I first got into Star Wars via the 1997 release of the
Special Edition original trilogy at the cinemas, and once I was hooked – it
didn’t take long – I set about reading all the books I could. Steve Perry’s
Shadows of the Empire was one of the first I picked up, and it’s been more than
fifteen years since I read it.
Delving back into what’s a non-canon universe now, I knew
that Shadows wasn't going to be as
good as it was when I devoured it as a kid, but it’s still a fun ride through
the time between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, shining a
light on Princess Leia’s efforts to free Han Solo from carbonite because she’s
realised that she’s in love with the Corellian pirate. She is aided in this
crusade by Lando Calrissian, Chewbacca, the ever-present droids R2-D2 and C-3PO
and Dash Rendar, a creation of Perry’s who comes across very much as a younger
– and more brash – Han Solo. He’s completely full of himself and it’s amusing.
Elsewhere, Luke Skywalker is sheltering on the desert planet
of Tatooine, and is struggling to come to terms with the life-altering revelation
on Cloud City that Darth Vader was once known as Anakin Skywalker, and is his
father. On top of that, he’s building a new lightsaber to replace the one he
lost during the duel with Vader.
On the Imperial side, Darth Vader remains obsessed with
finding Luke and turning him to the Dark Side, a project that Emperor Palpatine
supports. There is a new player on the scene, a reptilian-type criminal
overlord named Xizor, who runs the formidable Black Sun criminal organisation,
and harbours a fair amount of hatred towards Vader. His plan is to replace the
Sith Lord as Palpatine’s trusted right-hand man. And he wants to see Luke Skywalker
dead, simply because Vader wants him alive. The cat and mouse game between the
two rivals is quite interesting, but you never really get the feeling that
Xizor is going to triumph.
Importantly, as far as bridging the gap between Episodes V
and VI, we see that the Bothan operation to steal the new Death Star plans was
engineered by Emperor Palpatine himself, as part of his overall machinations.
The Alliance operation to steal the plans that resulted in the successful
destruction of the second moon-sized battle station
Things don’t happen slowly in this book. There’s plenty of
action pretty much from the first page to the last. It’s a quick read, but very
enjoyable nonetheless. It’s just a shame that all these great stories from my
childhood are considered non canonical now.
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