Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire Novel (1996)

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well. I tried to do a blog post on this blog earlier this week, but I wasn't into either topic I tried to write about even though they are topics I want to talk about. The reason for that is I have THIS topic that I'm super excited to talk about this week. It's the novel for Shadows of the Empire, written by author Steve Perry, who is not the lead singer for Journey, unlike the other guy with that name, who IS the lead singer for Journey. This book came out 30 years ago today, along with some of the other elements of the Shadows of the Empire Star Wars multimedia project. I decided to write about just the novel today, though I'll be sprinkling in other posts about the project over the course of the rest of the year. So, let's get into it.

Star Wars was in a very transitional phase when Shadows of the Empire was published on May 1st, 1996. The original trilogy had ended over a decade earlier with Return of the Jedi in 1983, but the franchise continued to thrive through novels and comic books, beginning with Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn and Dark Empire by Tom Veitch and Cam Kennedy in 1991. However, by the time Shadows of the Empire was published several things had started to happen. George Lucas was working on the Prequel Trilogy, and had actually announced it in late 1993, the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition was in production, the Original Trilogy had been re-released on VHS in 1995, ahead of the 1997 theatrical re-release of the entire trilogy, and sales for the novels had started to drop. Though they were still selling well enough that no drastic changes were made unlike what would happen two years later that led to The New Jedi Order being developed.

I've said this in other places, and I'm pretty sure Perry, and the other people involved with this project, have said that Shadows of the Empire is a movie without the movie since it had every type of tie-in that movies had in the '90s, including a soundtrack album. So I think Lucasfilm was using this as an experiment for both the upcoming Prequel Trilogy and Special Editions. Because if this novel and it's various elements hadn't been successful, then what chance would the re-releases and the new movies have? 

The thing about Star Wars is that it has always been on the fringes of pop culture. Whenever it's been really popular with people who aren't part of the Star Wars fandom, it's usually been at a time when something in the franchise was a novelty. Such as Heir to the Empire being published in 1991 after eight years of no Star Wars novels being published. Or the return of the Original Trilogy to theaters in 1997, or The Phantom Menace being released in 1999 after sixteen years of no new Star Wars movies being in theaters, as well as the anticipation leading up to the movie's release. But, as I'll talk about with other movies, books, TV shows, comic books, and music, that mellowed out over time. As I mentioned, the sales for Bantam Spectra's Star Wars novels started fizzling out sometime in the mid-'90s and those books didn't hit the New York Times Bestsellers List, the way the earlier novels did, though according to the mass market paperback's cover, Shadows of the Empire did make it onto the list.

For me personally, I didn't get this book until probably 1998 or 1999. I don't remember if it was before or after Garrett, my best friend in elementary school and middle school, started lending me Star Wars books when we were in the same class for the 1998-1999 school year, or if it was after. I just remember it was after I'd gotten The Paradise Snare by A.C. Crispin, and it was definitely after it had come out in paperback because I haven't actually seen the hardcover in person before. The original paperback was released on March 3rd, 1997, so it was definitely after that, when I got it.

I think what's unique about this book is that, so far, it's the only novel to take place between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. As far as I know anyway. Unless there's a more recent novel that takes place between those two movies. It's definitely the only Legends novel to take place between those movies. We've had two comic book series, both by Marvel, that have taken place in this time period, but no novels other than this one. The 1977 Marvel comic book series took place in this time period between 1980 and 1983, during the time when audiences were awaiting the release of Return of the Jedi, and then in 2020 Marvel restarted their main Star Wars series, which had originally started in 2015, and the new series was set between those two movies. 

Something I find interesting is that I keep hearing complaints about how uncomfortable Prince Xizor is due to how he treats women, particularly in that extremely uncomfortable scene between him and Leia near the end of the book. Well yeah, he's supposed to be uncomfortable. Xizor is not a good person. He is not above molesting women, even his own assistant, Guri, the Human Replica Droid, when he wants entertainment. In fact, I'd say he's a villain that is even more relevant now than he was thirty years ago. And not in the timeless way that characters like the Emperor and Darth Vader are either. No, Xizor is exactly like the rich men who are running most of Western society these days. I mean even Vader can't stand him.

Getting away from the darker and uncomfortable elements of the book, I love the humour in this book. Particularly the banter between Leia, Lando, Dash Rendar, Luke, Chewie, Artoo, and Threepio. While it's not as good as Aaron Allston would incorporate into his five books in the X-Wing series, beginning in 1998 with Wraith Squadron, it very much feels like the kind of banter that we saw in the original three movies.

I have the 2016 mass market paperback reprint with the golden Legends banner across the top, and one of the things that I like about these reprints is that they retain the page layouts and typography of the original paperback editions from the past. Even though the Legends Novels Timeline that began with Vector Prime in 1999, was included along with ads for the more modern Star Wars novels coming out at the time, since Del Rey reprinted it, the chapter headers are the same, and the print is the same size with the same font. Which is awesome, because so many reprints of older books change the page layouts and chapter headers so that the book feels different than the earlier edition did. 

That's my two cents on the novel of Shadows of the Empire. Like I said, I will cover the comic and video game in the future, but I don't have anything to say about the toys, trading cards, junior novel, or soundtrack as I've never owned any of them. But I do own five of the six issues of the comic, and we rented the video game for the Nintendo 64 in the early 2000s, so I've got plenty to talk about with those.

In the meantime though, I will be back on Tuesday to talk about the first three Free Willy movies, as I have them on DVD, and I have quite a bit of history on them. Until then, have a great weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.