Lit Books Star Wars: Shadow of the Sith Novel by Adam Christopher

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Just finished Ch 18…

Anaximander gives me the creeps..

 

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Yeah, and his diatribes about the eternal recurrence of all things to the apeiron really start to grate after awhile. We get it, Thales failed to account for the possibility that water alone seems to be an insufficient cause for being in general, jeez.

Joke aside, Anaximander’s name and the IRA quote were two moments where I was convinced I was imagining references that couldn’t possibly be in there. Welcome pulls, but weird ones.

 

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One aspect of this new world where we have new audio/visual Star Wars content coming out on a regular basis is that having a key piece of the story in print kind of ostracizes it to an extent. I can easily share and experience a show or a movie together with my family and we can all have a decent time, but even if my wife or kids were interested in reading a novel or a comic that experience is going to be a solo one for each of us. There's also the risk that at some point they will adapt this to some kind of series or otherwise cover the same ground and in doing so contradict this novel in some way which riles up the canon conversation (see Aftermath).

Anyway, I was quite fine with the novels being the main story when that's all we had, but Star Wars is first and foremost an on screen story and with that now an option I'd probably prefer the big bits to be kept to that.

That all said, I am reading the novel and enjoy it so far although I'm not very far yet.

 

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The way Lando handled that situation, helping them escape in Chapter 21 Great job, General

 

I understand the sentiment re: the big bits should be on screen.... however, having everything in novels, until now, be in consequential made for a bunch of novels I didn't particularly enjoy. I'm happy that this novel exists to pull a bunch of strings together and it feels consequential.

The main reason I think **** should have been a story told in a movie or TV series is I want more people to have the ST improved for them. I know a lot of people still saying "I wish we got Duel of the Fates instead," and I think this would help make sense of TROS' place with the previous films.

I just also happen to think an ST the opens with this story, and probably parts of Bloodline and Rise of Kylo Ren, would make more sense than just dropping us in with "Han and Leia's son is a wanna-be Vader" and "Luke is missing" and "neo-Imperials are everywhere."

 

I overall enjoy the ST for what it is, but it does in some ways feel like it could/should have been X-XII.

 

I hope we still can see Luke’s academy in live action or animation.

There can be far more to that era then this book and the TRoKR comic.

We have seen the academy’s end, let’s see it’s beginning, set some years after TBoBF.

I’m always down for more pre ST Luke on screen, hopefully he has more of a role then just cameos.

 

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Nice call back to this scene at the end of Chapter 22.

 

Chapter 40:

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First hot chocolate makes its triumphant comeback (paying off this very thread, yowza), and now Lando has a huge dedicated cape closet. I love this book.

 

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I’ve not finished the book yet, but just got through the part where Miramir and Dathan are discussing leaving Rey with Unkar….

And based on their conversation, I kind of view Unkar a little bit different now.
Maybe he’s not the biggest scumbag on Jakku as TFA kind of frames him (and maybe he didn’t deserve to have his arms ripped off by Chewie).

I mean I know he’s not the best guy in the world & definitely doesn’t seem so kind to the Jakku peasants that barter with him. But I think he’s just a product of the environment he’s in on Jakku. Because if he’s the big man on Niima Outpost, that’s not saying much. He’s really just the richest peasant of all the peasants. And based on Miramir’s angle, he seems to AT LEAST be a man of his word.

Again, not saying Unkar Plutt is someone to be admired, but next time I watch TFA — I might not view him with as much disdain.

also I have not finished the novel yet, so maybe something will change what I just wrote.

 

I notice an interesting push-and-pull going on between the "consequential events should be happening in the books and comics" point of view and the "consequential events should be saved for live action" point of view within fandom. IMO we can (and presently do) have both, and also IMO it would be nice to have some reflection and re-evaluation on the subject of what is considered a "consequential event." But that's me.

I'll be reading this one soon, just have to wrap up Brotherhood and I'm going to try to slip Stories of Jedi and Sith in-between, since that seems likely to be a pretty quick read.

 

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Well its personal preference, right, so there's also going to be people who prefer different things. One thing that's different now, I think, is that we haven't previously had both so prominent at the same time. Previously we either had movies telling the main story or in between those the novels and comics could fill in the gaps and expand what the "main story" was. Now, though, we've got good onscreen media pushing the narrative while also now having print media playing around in similar space.

I've groused previously about print media feeling inconsequential, so on that hand I'm excited to having a book that impacts the "main narrative" in a real way. On the other hand, though, like I said upthread, it does make it a challenge to share and enjoy with my family and jumping between print and screen can maybe be jarring if I were to do a chronological run or something.

