Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor

Star Wars Legends: Novels

by Matthew Woodring Stover

Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader are dead. The Empire has been toppled by the triumphant Rebel Alliance, and the New Republic is ascendant. But the struggle against the dark side and the Sith Order is not over. Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Han Solo, Lando Calrissian, and their faithful comrades have had little time to savor victory before being called on to defend the newly liberated galaxy.Powerful remnants of the vanquished Empire, hungry for retaliation, are still at large, committing acts of piracy, terrorism, and wholesale slaughter against the worlds of the fledgling New Republic. The most deadly of these, a ruthless legion of black-armored Stormtroopers, do the brutal bidding of the newly risen warlord Shadowspawn. Striking from a strategically advantageous base on the planet Mindor, they are waging a campaign of plunder and destruction, demolishing order and security across the galaxy–and breeding fears of an Imperial resurgence. Another reign of darkness beneath the boot-heel of Sith despotism is something General Luke Skywalker cannot, and will not, risk. Mobilizing the ace fighters of Rogue Squadron–along with the trusty Chewbacca, See-Threepio, and Artoo-Detoo– Luke, Han, and Leia set out to take the battle to the enemy and neutralize the threat before it’s too late. But their imminent attack on Mindor will be playing directly into the hands of their cunning new adversary. Lord Shadowspawn is no freshly anointed Sith Chieftain but in fact a vicious former Imperial Intelligence officer–and Prophet of the Dark Side. The Emperor’s death has paved the way for Shadowspawn’s return from exile in the Outer Rim, and mastery of ancient Sith knowledge and modern technology has given him the capability to mount the ultimate power play for galaxy wide dominion. Dark prophecy has foretold that only one obstacle stands in his way, and he is ready– even eager–for the confrontation.All the classic heroes, all the explosive action and adventure, all the unparalleled excitement of Star Wars come breathlessly alive as the adventures of Luke Skywalker continue.Features a bonus section following the novel that includes a primer on the Star Wars expanded universe, and over half a dozen excerpts from some of the most popular Star Wars books of the last thirty years!

Genres: Star Wars, Science Fiction, Fiction, Space Opera, Fantasy, Novels, Adventure

337 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 30, 2008

About the author

Matthew Woodring Stover is an American fantasy and science fiction author. He is perhaps best known for his Star Wars novels -- Traitor, Shatterpoint, Revenge of the Sith and Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor. He has also published several pieces of original work, such as Heroes Die, which Stover described as 'a piece of violent entertainment that is a meditation on violent entertainment'. Stover's work often emphasises moral ambiguity, psychological verisimilitude and bursts of intense violence.

Stover is deeply interested in various forms of martial arts, having trained in the Degerberg Blend, a concept that utilises the thought behind Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do as its foundation.

Reviews

[Alejandro · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Force is enormously strong here!!!


This story is set not long after “Return of the Jedi”, like six months or so later.


KEEP CALM AND CALL LUKE

He was our hope. As long as Luke Skywalker was alive, we always figured somehow everything would turn out okay.

I don’t know you but for me, there isn’t any doubt that Luke Skywalker is the greatest hero in Star Wars, where certainly there are a lot of other great heroes too in the franchise, but there is something about Luke, like if he is “hope” in the flesh. If Luke is there, you know that everything will be solved, somehow, but at the end, the forces of good will prevail.

If you fight me, you will be destroyed.

But there is something else about Luke. Maybe a weakness, maybe something that it makes him stronger. But, there is some darkness inside of him. Not malevolence. No. But he is selfless that he avoid that his closest friends, even her sister, would have to carry the burden of the darkness released by the Emperor, the opression of how deep his father fell (not matter his redemption at the last moment). His love for his closest ones is what keeps him in check, it’s what keeps him away from the dark side of the Force. And due that love, he travels a different path than his friends. Maybe it looks like he is there with them, but not really, not entirely, because he knows that if anything else fails, he can’t fail. He doesn’t have that kind of option.

They do have a chance... ...They’ve got a Skywalker on their side.

Luke is a Jedi. He knows what implies. So, he does his best to avoid violence and bloodshed, but don’t mistake a philosophy decision with a character’s flaw, because if his closest friends and family are in danger, he will do ANYTHING to keep them safe. He won’t hesitate. He won’t think it twice. He will act with unstoppable force to keep the ones in his heart, safe.

A trick? Luke Skywalker doesn’t use tricks. The only evidence we need is that someone landed a third of a Mon Calamari starship with nothing but altitude thrusters. That’s a Skywalker at work.

When you read about the “old” Luke Skywalker in further books, way ahead, 40 years from the events of the original trilogy, sure it’s awesome to realize how powerful he is, but has lived a lot already, so when you read a novel like this one, when Luke is barely six months away from the ending of war, when he still is twenty-four years old, giving him an unwanted commission of “General”, with the command of a task force, starships, soldiers, etc... and also, he develops skills in the Force in powerful ways, definitely it’s something awesome “to be there”.


THOSE IMPERIALS... THEY JUST DON’T GIVE UP!

When was the last time you heard of a battle went exactly as planned?

It’s like six months after the events of Return of the Jedi and there are many Imperial forces still around making sneak attacks and keeping large portions of the galaxy under its control.

Between the many things that the recently formed New Republic is dealing, there is a recurrent trouble with some kind of “pirates”, some TIE squadrons doing attacks to civilian vessels, but beyond of simply thievery, there is a possible indication of kidnappings.

So, the recently promoted General Luke Skywalker, in command of a rapid response task force is ordered to deal with these “Imperial Pirates”.

However, the situation won’t be easy since the headquarters of this strange Imperial forces is in a world surrounded by an asteroids’ irregular field, product of the explosion of a neighbor planet. So get in and get out from there, is really tricky and really dangerous.

And as if things weren’t complicated enough, the supreme commander of those Imperial forces is a mysterious man with apparent skills Sith-like.


THE FORCE V. THE DARK: DAWN OF FAITHS

If far from the Force you find yourself, trust you can that it is not the Force which moved.

There is an interesting approach on this novel, since the bad guy isn’t a Sith per se, but a man who grew up in a culture where they believe in “The Dark” which isn’t the dark side of the Force, but something else, based on the concept that everything dies, so wasting time and effort to construct anything is superfluous.

Luke will realize that this new enemy is something else, he isn’t just some “other crazy Sith”, but maybe something even more dangerous, since being contaminated by “The Dark” looks like something infinitely worse than just falls in the dark side of the Force.

No wall can contain the Force.

The Force was told to Luke that it’s what unites the universe. Is it possible to exist another invisible energy out there? Is The Dark real or just this villain is messing with Luke’s mind?


EVERYTHING IS AWESOME!!!

Because he was a Jedi, they all assumed that he actually knew what he was doing... ...if only it were true…

Everything is awesome in this novel (and no, isn’t because it’s a Lego adventure) but because everybody has his/her moment to shine. Luke, obviously is the lead character so he will have pleny times to do awesome stuff, but also Leia shows why she is indeed a Skywalker too (and the Force runs strong in that family), Han has his “card under the sleeve” to demonstrate again why he is our favorite rogue, even you can “hear” Chewie and R2!!! (And no, it’s not like you would understand what the heck they are saying but at least Matthew Stover, the author, written down the phoneitcs which I think is better than just reading a line explaining that they just did a sound but without “hearing” it in the narrative), you can see C3PO to show that he isn’t like any Protocol Droid in the galaxy (just have in mind WHO made it!) and even Lando can prove that he is indeed the best military general in the whole bunch.

