Reviews Books The JC Lit Reviews Special: DARK LORD: THE RISE OF DARTH VADER (spoilers)

10

I thought it was the best PT EU adult novel after TPM, with great insight into the Vader experience. To me, Cloak of Deception, Shadow Hunter, and TPM are better, though this one was a very satisfying read in the bookstore until the paperback comes out I found it much better than Yoda: Dark Rendezvous or Labyrinth of Evil.

 

I give it a 9.

I think some readers are being overly-critical of the characters. Yes, Olee is annoying, but she's MEANT to be annoying, and she learns a lesson about being that way. There's more than enough Vader- Too much more, and we'd lose some of the mystery that makes him interesting. Like I really want to know how Vader spends every moment of his days? Isn't it enough that the book explains how he gains nutrition (he can eat, but only in his chamber, so he relies on intravenous feeding tubes most of the time) and how he deals with evacuation of waste (He has catheters and collection equipment in his suit. Yes, Vader wears high-tech Depends.) How much more detail on Vader do you want? We see his major decisions, his major interactions, and his major evolutionary jumps. That's enough.

It was nice to find out what happened to Kashyyyk, how Vader learned to deal with his being a cyborg, and how Vader was eventually nudged into tapping into the Dark Side and learning to become the Sith he was meant to be (at least until he changed his mind in ROTJ).

The inclusion of Bail, the droids, Tarrful, Chewbacca, and Obi-Wan were nice touches. I suspect this is the kind of cameo stuff we'll get in the Star Wars live action TV show, and I don't mind it at all. I'd rather have gotten a short Obi-Wan moment (like in this book) than seeing the author try to wedge him into the book and weaken other story elements.

All in all, a good read. Short, but good.

My only big gripe is that Del Rey should have just released this in paperback. Hardcover was a bit pricey for as long as this is.

 

Well, I finally got around to reading this...

...and I blew through it in about two days. To be honest, I quite couldn't put it down, and only did so reluctantly at times.

That's not to say I kept reading it because it was an enthralling, captivating tale of Darth Vader's descent into the Dark Side, it's just that I so badly wanted to get to the point where Vader smacks the crap out of those insolent Jedi fools. The satisfaction of reading Vader hurl his saber and guide it to precisely cut through Zar Fang, leaving that Jedi speechless, or clobber six Jedi in two pages of text, or cut through Wookies like a knife through butter was quite high. And, for all that, seeing the Empire dominating the galaxy, seeing Palpatine openly flaunting his absolute power was satisfying as well.

Sadly, that's about as far as my satisfaction went. That four of the six Jedi lived, and that Shyrne died in defiance of Vader, that those insolent, upstart Jedi were broken and beaten at Vader's feet, that the Wookies killed so many Imperials, and that there is no fear of or respect for the Empire's war machine, annoyed me.

But nothing annoyed me more than reading Vader use contractions in his dialouge.

It was nice to have Sate Pestage get into the picture finally, and nice to see Bel Iblis, even if he had no lines.

It's not a bad book, mind you, but it's nothing quite spectacular.

7/10

 

In general I thought this was a good book.

Pros:
- Climber and the rebellious clones. I suppose this could be seen as a contrived way for Roan et al to escape from Murkhana but the insight into the minds of the clones and Order 66 well outweighed the issue IMHO. It was nice to see the clones as more than mindless zombies without free will.
- Shryne. Shryne stole the show. I have to credit Luceno with creating an interesting and insightful character, instead of relying on canon heroes to carry the entertainment. Shryne's character development, his struggle with his disenfranchisement from the war, and intelligent persepective kept me turning the pages.
- Obiwan's cameo. Normally I would consider this a gimmick: but Luceno carried it off with class: his horror at realizing Vader lived couldn't have been better.

Cons:
- The other surviving Jedi: too generic and no character development at all.
- Bail and Fang: more of a gimmick than a plot. While I liked the description of Bail overseeing the protests on Alderaan and Shryne's break-in, it did nothing for me.
- Vader. The Vader moments had some good points: some of the insight into his mind was good, and in the end (Kashyyyk) we finally got to see some wholesome badass Dark Lord. But the rest fell flat. Vader was still whiny-and-blaming-others Anakin for the first half of the book (couldn't Luceno find some other aspect of Skywalker to still be alive in Vader at the outset?).

