SPOILER Shadow of the Sith

Just finished this yesterday. Anyone else?? Let's talk!!

Very enjoyable story, captures all the best elements of Star Wars. Author Adam Christopher gets a solid 4.5 porgs out of 5 in his first novel in the GFFA, and I will definitely be interested in future works from him.

I'd like to note that I listened to this on Audible, and the narrator, William DeMeritt, was spectacular. If you had told me I was actually listening to Mark Hamill and Billy Dee, I would not have questioned you. The production value of these Star Wars audiobooks are always fantastic and this did not disappoint either.

That's enough of the review, now into the spoilery bits! For anyone who doesn't know this is set about 12-13 years prior to TFA. Seems like a calm but nervous time in the galaxy.

We get bits from both young Rey (~6; years old) and Padawan Ben Solo (~16 years old)... There was more from Rey, but enough of Ben and Luke's Academy on Ossus that I can't complain. Really did not seem as if there was any darkness in Ben at this point.

The backstory of Rey's parents was interesting. Her father, Dathan, had as lovely of an upbringing as you could imagine, being a "failed" clone of Palpatine. The current story follows Rey's parents' attempts to escape Dathan's past and is exhilarating and harrowing, and as a young parent myself I'm quite glad I don't live in the GFFA.

Lando really steals the show in this story. I won't give everything away, but without his involvement I don't think the ST even takes place, at least not how we know it. I would love to see more about him in the years leading up to this.

Luke is as powerful and wise as ever. And in true Luke fashion, while his intentions are true, his execution misses the mark ever so slightly. As much as he tries to stay on top of things, he can't help but be 1 or 2 steps behind.

Ochi of Bestoon is my new #1 public enemy. One of the most diabolical and despicable characters in the galaxy. While he was just a flashback and plot device in TRoS, this book gives you plenty of reasons to hate him.

There's a couple new characters who I enjoyed, (I will have to go back to check on their names, one of the downfalls of audiobooks is that it's hard to retain and spell the names of people in this universe) one was a former Sith acolyte who Luke had been able to redeem and she ends up helping out our heroes quite a bit. But really this book focuses on the legacy characters (Luke and Lando) which has been more of the exception than the rule recently with what Lucasfilm has been publishing. I'm glad it was done this way, as it makes the OT characters feel much more in place in the ST than perhaps the films did. Outside of Leia at least.

Hyperspace tracking was also being explored, and for the techies out there it does a good job of explaining how that was being developed. R2 even helps out!

Kyber crystals and Sith artifacts play a huge part in this, and I'm fairly astonished at how much of the ST happened the way it did simply because of various treasure hunts, by several different parties. I will likely be back to explore this topic further.

Along that note, there is a trend I've been seeing recently with the Dark Side that I am not sure I'm on board with, which essentially is that certain objects have been imbued with darkness and ancient spirits are then possessing people through these objects. I'm okay with the concept, but it's also IMHO taking away the agency of these villains. Can't someone just be bad... Just because? For example, in this story there is a woman who is possessed by ancient Sith mask. It calls to her, it needs her and she needs it. And when she wears it, she is controlled by a long dead Sith spirit. Is that a cheap way of creating villains? Is it being overdone, or is it just further exposition of the dark side?

Finally, this book reiterated some of my feelings about the ST and how it was organized. Or rather, how I feel it should have been organized. Don't get me wrong, I love the ST, but I felt it was crowded and chaotic. I've said it before but if I had my ways I would have made TFA and TLJ into Eps 7-9, and then TRoS would have been Eps 10-12. After reading this book I'm doubling down on that concept and would REALLY love to see the events of this play out in the big screen, or at least the D+ screen!

If you liked the ST, read this book! If you didn't like TRoS, definitely go read this book! It's a great prequel to that story and might leave you a little more appreciative of the final installment of the Skywalker saga.

 

Sorry, I missed these... LotR pretty much nailed it though. Best I can tell it roughly ~10 years after Mando, 13-15 years pre-TFA. Right in the sweet spot.