And if all that wasn’t just quite enough, you have also cool action scenes with Rogue Squadron and Mandalorian Commandos!!!

So, you have here, in this novel, your favorite characters, all of them, doing awesome stuff, exciting battles of capital ships and starfighters, even imaginative science-fiction elements.

Everything is awesome. Embrace the adventure. May the Force be with you!

[Jesse Whitehead · Rating 5 out of 5]

Few authors understand Star Wars. Timothy Zahn got it, Michael Stackpole got it. Greg Keyes understands it. A few others have come close. Matthew Stover not only understands Star Wars but he loves Star Wars. It shines through in everything he writes.

When Del Rey was working through the New Jedi Order series (19 books by 13 different authors) Matthew Stover's 'Traitor' elevated the series to a new level, vaulting the characters and their beliefs so far above what the other writers were doing that it stood out like a beacon, raising the bar so high that other authors never even tried to reach for it.

When we were waiting for Episode III to be released Matthew Stover wrote 'Shatterpoint', a story about Mace Windu returning to his barbaric home planet of Haruun Kal. 'Shatterpoint' made Mace Windu, and the readers, begin to question all that he believed in the Force. Windu had to struggle with the indoctrination of decades in the Jedi Temple and was unable to face what he discovered.

Matthew Stover also wrote the novelization of Star Wars Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith. This time he drug the characters through the hell that the movie only hinted at. We got to see why Anakin changed so suddenly, what Obi-Wan had to face inside his own mind at the betrayal of his closest friend. When Matthew Stover writes Star Wars he lifts it high above the muck and half-imagined mess that most authors leave it in. His books shine amidst the others.

'Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor' is about the battle of Mindor, which took place after the death of Darth Vader and the Emperor but before Rogue Squadron had infiltrated and overthrown Imperial City. In short the New Republic is still a fledgling government and the Empire is a mess of warlords and governors seizing as much power as they can and squabbling amongst themselves as much as with the 'Rebels'.

Mindor is a planet in the system where the Empire developed their technology for Interdictor Cruisers, ships that project huge gravity wells used to keep enemy ships from jumping to Hyperspace. The result of all of this gravity research completely destroyed all the planets in the system except for Mindor, leaving a system sized asteroid field around the planet, and Mindor itself completely desolate.

Luke takes a special task force to Mindor to attack a small Imperial base run by a person who calls himself Shadowspawn. When Luke arrives everything falls completely apart, in some cases literally, and Luke's friends show up to try and rescue him.

Nothing is as it seems and Shadowspawn is a mastermind of deception. Sun Tzu theorizes that the art of war is the art of deception. If that is true then Shadowspawn is a master artist.

The characters are beautifully rendered in the text. This is more difficult than you might think, few authors can make Han sound like Han, and Lando sound like Lando. Matthew Stover not only makes the characters sound like themselves but he even does an incredible job of anglicizing Chewbacca and Artoo's speech.

The plot is intense. At several points throughout the book I found myself thinking that there was no way the characters could get out of the situation they were in. Then it got worse. It always got worse until my stomach was tied in a knot of anticipation and dread.

All these things, however, are not what makes this book great. What makes this book great is that Matthew Stover understands Star Wars and, even more importantly, he understands the Force.

Towards the end of the book Luke is speaking with a character who is Force sensitive and very much steeped in the Dark Side of the Force, Kar Vastor. Kar Vastor comes from Haruun Kal and knew several of the Jedi of the Old Republic, including Mace Windu, Saesee Tiin, and Ki Adi Mundi. Kar tells Luke “your are more than they were.” Luke responds incredulously saying, “But I barely know anything.” Kar's response is: “You are greater than the Jedi of former days. Because unlike the Knights of old... you are not afraid of the dark.”

This is the heart of what Star Wars is about.

This is the Force. There is no light side and dark side, there is the Force, and there are people. It is the people who are evil or good, not the Force.

The Jedi of the Old Republic feared the dark more than anything. It made them seethe with anger. They cowered in their Jedi Temple reciting platitudes of “There is no Fear, there is the Force. There is no Hate, there is the Force.” and all the while they drilled fear and hate of the Sith and users of the 'dark side' into their students and Padawans until they became indoctrinated into their society of foreboding. They feared the dark so much that they denied themselves the opportunity to love, to develop attachments and they hid it behind a veil of false compassion.

When Obi-Wan and Yoda discover that Anakin has joined the Sith and slain the Younglings in the Jedi Temple Yoda tells Obi-Wan to hunt down Anakin. Obi-Wan's response is, “I can't kill him, Master Yoda, he's like a brother to me. Send me after Palpatine instead.” In this, Obi-Wan admits to an attachment to Anakin that goes deeper than mere compassion. He has sinned against the Jedi order, he has developed a friendship. But, despite that friendship, despite fifteen years of fighting side by side Obi-Wan sees no alternative to killing his young friend. So much for the compassion of the Jedi, there is no attempt to help Anakin redeem himself, there is no attempt to understand his feelings. Once Obi-Wan finds proof that Anakin has turned to the dark side he must be destroyed.

There is no question about what is right. When Obi-Wan destroys Anakin and leaves him to die next to the lake of lava he cries out, “You were the Chosen One. You were supposed to destroy the Sith, not join them.” In his mind, the Sith must be destroyed.

The Jedi do not even stop to question and examine the events that led up to this because they are afraid of what they might find – it is their fault. Anakin is desperate to save Padme, he feels that he cannot live without her (and he becomes a shell of his former self when she dies) and Palpatine offers that to him – whether truthfully or not remains to be seen. If the Jedi had been willing to listen to Anakin, had paid attention to his problems he could have sought help from them instead of turning to the Sith for answers.

Herein lies the key to the Force.

Luke Skywalker, upon hearing that Vader is his father and used to be the great Jedi hero, Anakin Skywalker, does not run off to kill him and destroy the Sith. Instead he goes to Vader, and turns himself in. “There is good in you,” Luke tells Vader.

Luke did not have time for all of the Jedi training that the Knights of old received. He was much to old and Yoda just didn't have the time. Because of that he missed the decades of indoctrinating mantras about compassion, and fear and anger. He missed the platitudes about the dark side and because of that he outshines those Jedi like the sun outshines the stars.

Because he does not fear the dark.

He approaches Vader and Palpatine both with no fear. Palpatine believes that this is overconfidence born of Luke's ignorance of the Force.

When Luke tells Vader that there is still good in him he doesn't believe it because he thinks that he is lost, forever. He was trained as a Jedi, he knows that once he turns to the dark side there is no coming back, there is no redemption. Luke suffers from no such preconceptions.

In 'Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor' Luke confronts darkness like he has never seen before and still he tries to bring Shadowspawn away from the dark. He does not fear it, but neither does he embrace it.

There is one other aspect of this book that distinguishes it and makes it great. Luke refuses to kill. He's had enough. His compassion for life and his innate goodness don't allow him to kill any more people. This changes the story into a beautiful orchestration of events. Rather than whipping out his lightsaber at the smallest sign of trouble Luke relies on the Force and his own cunning to get him through things that continually escalate until the end. Few authors can pull off this kind of thing, but Matthew Stover does it beautifully.

At the end of the book Luke says to a holodrama writer who wants Luke to read his script about Luke's adventures: “Who wants to watch me cut up one more villain with my lightsaber?” It's been seen before, dozens of times. What we haven't seen is Luke put away his weapons and save himself and his friends through his own connection with the Force... until now.