Anyway, if I have a point here I think its just to say there isn't a right or wrong answer, just preference.

 

Geez parts of that ending. Knowing it was coming did not soften the blow.

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Overall I had a really good time, and I think Adam Christopher should be commended for managing to pull off the pretty tough act of writing a good Star War while also making sense of messy parts of the continuity. I can see why people are calling it Episode VI.5 or what the first sequel should have been or whatever.

In general I think there are two potential camps of audience members: people who want to come to terms with RoS or liked it in the first place (they do exist, I assume), and people who want to like RoS. I could see this being wildly successful for the first camp because it makes RoS feel more grounded in the rest of the universe. It “makes sense,” basically, and once you’ve made sense of the film you can move past it to new projects fleshing out the bigger, multifaceted Star Wars story we all like at least parts of. You get over it, to be kind of blunt, the way I had to get over AotC and some folks had to get over Ewoks. The second camp is… trickier, because there isn’t any one thing that will make you like a movie and there are always going to be subjective experiences nothing else outside the film can address. They might be disappointed because… well, the movie’s still got all the issues they had with it. For me it’s still a bit of a ****show, y’know?

But that’s all kind of besides the point. Unto itself this is easily my favorite post-Jedi novel in the current continuity and probably pretty safely situated in the broader “Star Wars books I like” camp, but for good reasons and not because I’m irony poisoned. Strong stuff. I hope we get more later era books of this caliber.

 

I think its almost a tradition, part of the "Star Wars" experience now, for ancillary material to shore up the films for those that felt that shoring up was needed. The prequels were obviously rife with that with the novelizations providing a lot of nuance and context the films maybe didn't provide and TCW really beefing up the titular conflict and relevant characters far beyond what the films did (could?).

The OT hasn't needed it as much, but the where it has benefited is in the sibling relationship between Luke and Leia (and by extension the relationship between Leia and Anakin). It barely exists in the films, but other material has really helped display that, both in Legends and (to a lesser extent so far) Canon.

I was kind of hoping in the early Disney days that maybe we could have gotten this kind of material concurrently with the ST. Maybe in the same way we got some in between novels with the prequels and the whole pre-cartoon Clone Wars initiative. I usually stay away from this argument, but I guess that's where "better planning" might have benefited us.

 

Ochi of Bestoon might a bafoon but he no ameture. As shown in this book and the comics he is skilled. He just talks too mutch and thinks too highly of himself, lol. He is one of my minor villains now.

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Ochi of Bestoon fights Luke Skywalker for few seconds, he proves he is dangerous but also stupid. His spat with Pryde was good. Ungkar seems to be a decent enough guy for his envirement. He deals reasonable with Rey's parents and gives them the adavantage over Ochi. He raises Rey or has other people raise her.

Luke Skywalker is the best and strongest force user in the galaxy in this era. Liked his interacations with Lor San Tekka the researcher from TROS. Luke and Lando is just so mutch fun and weird. Anakin Skywalker force ghost scene is great and Luke mentions it after.

 

Only 6 chapters in and hopeful as I have been wanting to know what went on between Jakku and...well...Jakku (battle of and the opening of TFA) but as I read it I keep being reminded of my disappointment with the ST.

 

Just skimmed the hardback. Big smile at the Matthew Stover quotes, plus the allusion by Lando to a certain Michael Stackpole named vessel...
Ossus is back, Tython is back - if still vague on it's history, and we get a bit more on Exegol's history too, with hints of a quite powerful nexus there, and maybe even a pre Sith culture.
Everyone seems well written, including Dathan. And although there seemed a lot of missed opportunity not having him be a more literal Palpatine son, he gets to make up for that somewhat here.
TIE Defender cameo, of course, always gets a plus...
And I can't dislike a fellow Stackpole and Stover fan, as the endnotes make clear...

 

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CSA is back, baby! Really glad that the storyline about its collaboration with the Empire's successor is brought back, maybe there will be glimpses of it in MandoVerse too.

Pryde's POV was not explicit (expectedly) about political situation, but the lack of "First Order" term is apparent (or Enric just does not believe in rebranding).

Seems like Ochi did not betray Qi'ra, at least for Palpatine. His death scene was, unfortunately, not near as dramatic as it could have been, little bastard deserved more.

 

How are we reading Dathan? Dayth-in as Nathan or Dahth-in? Or Da-thin?

 

I read him as Dathan as the audibook tells it.