Toss-Ups:
- Vader and Palps. Sometimes their relationship intruiged, sometimes not. Ch 19 had some good Vader/Palps banter: I liked Vader's "'Look at us. Are these the faces of victory?'" quip; and Palpy's "power IS joy" mantra and his put down of Vader ("'imagine what Yoda might have done to you'") were deliciously vile. But the rest was boring Vader-as-errand-boy.
- Olee. Sometimes her pluckiness was annoying as a reader, and not just to Shryne as a character.
- Not much Vader. A "con" because, well, look at the title and the eager expectations we all had. But a "pro" because the Vader plot overall weakened the novel IMHO.

Overall: 7/10

 

The more I think about how I was going to complain about the book, the more I realized that I actually liked most of it. So to start with I'll get the two main points that I didn't care for in the book out of the way:

- Olee. The fact that she may have been meant to be annoying does not excuse the fact that she was. I was troubled by Olee and her followers. There was too much emotion and disobedience from Olee, and too much weakness from the Jedi who followed her. The beacon says meet at the temple, then gets changed to say hide. It's a very simple message that her Master understands with ease. Then we are meant to believe Olee is an idiot and rebel who can't figure out why the message told them to hide until Kashyyyk gets pummeled. Then the remaining Jedi are just spinless and equally dumb and follow Olee, who doesn't make any sense and is still a padawan, instead of following the Jedi Master that is in thier midst. To me that is a sign of weak writing, when you have to create an unbelievable circumstance to justify a major plot point - the sacking of Kashyyyk. I put that in the same category as the blond who walks outside alone in the dark after everyone else has been killed, instead of just staying inside and locking the door.

- Vader being subservient and answering to Tarkin. I realize this was done to follow and explain Episode IV, before GL really had a grasp on how Vader's character would flesh out, however I still don't care for it in the movie, or in this book. IMO, there's no way Sidious would have his apprenctice answer to anyone but him. He would not undermine the order of the Sith that way. That being said I know that this point is just a personal problem I have with the saga.


OK, now with the good.

I really got into the book when the clone trooper questioned orders. I loved that part. As a United States Marine, I understand how it is drilled into every soldier's head to follow orders, however they also have to give you an out in the event that your commander goes nuts. You do not follow "unlawful" orders. As we can differentiate clones from robots, clones are capable of independant thought as well as error. Also as loyalty is huge amoung elite fighting forces, I can see the clones who are not in direct contact with Sidious taking a minute before killing their commanders and generals.

I also liked how they explained Vader's 'suit-induced' handicaps. Whereas the suit could have been disigned to fuction much more effeciently I got the impression that Sidious had it designed specifically for keeping Anakin under his authority, as the suit hindered Anakin from attempting to take out Sidious. I suppose you could also say that the suit was designed to keep Anakin angry, so it could work on that level too.

It was nice to see the references made to the other characters that we know in the SW universe and the coincidental interaction between them that only good fiction can bring about. I enjoyed the elements on Alderan and the explaination of how the Wookies were forced to sumbit and seeing Vaders hand in the events.

In summary, besides the Olee crutch (which while I complain about it I can forgive), I thought that the book was well writen and provided very good filler information about how and why later details worked the way they did. I would give the book an 8.

8/10

 

Well, don't look for this to happen anytime soon, since their hyperbole seems to be working to get people to buy the books (and in hardcover!).

 

I really enjoyed Dark Lord. I give it a 9 out of 10.

Pros:

-Luceno's characterization of Vader is excellent and he handles a lot of the early Vader moments (battling the Jedi, discovering the power of the dark side) very well. Focusing on Vader's injuries and limitations was well-done.

-Palpatine. I was glad that Palpatine was the focus of many chapters and Luceno does a good job with the twisted relationship between the two. The scene between them at the medical center was outstanding and Vader's "Look at us. Are these the faces of victory?" has to go down as one of my favorite lines. Also nice is the tidbits we learn about Palpatine's apprenticeship to Plaguies.

-Secondary characters. I found all the secondary characters (Bail, the droids, Tarkin, Chewbacca, Mothma) to be well-written and I'm glad there that a lot of time was spent on Bail as well. I'm really sorry we didn't get to see Vader meeting the Queen. That would have been very interesting.

-The Battle of Kashyyyk. Well-written and I was plesantly surprised that we got a big, important battle in this book.