How different would Anakin's life have been if the former Jedi had understood compassion and love and fear the way Luke does.

Despite being deep and intense and brutal, this book is also quite funny. The trio of Han, Leia, and Chewbacca is hard to beat for sarcasm and witty quips. There are even a few section from the point of view of R2-D2 which are quite entertaining. He is a very sarcastic little droid.

It is also great to see Lando, back in action and pulling his weight as General Calrissian.

This book was powerfully written. Matthew Stover's writing is almost poetry. His grasp of who the characters are is exceptional and bested only by the great Timothy Zahn. His understanding of the Force and what it is that makes Luke great is far beyond anything other authors have come close to.

'Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor' is, once again, far above the usual Star Wars novel in it's quality. It is books like this that have made Star Wars great.

(5/5)

[Jerry (Rebel With a Massive Media Library) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book makes a good point about celluloid portrayals of real-life heroes; oftentimes, there's so much liberty taken with the original events that it can be hard to separate fact from fiction. It also showcases the difference between fantasy and reality; something we need to hear in a time where many people are spending all their spare time immersed in gaming worlds or other fictional universes. Maybe I should think twice before accepting everything I read or hear as reality, even when it's presented as the truth...

[Dexcell · Rating 4 out of 5]

"None of the stories people tell about me can change who I really am."

I really enjoyed this book. It was Luke at his best, and shows why he's an absolute hero, in-universe and out.

Beautifully written of course, since it's Stover. And he's an artist with a keyboard.

I first read this book when it came out in 2008, and I remember absolutely hating it. It was definitely different from the average Star Wars book. I liked it much better as an adult.

Cronal/Blackhole/Shadowspawn was an interesting villain, basically making puppets of living beings with rock that he mentally controlled to control their minds and bodies. It was very creepy and sounded incredibly painful. I love how he simply wasn't ready with the force of will that both Luke and Leia had, and was incapable of breaking them.

It read like Cronal injected Luke with depression (which was Cronals view of the universe, calling it the Dark) , and seeing him get past that over the course of the book was really inspiring, since I struggle with depression.

“I have known Jedi. Many, many years ago. That knowing was not a gladness for me. I believed I would never know another, and I rejoiced in that belief.
But it is a gladness for me to be proven wrong.
I am happy to have known you, Jedi Luke Skywalker. You are more than they were. Because unlike the Knights of old, Jedi Luke Skywalker...
You are not afraid of the dark.”

[Rachel (TheShadesofOrange)]

4.0 stars
I'm convinced that Stover is one of the most talented authors writing in the Star Wars universe. I love how he always writes character introspection and deep themes into his novels. In this one, we see Luke coming to terms with what it means to be a legendary hero, which blurs the line with myth and truth. The prologue and conclusion in this book were perfect. I would highly recommend this one.

[CS · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Only power is real, and the only power is the power to destroy"
Out of the ashes of the Empire and the deaths of Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine, a new warlord has risen--Shadowspawn. He is a fierce menace, so when the opportunity arises for the New Republic to get rid of him, they jump on it and send their best--General Luke Skywalker. But the attack on Mindor quickly gets out of hand, and it is up to Leia, along with Han, Chewie, and Lando, to save their friend.

I Liked:
Matthew Stover is one of my favorite Star Wars authors. His stories are filled with vivid characters, intelligent plots, some of the most thought-provoking discussions I have ever seen in a Star Wars book, and a thorough grasp of the universe in which he writes. And I wasn't disappointed to see that all of that is here. Yes, the writing style feels more similar to Alan Dean Foster and Douglas Adams, but I still found Stover's writing enjoyable, yet thoughtful. When writing particularly as Han or Lando, Stover really infused the serious situations with appropriate humor. Han's humor was slightly different than Lando's, and both had more humor than, say, Luke.
The other aspect I was particularly impressed with was Stover's grasp of original characters. Stover had done, in my opinion, a brilliant job with Anakin, Amidala, and Obi-Wan from the Revenge of the Sith novelization, but there always was a possibility that he might not be able to get the tone and feel of our Big Three. Stover definitely proved himself more than capable of handling them, however. I loved how Luke felt like a wide-eyed boy, thrust into a position that was too much for him. Yeah, he was a commander, but to go from commander to general in so short a time, and after all his Jedi training, I could believe he would be overwhelmed. I was impressed at how well Stover grasped Han's humor and mannerisms. Lando was really nicely done, a good balance of dandy and general. Stover fits in other characters like Chewbacca, C-3PO, and R2-D2 in without making them feel like they are forced into the story (kudos to Stover for writing from the droids' point of views--and very convincingly, I might add). Also, I was really impressed with how Stover wrote the Mandalorians. He definitely gave them the respect that Traviss wrote them with and yet, didn't mind having Han take some jabs at them.
As for original characters, Nick and one other previous Stover creation reappear, both which are awesome (SO glad to see what happens to Nick Rostu after his strange departure from the Coruscant Nights Trilogy). The baddie is really good--I like how he isn't Sith, how he is more about destruction (the title of the review is one of his quotes) than he is about the Force.
Storywise, I was impressed how Stover thought out of the box. In the novels, Luke never gets to go on a military mission--he is always hopping around with Jedi or whatnot. Where is that Rebel Commander we saw in Empire Strikes Back? Well, Stover shows us--and shows us why Luke left the military for good. I also liked how Stover interwove the whole holothriller topic (though technically, wouldn't the holos be some other genre than thrillers? Like dramas and adventures? I mean, "Luke Skywalker and the Jedi's Revenge" sounds more like a drama than a thriller).
The concept of the meltmassifs was weird, almost feeling like Waru from The Crystal Star. However, unlike Waru, I think the meltmassif was the concept done right.

I Didn't Like:
I started this book back in November for my book club. At page 122, I got so frustrated with the writing style, the unclear plot and whatnot, I put the book aside for almost two months. Finally, less than a week ago, I wanted to get it off my nightstand and finish it. The book proved better towards the end, but it is pretty hard to get into and seems to ramble pointlessly. Several times, I had to force myself to keep going, to read as fast as I could to get past the slow parts and find the story buried inside.
The story, while unique, is also pretty confusing. I don't really want to get into any possible spoilers, but I spent so much time staring at the wall, trying to make sense of what was happening. In the end, I had to swallow and flow with it. Not to mention, I thought it was weird including the meltmassifs (which lent an almost Star Trek feel to the story).
Also, continuity-wise, how does what Luke learns here affect his future actions? I mean, given what he learns here, how can he possibly mess up so badly with Gantoris and Kyp in the Jedi Academy trilogy? How does he completely forget the lessons learned here when dealing with the Black Fleet Crisis or Callista or any of the other myriad of adventures he has? How come no one mentions the holodramas/thrillers later on? Wouldn't there be even more of them later?
The characters do quite a bit of beebopping in the story, hopping from the surface of Mindor to ships to caves to anywhere in between. It got confusing to figure out where the characters were at times.
While I liked most of the characters, I wasn't all that fond of Aeona. I mean, she wasn't horrible, but I didn't like how quickly Leia got jealous (actually, I didn't like the "playful, sexually tense" banter between her and Han--how many girlfriends does this smuggler need?). Also, Leia needed to have her own point of view. At least, I think she did.

Dialogue/Sexual Situations/Violence:
Made-up Star Wars expletives.
There is sexual tension between Aeona and Han. Luke protests having Aeona be his love interest in a holothriller.
Lots. Luke gets bit in the neck, vampire style. Lots and lots of people die. A whole system is basically destroyed.

