In Print: Dark Lord by James Luceno

James Luceno wrote 'Labyrinth of Evil' which I thought was quite good. It was the story that led directly into Episode 3, Revenge of the Sith. So I expected Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader to fall in suit. I was wrong.

I would say that this book was more intended to the Star Wars chud audience who'd be happy with any tripe about the Star Wars Galaxy as long as it has technical referances and some of the old characters.

That aside, I was expecting a long story about Darth Vader. Hell, it's called THE RISE OF DARTH VADER, is it such a wild concept? But if you compress all the pages actually about Vader, it's only a handful at best. It's more about a ragtag group of Jedi survivors of the execution order from Palpatine. A bunch of nobodies that you don't care about or for. I was actually hoping Vader would kill them all. But guess what? Most of them allude him and go into hiding. I thought Vader tracked down and destroyed the Jedi. WTF? The big badass in black only kills four. SUCK!

What WAS good about the book, was the explanations regarding why Darth Vader was no longer the nimble bouncing Anakin from the other movies. All the prosthetic limbs are heavy and slow. Neat. They show more of the interaction and the basis of treachery in the Order of the Sith. That was good. But it was tiring reading about Bail Organa, R2-D2, etc.

The ending was very interesting. Obi Wan discovers on Tattooine that Anakin survived. That reaction was quite good.

There WERE several very interesting parts of this book, but getting to them was laborious. Not great writing. Unfocused on the topic. But if you're a fan, you might like it, nonetheless.