-Obi-Wan. I was hoping this would be the epilogue for the book and I was glad to see that it was. Any book focusing on the rise of Darth Vader should feature something on Obi-Wan reacting to the news. To me, it's the logical decision. I'd rather read about Obi-Wan here than him rescuing The Twit in Last of the Jedi Who Love Ferus.

Cons:

-The surviving Jedi. As it's been already said, way too much time is spent on Shryne and the surviving Jedi. They weren't bad characters and I found the storyline interesting. The last scene with the "Jedi Council" was one of my favorite. But they took too much time away from Vader, who I'm not even sure was in 50% of the book. The title character doesn't appear until page 51 of the book. There's no excuse for this at all.

Olee was annoying and she didn't learn how reckless she was until the very end. As for the other Jedi, I think they were just suppose to be generic Jedi. To me, it wasn't an issue.

-Contrivences. Shryne finding his mother was a big one, as was the clones disobeying orders. I don't see this happening at all, unless it was some kind of genetic defect.

-Missed opportunity. I haven't see this one covered but it's a gripe of mine. Darth Vader is assigned to enslave the Wookiees on Kashyyyk. Okay, I buy that. But Vader's an ex-slave and that was a big part of his background in TPM. Anakin always resented this. Yet this topic isn't even addressed at all in Dark Lord. This could have been an interesting moral dilema for Vader to address but Luceno doesn't touch it. I knew the EU would forget about this and it has.

 

I'm only about halfway through, so no review yet but I'm really enjoying this one. Luceno, if you think about it, had an uneviable task of setting Vader on a path which will have him arrive at the beast we see in the OT (Torturing Leia for information, torturing Han for kicks etc) and thus far, with Vader's frustrations at his mechanical shortcomings, he's on track.

One of my main gripes with the PT is the way we're supposed to feel sorry for Vader. Anakin made a choice, and he has to deal with that and the only time we should forgive him is when he redeems himself in ROTJ. What we're getting here is an Anakin who made a decision, isn't really 100% sure it's the right one but, in spite of this, resolves himself to his fate.

Review soon!

E_S

 

Got it yesterday. Finished it yesterday. Liked it a lot more than I thought I was going to, but not well enough to give it highter than a 7.

It was interesting to see Vader and Sidious, along with the whole political thing, but I think they dropped the ball with the Jedi thing.

 

9.5

Everyone else has pretty much summed my thoughts up too. I liked the new characters enough to want to see something with them from earlier in the war, maybe Shryne fighting on Deko Neimoidia as was mentioned. .5 off for not having enough Vader, but the parts with him were near-perfect.

 

9.

After being let down by Dork Nest, I was eager to read some Star Wars which made me remember what I loved about the EU.

Oh boy did I get it.

It's not just that Luceno didn't try and make Vader into a tragic figure; he showed Anakin embrace, fully, a path that would lead to ANH's Vader.

I loved this story; even though Chewbacca's cameo was a little contrived it hardly mattered.

Roan Shryne is an altogether too rare entity - an original, interesting character that was mortal. I'd love to see more of this in the future please!

I also loved the limitations on the Force; after Dark Nest's Clone Wars level Force usage it was nice to see it more grounded and spiritual.

Alot of things I'd say about this book have been already said, so really I can't say much more. Except the only thing that really was a let down for me was that it was a little short. Roan dying was awesome; I'm really impressed by how much of Jedi he was when he died; sacrificing himself so others may live, and reaffirming his faith in the Force.

Attention Del Rey: More like this, please!

E_S

 

I loved Vader in this book. You get into the hell he lived every day, with the suit and how he comes to terms with having to instill fear as a matter of surival. Certainly gets into the character that we all love in ANH's head, that's for sure. You saw him actually think and deduce and ponder why he had to do the things he had to do, and still he knew that Anakin was in there and he would have to fight him every step of the way every day to remain dark. Great, great Vader.

 

Precisely, roo. One thing the ROTS book did which the film didn't do, for me, was make Anakin likable. Luceno avoided that to some degree with Vader - you didn't like him, but you were intruiged by him nonetheless and when he made the full conversion, by killing Shryne, it was excellent.

E_S

 

9/10

I picked this book up hoping to renew my interest in Star Wars EU (which, like ES, was crushed by Dark Nest), and it did.