Overall:
"Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor" is a novel of contradictions: it has serious moments, where characters contemplate death and destruction, the purpose of life, and moments where Han is grumbling about the food on the Falcon. I enjoyed the novel, but it also was terribly hard to get through, and I don't think this was Stover's best work. Still, if you are looking for something new and relatively light-hearted in the Galaxy Far, Far Away, you could do far worse than this.

[Jonathan Koan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sadly, I've had a very negative experience with Matthew Stover's Star Wars books. I did not like Shatterpoint at all, and I also did not care for Traitor (which is very much a minority opinion among Star Wars fans, as I know many for whom it's their favorite Star Wars book). I thought the Revenge of the Sith novelization was ok, but nowhere near the amazing book the fans of it make it out to be. So I hoped that maybe this book might redeem Stover for me as an author.

Sadly, it didn't.

This book tries to tell a classic EU story, very much trying to fit in with the Bantam Era books. That's not always the direction a story should go, especially the Bantam era standalones. The book just felt off and wierd, never really clicking for me.

The villain of this book was WAY too complicated for the story. He had so much backstory, so many connections to other stories, so many different "forms" he had taken, and so many names that he went by, that it just made the story convoluted and confusing. It really did feel like a Comic Book Villain where I'm reading the story for the first time, but I've missed everything about that villain so it makes no sense to me.

Luke's actions and dialogue in the book were really strange, and didn't seem like his typical EU self here. For that matter, neither did C-3PO, who felt very much an exagerated version of his movie character. The only characters that felt in character were Han and Leia, whom I think Stover understood their voices perfectly. Unfortunately, Han and Leia's story just wasn't interesting in the book, and very much felt tacked on as a way to both include them and to find a way to get Leia to Mindor as well.

I was also really frustrated with the ending of the book, which I do not believe that it pays off the promises established in the prologue at all. The last chapter addresses some issues, but the Epilogue (debriefing) just needed a big re-write to me. I was on board for the premise of Stover's story, just not the execution.

Overall, this story sadly didn't land for me at all. Its not among the worst EU books or anything like that, but...I didn't care for it either. 4.5 out of 10.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

At long last, a "Star Wars" novel that remembers the "Star Wars" universe is supposed to be fun.

Set after the events of "Return of the Jedi" and a couple of other books in the continuing series, "Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor" tells the story of Luke's first and only mission as a general of the New Republic. He's sent out to investigate the planet of Mindor where a group of stormtroopers led by Lord Shadowspan is playing havoc with the local government and planet and disrupting Republic space traffic. Turns out this is just a ploy to get Luke out to investigate so he can assume his throne as the replacement to both the Empreror and Darth Vader.

It sounds dark, ominious and serious, but Matt Stover keeps the novel light, fun and moving along at a crisp pace, something I can't say of a lot of other "Star Wars" novels of late. If the title sounds pulpy sf, then you're thinking along the right lines for this one. At one point, it's revealed that our heroes from the movies are the subjects of badly written, highly inaccurate, pulpy and best-selling accounts of their exploits in overthrowing the Empire. So, Luke has to contend not only with these rogue stormtroopers but also his own reputation from these books. It's here the book really is at its best, seeing Luke struggle with this conflict. It's done in a serious way, but not so deadly serious you can't have some fun with it. Stover seems to realize that these are not paragons of all that is good in the universe and has fun poking at the characters a bit. One funny chapter involves Han, Leia, Lando and several others all being at a peace conference and having to leave to go and resuce Luke. Seeing how the dominoes fall with each one in stunned disbelief that other has left in front of them is nicely done and works well because it feels realistic based on the characters.

After a glut of "Star Wars" books that took themselves too seriously and were so mired in continuity that they could be off-putting to the casual reader, it's nice to see a book that is fun, accessible and recalls why all want to revist a "galaxy far, far away."

[Evan · Rating 1 out of 5]

A friend and I were discussing the pleasures and sorrows of reading Star Wars books for recreation. He warned me "the writing is frequently just awful," and boy, he was right. This book in particular stands out for some really grating tendencies, like the use of increasingly absurd and obscure smilies and metaphors to explain the action scenes. If you compare X action to Y totally obscure alien race / Star Wars game / planetary phenomenon, you're basically making every description harder to understand for the reader, instead of easier. Obviously this must be harder than it looks, and the better-written Star Wars books tend to draw from a more acceptably mainstream well of, you know, English, to paint a picture for the reader. I'll probably read all of Stover's books eventually, but more as a homage to the SW canon and in effort to be thorough than anything else.

Here's a partial list of gratuitous imagery:
"...the defenders' formation split open like an overripe snekfruit."
"...enough hard radiation to cook him like a bantha steak on an obsidian fry-rock at double noon on Tatooine."
"he'd attacked like a blood-mad rancor."
"made them sound like a pride of sand panthers trying to cough up hairballs bigger than his head."
"bounced the little droid around his lava cave like a Touranian jumping-stone in a bumble-dice cup..."
"...Like a Sith Lord disguised as a kid's party clown."
"collapsed like a holomonster on an overloaded dejarik board..."
"a fipping whirl like a cred chip spinning on a sabacc table..."
"the ship rang with a near-continuous whang-ng-ng-ng like a Ruurian beating a dinner gong with all fourteen hands."
"a sound very like a very large hollow tok nut landing on a very large hard rock..."
"a rushing roar like a Chadian monsoon."
"flies like a bantha in a tar pit--you fly more like a constipated nerf with a broken leg-"
"...she looked like a Tatooine teenager on the way to her own star-seventeen dance at the Anchorhead community center."

And that's just a cursory glance.

[aja · Rating 5 out of 5]

WORDS LITERALLY CANNOT DESCRIBE HOW MUCH I LOVE THIS BOOK???? my body is too small for it, my heart hurts, i'm overflowing with love and with joy and with affection for this dear, dear boy, the most precious of all my sons. i'm honestly just, oh my god. my heart!!! oh my god.

i actually & legitimately took a pen to this book as i was reading it so i could underline or bracket passages that really hit me in the chest, and there were, uh, a lot of them!!! luke is just so good in this book, oh my god, stover's grasp of him as a character is SO GOOD. there was not a single moment in this where i was like "no, no he would not do this thing," everything was perfect.

and just???? luke is so kind?????? and so caring???????????? I LOVE MY BABY BOY, i have quite honestly spent the four days i've been picking my way thru this book thinking about luke skywalker & how much i love him 24/7, no pauses or breaks.

i think what really killed me was luke, a glowing star in the vastness of space, bringing with him light enough not only to feed for the rest of their long lives an entire race of crystalline lifeforms but to stretch himself halfway across the solar system to light the darkness in which their villain wrapped himself. luke, the white fountain to cronal's black hole. i LOVE THIS BOY!!!!!!!!!!! he IS the light in the darkness. "because that's what jedi do, isn't it? luke thought. that's what we're for. we're the ones who bring the light."

anyway on top of all of this were some really fucking GREAT LEIA SCENES, OH MY GOD, i love her so much. and then, honest to god, every scene featuring lando was PURE FUCKING GOLD. oh lando you're so handsome, the narrative says, you're such a good leader, so clever, so brilliant, the republic forces would never have survived without your ingenuity!!! like, we get it, stover!!! you're gay for lando calrissian. BITCH, ME TOO.

also, that one little passage wherein lando muses very earnestly over how kind and caring and humble luke is????? i Long for Death.

oh oh oh!! and then the book literally ending on r2d2 thinking about how dear c3p0 is to him, please. i love these gay robots.

