After Revenge of the Sith I was looking forward to reading more about the transition of Anakin into the Vader we knew from the OT - first in James Luceno's Dark Lord: the Rise of Darth Vader and then in Karen Traviss's two follow up short stories In His Image and A Two-Edged Sword.

Yesterday I reviewed Luceno's book, which I initially found disappointing, but the second half improved considerably to the point where I felt that it was definitely a worthwhile read.

In contrast, Karen Traviss's two Vader short stories were enjoyable reading from beginning to end and are worth trying to get your hands on if you don't have them already.

The first is set a few months after the end of Luceno's book, the second a further year later.

In His Image, which is missing its opening epigraph due to a typesetting error that has placed it down with the illustration, opens with Vader's search for new templates to clone. It introduces us to an early Emperor's Hand, Sa Cuis, and Vader's aide-de-camp, Lekauf.

We see the Emperor send his Hand on an unexpected mission, and then we get to see Vader's reaction to that mission which in turn shows how he is continuing to develop in the Dark Side. The story concludes with Vader choosing two templates for experimental Arkanian cloning - a process that takes only one year.

This is one of the better Star Wars short stories I have read (and with hyperspace fiction I have read many over the past couple of years).

A Two-Edged Sword, the published title of which is missing "A" due to another typesetting error, starts a year down then track with the two sets of clones in training, one group under the tutelage of Lekauf and the other under another of the Emperor's Hands, Shevyan.

The Emperor observes the two groups in a test battle against each other, then takes them on the journey back to Coruscant, during which another battle develops.

The interaction between Vader and the Emperor, and Vader's thought processes, particularly regarding whether or not he still has some compassion, make for another interesting story. I certainly hope that we will be given more to read along these lines.

In fact, whilst short stories are clearly a different format to novels, I can't help but wonder after reading these two stories whether Dark Lord would have been better handled by Karen Traviss. I certainly hope that Ms Traviss is given the opportunity to write at least one full-length Vader novel in the future.


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