5/5 Rancors

James Luceno's Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader concludes what I think of as an unofficial trilogy of books (and in fact Del Rey has combined the three originally independent volumes into a single omnibus) that began with Labyrinth of Evil and continued in Revenge of the Sith. In the first, we see Obi-Wan and Anakin heroically making their way through the Clone Wars and meet our key players; in the second, the war ends and Anakin falls from grace; and in this conclusion we see the aftermath along with the kickoff of a whole new era.

From my prior reviews, it's no secret that I'm a big fan of Luceno's Star Wars novels, so I wasn't surprised that I enjoyed this one just as much as his others. He is terrific at writing Star Wars action and always invests the feel of the galaxy far, far away into his storylines. His command of the Expanded Universe remains strong and he weaves in various elements of it as usual (for instance, his mentioning Quinlan Vos as a Jedi on Kashyyyk when Order 66 went down, but purposely keeping Quinlan's fate vague meshes seamlessly with Dark Horse's comics).

I was delighted with the perspective this book offered on Darth Vader. It is amazing to think how far Vader has moved from the cryptic, ominous figure we first saw storm onto the Tantive IV in 1977. Vader is an emotional mess in this novel, wracked with pain, fear, anger, and guilt over the death of Padme and his descent to the Dark Side. He is anxious to put Anakin Skywalker behind him, and indeed, considers Darth Vader to be newly-born. When he revisits key locations from his past, such as the Jedi Temple, his emotional torment threatens to overwhelm him, neatly tying up any questions of why he doesn't visit Naboo or Tatooine ever again.

Vader's tale is interwoven with that of several surviving Jedi on the run, primarily focused on Jedi Master Roan Shryne and Padawan Olee Starstone. Three Jedi are allowed to flee by their clone commandos when Order 66 arrives, a notion I wholeheartedly agree with. It's unrealistic to believe there would not have been any Jedi survivors of the galaxy-wide massacre besides Obi-Wan and Yoda. Leaving some Jedi around for the Dark Times era will certainly enliven the EU tales, so it's a good move. These Jedi try their best to figure out what happened and why the whole universe seems to have turned against them, but only meet with some success. Primarily success could be equated with simple survival at this point. Threads are left open for possible future stories, and I'd like to see where the remaining Jedi end up.

Much like Labyrinth of Evil, we do considerable planet-hopping during the course of this novel. New planets such as Murkhana get in on the action along with welcome return visits from favorites such as Kashyyyk and some especially interesting sequences set on Alderaan, a planet that has not featured much in the EU to date (of course, since most of the books are set post-A New Hope, it'd be hard to get much Alderaan into them).

I thoroughly enjoyed the stories set during the Revenge of the Sith era. Luceno played a critical role in expanding upon the story told during the film. I hope the Dark Times will be equally interesting and that the stories will not immediately make everything into a carbon copy of the Empire we know and love from the original trilogy. There's eighteen years to be played with and Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader gets things off to an excellent start.