[Chad · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well this one really takes me back to the Bantam days of the Star Ward EU. Back then, a seeming horde of novels were tossed off, one after the other, where all the primary Star Wars characters were thrown into some calamatous peril, then worked together to take down the villain of the month. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with that formula, but it began to ware pretty thin in the waning days of the Bantam SW-EU contract. I would read the novels as they came out, but I always felt myself pining for the Zahn's original Thrawn trilogy, Anderson's Jedi trilogy, or the quite amazing X-Wing books. Novels like "The New Rebellion" and "The Crystal Star" kind of stretched my completist tendencies.

When Del Rey took over (around '99?) the EU, they decided to go in a completely and shockingly extreme new direction. "Vector Prime" set up the years-long story line which saw the Yuuzhan Vong invade the galaxy, and many characters, new and old, die. Lots of people threw hissy-fits when Chewbacca was killed off, but I found it quite refreshing that the safety was off, and that anything could happen. Dramatic tension had been reintroduced to the EU!

Some people feel that Del Rey went too far with the doom and gloom, and though I have actually enjoyed the entire Yuuzhan Vong saga, as well as the "Legacy of the Force" arc, I can see why people might start to get tired of such dark storylines. Hence, the arrival of "Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor".

I liked it far more than I thought I would. On the surface, it looks a lot like the old Bantam books that I grew to hate. All the main characters are here, they all get involved in some way or another to defeat a villain of the month. But Matt Stover handles the characters so deftly, that I couldn't help but enjoy myself. I think one reason is that Stover takes Luke into some dark places that resonate really well with the Luke we'll come to see in the more recent stories. I kind of laugh when I see other reviewers calling this mindless fun, because its actually quite grim in places.

A few hightlights for me included:

* A few short sections giving a detailed account of the way R2-D2 looks at the world, which was clever and fitting...
* the involvement of a few Clone Wars characters Stover wrote in "Shatterpoint"...
* a glimpse at pre-marraige Han and Leia, before they were a serious couple...
* Lando in full-on military tactician mode (he's written so light and breezy lately, that you forget he was a quite successful general during the Rebellion)...
* very brief glimpses at some of the Rogues, who, aside from Wedge, have pretty much disappeared from the EU...

And the ne lowlight:

* the odd framing sequence rang a little hollow. I wasn't sure about the prologue, but I gave it a chance to see how it played out. But then the epilogue went off the rails. I think this would have been a stronger book if Stover had just left them off completely.

So, if you prefer your Star Wars novels quick and easy, this is definitely one of the better one-off stories.

[TheBookHunter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Light against Darkness

Wow, what an action-packed read. Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor, is written by Matthew Stover, the author who's also behind the Revenge of the Sith novelization which I think was his best book, but not to say this book isn't as good, the story is a thrill-ride.

Most would classify Luke Skywalker as a hero, the hero of the main Star Wars saga, except for Skywalker himself in this book. Sure he's pulled great feats and helped win against the Empire when all hope was lost, but Luke simply doesn't see it this way. He regrets some of his actions like destroying the Death Star, killing so many, some who were possibly innocent Imperials, and having to come to terms with the reality he's in: A galaxy at war. And people get caught in the crossfire.

Luke is commissioned for the rank of General in a New Republic task force to go after a mysterious Imperial Warlord by the name of Shadowspawn who's holed up in the Taspan system on the planet of Mindor, and he's got an arsenal of gravity weapons under his control that threatens the whole system. Luke is put in charge to lead the assault, but things go very bad, very quick.

I will not delve too much into the plot to preserve all the twists, but Skywalker, and the remains of his task force are forced planet-side to wage their assault, but soon realizing they're outnumbered and outgunned, Princess Leia, Han Solo, Chewie, and Lando must go after him. For if Luke Skywalker dies, all hope is lost. And the ruthless Warlord Shadowspawn may prove to be a far more sinister adversary than anticipated, as all of our heroes are caught in his trap.


This was very action-packed as stated above, and probably one of the more darker Star Wars novels out there, but I enjoyed almost every page. There's an enthralling story, a strong antagonist, a group of great protagonists, well written dialogue and humor, and the battle between good and evil that makes Star Wars what it is.

Pick this up!

[Jesse Booth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok, I have this weird compulsion to read Star Wars books. They are a strange guilty pleasure of mine. That being said, this book fell short in many ways. In fact, I am still hinging on giving it 2 stars rather than 3, but there are some redeeming qualities that will allow me to give Stover the benefit of the doubt.

First off, Stover nailed Luke. I enjoyed his character, and felt that he really encompassed Luke's personality well. Unfortunately, he was the only character I really enjoyed reading about. I did not care for Han or Leia, and the Nick/Aeona characters were quite empty. And EVERY description of Lando was of him smiling. Sometimes I wanted to smack him.

My chiefest complaint with the story is so much of it did not feel like Star Wars. This Shadowspawn guy, Cronin, telepathically controls everything he's put his meltmassif in. Why didn't he use this power against Emperor Palpatine while he was one of his cronies? He could have controlled everything! In any case, while this is a decent sci-fi concept, it felt completely out of place in the Star Wars universe.

This book is very slow moving through the first half, but gets quite exciting in the final half. There's a lot going on with many different characters, so sometimes transitions are jarring. I hear Stover's other work in the SW universe is pretty good, so I won't give up on him.

[☆ Annie ☆ · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The odds against this outcome were literally incalculable.
The universe, R2 decided, was an astonishing place.

I've come to realize that, when you love something so much, TOO much, words are hard to come by, and I guess it's mostly because some things are better left unsaid yet experienced to the fullest, rather than being paraded and shared. So this is me, keeping all those beautiful emotions to myself, leaving everything just a little bit unsaid.

But just to set the record straight (cause records are usually better straight than the alternative and just adtmit it!) this is when I tell you, in case you didn't know, that there is not one world that, had I the choice, I would leave everything of this reality behind for, more than the SW universe. And that there are very few entities I love as much as I do Han and Leia. And that's all you need to know, till the next time ;-) *blows you a kiss*

[Kevin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Fan of Stover's Clone Wars era books, but, uh, this did nothing for me. The nod-and-wink allusions to Alan Dean Foster's ... EDIT BRIAN DALEY's early Han Solo books are overplayed, and the characterizations limp. There is no real point to this book. Very disappointing.

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Matthew Stover is easily the most eloquent and insightful author to grace the Star Wars universe. Most authors simply take the basic moral dichotomy embodied in the Force as a given, a necessary framework for heroes to kill and destroy in service of a greater good, a way to get all of the fun action and cat and mouse play of war without the universal culpability of actual war. Stover is too intelligent to let something that fundamental go unquestioned. In Traitor, Vergere and Jacen spend most of the book in a wonderful dialectic on the interpretation of violence in Jedi teachings on the light and dark sides of the Force. Revenge of the Sith is all about the manufactured moral compromises of the Clone Wars and the unmooring ambiguity those compromises beget.

Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor takes an even more assertively postmodern approach to the problem. As a near archetypal action hero, Luke is rarely portrayed dwelling on the millions of people he has killed (just as Leia rarely gets a moment to engage with the grief and survivor's guilt she feels about Alderaan). Like Jacen in Traitor, Luke experiences a rapid and focused character development during and after the Battle of Mindor that doesn't square with what might charitably be called an arc through chronologically following works. But this doesn't really matter – there isn't a coherent story in the post-RotJ EU that merits a frame that is overarching rather than episodic.

