to the Emperor that Palpatine has Vader and Xizor compete for his "affection" like two rival brothers. Here's the thing, though. Xizor is kind of very lame. Literally the whole book we're told (key word being told) that he's muscular and strong and smart and powerful and capable....but we never get to see any of it. He fights once early in the book, but it doesn't do anything for him because he's just fighting some random underling. He spends the rest of the book in his office just waiting for his "plans" to work. And his plans are basically to pay someone to kill Luke. This is sort of the plot, trying to figure out who's trying to kill Luke. But because we as readers know this from the very start, there's no mystery and it makes the characters' investigations feel tedious. He's basically the Godfather without charisma. Or Terry Silver without the hands-on approach to vengeance. He just sits in his bathtub, someone tells him something, and he just Bond Villains like "Hmm, yes, all according to plan."
Honestly, if Xizor had been more interesting or more intimidating, this could have been a cool adventure. There's a few slice of life things here that help expand the world, but not enough to make the book stand out.