Stover plays with some modest meta-stuff here. The epilogue suggests that the story also exists as a holo-thriller in-universe. Han and Luke are the subjects of famous holo-films mentioned constantly by characters in the novel (despite almost no reference in the rest of the EU – indeed, one often gets the impression that the GFFA totally lacks a functioning news and entertainment media). Cronal's plot is specifically crafted to target Luke, to exploit his identity and the stories that create and maintain it. Similarly, Stover's plot is crafted to force Luke to engage with that identity, using in-universe fiction to allow the character to confront the stories WE tell about him.

In A New Hope, Luke is a naïve teen hungry for action and excitement. He hates the Empire, but not enough that he wouldn't enter its military just for a chance to get off his rock. His early exposure to its policies – murdering the jawas, his aunt and uncle, and the entire population of Alderaan – would surely make it easy for him to buy into the "Jedi and Rebellion good, Empire bad" story that Rebel leaders like Leia are peddling. But Luke is a soldier, and war beats the idealism out of people. He is also a Jedi, and though his connection with the Force is still new to him at the time, surely he must have felt the impact of 2.4 million deaths (the crew and passenger complement of the Death Star), and that must have changed him. The Battle of Mindor gives Luke responsibility for death on a comparable scale. This time, he's not so sure that sacrifice is worthwhile.

Into this moment of doubt, Stover introduces Cronal. He espouses a deeply depressive sort of nihilism, the obnoxiously negative portrayal that only exists in the genre fic villains – that is, the kind that doesn't stand up to close scrutiny. There are a lot of great passages about darkness, deep space, the death of stars, entropy, and the heat death of the universe. While it's silly that Cronal understands the futile and arbitrary nature of human values and yet still seems to value entropy and destruction for their own sake, perhaps this was necessary to get him out of bed and into the plot. Regardless, Cronal infects Luke with the terrible truth about his narratives (it's quite a shame that Luke has to get this revelation through a plot device and not through, you know, actually thinking, or at least talking to a mentor of some kind) and forces him to rebuild his identity from the ground up, justifying his allegiance to not just the New Republic but to his ideals and even life itself. This stuff is all pretty basic, but it's a huge revelation in Star Wars and it's beautiful and eloquent and adds a lot of depth to Luke's character, which is the point.

The Melters are a neat idea in theory, but Stover leaned on them way too hard as an all-purpose plot device. There's an awfully heavy reliance on plot devices throughout, in fact, the sort of plotting that I wouldn't accept in a lesser author and that seems even more disappointing from Stover. But at least he had some justification for it in character development.

I'm not clear on how intentional this was, but the whole scenario is extremely over-the-top. Thousands of TIE defenders and interceptors, swarms that darken the sky; comparable numbers of asteroid-based gravity well projectors blocking every egress from the system; gravity slice bombs that ignore shields and take out major capital ships in one hit; thrusters that left an entire volcano into space; and, to top it all off, solar flares that threaten to sterilize the entire system. It's the sort of ante-upping tension-ratcheting that just gets old after a bit. It is more tiresome than fun, and the last thing we need is for people to think postmodernism isn't fun. Watching Lando be a general is fun, and there is some nice banter from Rogue Squadron, but these things fade from sight quickly as death looms, which I don't think is necessarily appropriate.

I thought for a minute that Fenn Shysa and the Mandalorians were a superfluous cameo, but upon reflection, I realized that they form part of the constellation that provides a broader perspective on the central theme. Luke fights to protect life, to end killing, and the contradiction of that narrative is the core of the story. Klick, the clone commander, fights to protect an institution – it is also a self-consciously altruistic, group-oriented narrative (Klick's fanboy engagement with the Luke Skywalker holo-thrillers is one of the most fun, human parts of the book). Cronal fights to effect a particular sort of destruction, advancing a narrative of chaos and disorder that follows an internal aesthetic logic but isn't compatible with society and culture. The Mandalorians offer a counterpart to Cronal's beliefs, since they also value battle and warfare aesthetically. But their narratives are based in a culture of individual glorification through stories. In a way, they understand better than anyone else in the book the lessons of postmodernism. Life is about the living of it, grabbing it by the horns, and on your own terms, not about serving some timeless cosmic principle, be it chaos and the Dark or life and the Force or order and the Empire.

Unfortunately, none of these characters ever meet each other, really, much less talk about any of these things. Making the connections is left up to the reader, and I feel a bit like I'm grasping at straws, since they are not given much attention by Stover.

While they can feel a bit gimmicky, and they tread in dangerous territory positing certainly anachronistic technological tropes, the Artoo POV sections were a nice touch. They make him something more than just a loyal companion, a robotic dog who doubles as a plot device, which is especially important given that he acts in both capacities simultaneously toward the end of the book. And while there isn't a lot of it, the brief references to C-3PO's genuine hobby interest in linguistics and his friendship with Artoo are nice. It's astonishing that the editors let the book go to print with every instance of 3PO misspelled with a 0, though.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun trip back to the Star Wars Extended Universe (aka Legends) with the typical bonkers EU plot, wild villains trying to use Luke and/or Leia for their Force powers, and plenty of action. Also, space battles! The framing device of the book — Luke hiring someone to investigate him for murder because of the guilt he feels for his part in the events of the book — is not really necessary, but the idea of the GFFA making all kinds of holofilms featuring the Original Trilogy leads as heroes (honestly, mostly Luke and Han; apparently we don’t make films about Leia) is pretty entertaining. The plot at times doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense (there are brain crystals, and sentient rock creatures that absorb people into them, and satellites controlling asteroids, and a guy building a cult that thinks Luke is the rightful Emperor) but Stover manages to make the character dynamics, especially between Han and Leia, pretty engaging. Plus all our friends are there, being awesome: Luke, then Han and Chewie who go to rescue Luke, then Leia who enlists Wedge and Tycho and Rogue Squadron to go save Luke’s and Han’s asses, then Lando who figures out what’s going on and manages to enlist the help of a crew of Mandalorian mercenaries. Again, pretty bonkers, but pretty fun in general and an entertaining read.

[Chris Hawks · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Star Wars Expanded Universe lucked out when they found Matt Stover. So far, he's written the deepest SW novel (Traitor), the darkest (Shatterpoint), and now the funnest* with Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor. Lots of action, tons of laughs, a billion EU references, and spot-on characterizations make this one of, if not the, best Star Wars novels ever.

*Not a real word, I know. Deal with it.

[Meggie · Rating 4 out of 5]

For 2024, I decided to pick up where I left off after 2022 and reread books published between 2004 and 2011—a hodgepodge of Clone Wars, inter-trilogy, and Original Trilogy stories, plus a smattering of Old Republic Sith. This shakes out to twenty-one novels and four short stories, mainly consisting of the Republic Commando series, the Darth Bane trilogy, the Coruscant Nights trilogy, five Clone Wars books written by the Karens, and four standalone novels.

This week’s focus: a standalone novel by Matthew Stover set a year after Return of the Jedi, Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor.

SOME HISTORY:

For Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor, Matthew Stover said that he wanted to return Star Wars to its pre-Zahn roots, and the book is dedicated to both Alan Dean Foster (who wrote the novelization of A New Hope as well as the very strange Splinter of the Mind's Eye) and Brian Daly (who wrote the Han Solo Adventures). The novel also makes references to characters and events from the newsstrip comics and the Marvel Comics that ran in the 1980s. Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor was originally intended to come out in February of 2008, but was pushed back to October and then finally December 30, 2008.

MY RECOLLECTION OF THE BOOK:

I bought and read Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor when it came out, because I like Matthew Stover’s books even if I admit that some of them (like Shatterpoint) are a little too dark for my taste, and also because I welcomed the return of the more swashbuckling era of Star Wars. I remember that I enjoyed it—I obviously kept my hardcover copy—but I didn't read it again until this year.

A BRIEF SUMMARY:

Six months after the Battle of Endor, Luke Skywalker reluctantly accepted command of the Rapid Response Task Force and was promoted to General. His group is now trying to root out the location of a newly risen warlord named Shadowspawn, and thanks to a trap set by Rogue Squadron they track Shadowspawn’s forces to the Taspan system and the world of Mindor. But the situation is not as it seems; the power behind Shadowspawn has set a trap, and his target is the young Jedi Skywalker himself…

THE PLOT:

Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor is bracketed by a frame story at the beginning and the very end: Luke approaches Inspector Geptun (a character from Stover's Shatterpoint) and tells him that he has committed a war crime, killing 50,000 innocent people, and he wants Geptun to investigate him. Then the story actually starts—we get the title, we get an opening crawl, and we jump right into the Battle of Mindor. We get a little bit of setup as we see how Luke tracked Shadowspawn’s forces and Leia doing a little bit of negotiations with some hostile Mandalorian mercenaries. She senses that something has gone wrong with Luke’s forces, so we get this comical chain reaction of Han and Chewie, then Leia and Rogue Squadron, then Lando and Fenn Shysa and the Mandalorians all chasing after Luke’s RRTF.

I had forgotten how Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor is basically just the Battle of Mindor. My hardcover copy is a relatively svelte 311 pages, and the bulk of it is the battle, culminating in the loss of all the Imperial forces, a lot of Luke’s people, and the Taspan system itself. In fact, we see very little of the fallout of the battle: the narrative ends with Nick Rostu rescuing Luke, and then we get Geptun’s report as the conclusion, with Geptun admitting that he’s not going to charge Luke with anything, and in fact has turned the story into a holodrama adaptation.

CHARACTERS:

Rogue Squadron’s here! And also Tycho Celchu, who flies an A-Wing but is friendly with the other Rogues. Wes Janson and Hobbie Klivian have a lot of bantering dialogue, and there’s a running gag in the first chapter where Hobbie is accident-prone and repeatedly injures himself in his own starfighter. I’m not sure where the idea that Hobbie has multiple prosthetics originated from, though—in the X-Wing books, he made many comments about being sponsored by bacta, which would imply that he’s not lacking limbs, but what do I know. The Rogues don’t have a lot to do here, but I enjoyed seeing them, and I loved that Wedge and the others dropped everything to help Leia.

Lando is still a general, but now he’s working more with Intelligence. He’s asked to deal with these uncooperative Mandalorian mercenaries, so he brings in Fenn Shysa the Mandalore. While Stover said that he was trying to pay tribute to Brian Daley’s Han Solo Adventures, this moment felt very reminiscent of the Marvel comics for me. I love how Lando takes a situation that has been brewing for several days and basically diffuses it in one minute. The mercenaries won’t budge, so he points out that the Imperials can’t pay them when they’ve retreated—but Lando is willing to pay them, and has a job all ready for them. Even in his role as a general, Lando remains the consummate businessman.

I also liked Han here. Leia tells him that she has a bad feeling about Luke, so Han finds out that they’ve lost all contact with Luke’s forces—and because he doesn’t want to worry Leia, he takes off for the Taspan system without a word. Han! You should have left a note! Of course, Leia takes off after him, and it spirals from there. The Millennium Falcon ends up up and down and in and out of Mindor; Nick Rostu’s girlfriend steals it, then Han gets it back, and the Falcon gets rather mangled in the process. Han has a number of good quips, and spends a lot of time flabbergasted by the Skywalker twins’ Force escapades.

Leia is all Force instincts and no training at this point. She senses that something’s wrong with Luke, and she’s able to guide Han on the surface of Mindor moving through the cave systems, but she can’t explain anything she’s doing. She obviously loves Han, but she also spends a lot of time arguing with him. Once Cronal (the big bad) realizes that there’s an untrained Skywalker running amok on Mindor, he decides to target her instead—but what saves Leia is her inherent goodness and her love for Han. She’s like a bright shining crystal, and Cronal can’t even break in.

In the first Coruscant Nights book, Jedi Twilight, Nick Rostu was blackmailed by Vader into tracking down the Jedi Jax Pavan, and Nick ended up very badly wounded during a confrontation with Prince Xizor. We never found out what happened to Nick in the second book, so I was relieved that he popped up in Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor. He and his girlfriend Aeona Cantor had been hunting Cronal until Nick was captured and turned into one of Cronal’s pawns (Shadowspawn actually being a pun for “Shadow’s pawn”). Luke defeats him in a fight, and then the two work together to stop Cronal’s evil plan. I liked Nick’s attitude, and I liked the reminder that most people did not know Anakin fell and became Darth Vader—Nick talks about Anakin to Luke, calls him the greatest Jedi of the Clone Wars, highly skilled and someone Nick really respected. I liked Nick in Shatterpoint and felt bad for him in Jedi Twilight, so I liked seeing him again in a happy ending, reunited with Aeona and freed from Cronal’s control.

While looking for Nick, Aeona teamed up with the local fighters on Mindor, and she ends up in the right place at the right time to steal the Millennium Falcon. Han is upset about this, but you can sort of see where Aeona is coming from: none of the resistance fighters have any way of getting off Mindor before it’s destroyed, but she is still very much in the wrong here. Aeona is a redhead, perhaps only so that Luke can make a quippy comment about Geptun’s holodrama pairing him off with Aeona when he doesn’t even like redheads. Luke…you have a type….

We meet another pawn of Cronal who is another character from Shatterpoint, Kar Vastor. Vastor faced off against Mace Windu and was defeated, and he has some interesting powers—while he lost the ability to speak, he can Force project his thoughts at people, and in Shatterpoint he’s almost the personification of the jungle’s darkness. Vastor was Cronal’s first test subject for taking over someone else, but due to his limitations he’s mostly a big brute remote puppeteered by Cronal. Luke saves him, and Nick and Aeona take Vastor into their group.

The big bad is not Shadowspawn (who doesn’t really exist), but a former Prophet of the Dark Side named Cronal, who Stover links with a character called Blackhole from the newsstrip comics. The back cover blurb talks about “the fury of the Sith,” but Cronal’s not really a Sith either. He was allied with Palpatine, but he was originally one of the Sorcerers of Rhand from the Unknown Regions, then he linked up with the Prophets of the Dark Side from the Jedi Prince series, and then he joined Imperial Intelligence as Blackhole. Cronal’s special ability is “dark sight,” where he can see how the future must unfold for the Dark to win. Cronal’s physical form is that of a shriveled, decrepit old man, so he wants to take over Luke Skywalker’s body and continue his dark vendetta. Luke’s will is not easy to subsume, though, so Cronal switches his focus to Leia only to meet failure there as well. Cronal eventually faces off against Luke in this esoteric spiritual realm and is dissolved into nothing, although later-chronological sources like The Dark Empire Sourcebook suggest that he returns.

Cronal’s philosophy and the pawns feel like the most Stover-esque part of the book to me. There are sentient rocks—Cronal puts the sentient rocks into people to control them as his pawns—Cronal tries to take over Luke and Leia but he can’t because they’re infused with light—Cronal is controlling the sentient rocks, but Luke talks to them in the esoteric spiritual realm—Luke purges everyone of the sentient rock crystals. It’s all very kooky mystical stuff, which gives me a Splinter of the Mind’s Eye/1980s Marvel comics vibe. I think that the mystical aspects of Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor may be the most off-putting element of the book for some people, but I found it really interesting—and I think it ties in well with the mythological parts of Stover’s Revenge of the Sith novelization:

The dark is generous and it is patient and it always wins – but in the heart of its strength lies its weakness: one lone candle is enough to hold it back. Love is more than a candle. Love can ignite the stars.

That's how Luke wins in the end, because he is that one lone candle holding back the dark. Luke is going through a quarter-life crisis in this book. He didn’t want to be a general until Han talked him into it, and then he walks into a trap where Cronal doesn’t care if he kills all his forces to achieve one thing—but Luke cares very much about any loss, both Rebel and Imperial. When he faces off against the pawns, he tries to remove their moon headpieces—and he saves Nick, but accidentally kills all the others. The forces led by elderly clone troopers surrender to him because he is THE Luke Skywalker from the holodramas, but when they’re trying to help evacuate the planet Cronal turns them all into zombies. Luke purges everyone of the meltmassif crystals in the climax, but all those surrendered Imperials die. Luke has the weight of all these deaths on his shoulders, and more than anything Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor show us why Luke resigned his commission to focus on being a Jedi. To be a leader, you have to be willing to accept failure and loss, and this is way too much loss for Luke.

When Cronal first tries to take him over, Luke feels depressed and unable to see the light beyond all the dark, and he struggles with this feeling throughout the book. He has to keep going, stop Cronal, save as many people as possible, but he can’t shake that feeling of nihilistic emptiness. Luke’s realization that the meltmassif rocks are this vibrant hive mind society finally helps him overcome this depressive funk. So much of what Luke does in this book is facing a situation where most people would just shoot or slash their way out, and he tries to save everyone instead. Kar Vastor is being puppeteered by someone else, trying to rend Luke limb from limb, but Luke doesn’t kill him and breaks him free from Cronal’s control. What I like most about Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor is that even when it gets very dark and grim, there’s a sense of hope. The villain may look terrible and unbeatable, but there’s light out there, and one candle can make a difference.

ISSUES:

As much as I liked Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor, I did notice some issues during this reread. The first was that I don’t think the framing device was necessary. It definitely draws you in, to hear Luke Skywalker telling the inspector that he needs to be investigated for war crimes because he killed 50,000 people—but despite the opening crawl, the story plays out in a very straightforward manner, rather like the retro Star Wars stories that Stover is referencing. Then when we get to the final debrief, Luke points out all the things that didn't happen and that he wants Geptun to change for the holodrama script. Maybe I would have accepted that if we had seen Geptun’s fiction-filled tinkerings within the story itself, but we don’t see the changes that Luke is complaining about. I think that the framework of “this is Geptun’s version of the Battle of Mindor” doesn’t work when we’re presented with a relatively unambiguous retelling of the battle, and I wish that Stover had learned more into the fictional holodrama nature of this retelling.

And that framing device also affects how the narrative unfolds, because after Luke’s confession we’re dropped right into the middle of the story with very little setup. We get the mission where Rogue Squadron is trying to trap Shadowspawn’s forces, then we jump right into the Battle of Mindor. We never see how everyone gets out, or the fallout from the battle; we know the Taspan system is destroyed when the sun explodes and destroys Mindor, but we never see any of that. We don’t really see Luke being rescued either, because we’re in Artoo’s POV waiting for them to be rescued. There’s not much denouement or resolution before we’re dropped back into the frame story. Because the whole book is one battle, I expected we’d get setup for the battle, the battle, and then the fallout afterwards, but instead it felt like the whole book was moving towards the climax only to end abruptly in a few pages.

My third issue with Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor was how 50,000 people died over the course of the battle, but I never felt that sense of scale truly came across in the story. Cronal has an incredible number of Star Defenders that he throws away, Luke is losing forces left and right, but I didn’t get a sense of loss from it. Most of it felt like video game action, where you’re overwhelmed by everything around you and can’t compute what’s going on. I think that also ties into my not liking Cronal as a villain, because he feels like an evil D&D NPC. No one physically faces off against him, as he’s always hiding away and lashing out in the metaphysical realm. Kar Vastor was a more successful antagonist to me than Cronal, because it’s this very physical fight; Cronal’s all mumbly jumbly wizard brain stuff, and while I like how that leads to Luke’s revelations I still don’t like Cronal as a whole.

IN CONCLUSION:

Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor is a fairly short, fast-paced read that is basically just the Battle of Mindor. I liked getting to see Nick Rostu again, I thought that Han and Lando had some fun scenes, and I liked how Luke worked through his crisis of conscience. For the most part, I think Stover did a good job evoking the feeling of the 80s Marvel comics and Splinter of the Mind's Eye and weird stuff like that; it does dip very much into that mystic/metaphysical realm, though, and your mileage may vary there. Honestly, the weakest point of the novel was Cronal as the villain because he's a real weird dude. But all in all, I enjoyed revisiting this book after all these years, and finding it a mostly fun read—albeit, a fun read that makes you rather depressed in the middle.


Next up: The Clone Wars: Wild Space by Karen Miller, set within the world of the 3D animated show.

YouTube review: https://youtu.be/29l0kaOM5Xg


“Hey” (February 25, 2007): https://web.archive.org/web/202203021...

[MasterSal · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had never read this book before so it was fun to be in this world with a new adventure.

Set in-universe at 5ABY, this book was written after the Prequels were released - so there is history here about the Skywalker family which is not disclosed in Star War EU books that were written earlier.

Coming to this after The Truce at Bakura was a bit surreal as some of the characters felt a little different as character continuity obviously had to be adjusted. For example, in Truce at Bakura, Leia was adamant about not acknowledging her parentage but in this book she called Senator Organa “her adoptive father” quite casually. I probably wouldn't have caught it if I had read the book in publication order but this book is obviously working in a different canon universe.

As a result, this book is a little meta about the myth-making around the Star Wars story. It cleverly uses that motif in exploring the character of Luke and how legends have grown around him which have little to do with truth. In fact, the while narrative thread about the place of stories as inspiration for good or evil was great. The book balanced the cheesiness of the villain’s plot with some nice one-lines while making a wider plot as well. It caught that flippant tone of Star Wars quite well.

This isn’t an straight adventure per se - unlike the Thrawn Trilogy as an example - so that may be why I enjoyed it so much. After 30+ years with the franchise I am going to eye roll silly OTT villains too.

Some of the technical jargon on the battles was hard to follow but I liked the character work here. And, as I mentioned above, the tone was quite quippy and cheesy like the original movies. This is not a SFF book which is trying to change the genre as it doesn’t take itself too seriously which I really enjoyed.

All the force stuff is really cool so I bumped this up to 4.5 stars. I would have liked to see more in the epilogue but I get the narrative device the author was going for. Luke was great though unfortunately the middle slumped a bit, because of IRL issues.

[Lance Shadow · Rating 3 out of 5]

Special thanks to my goodreads pal Crystal Starr Light for sending me a copy of this book!

Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor was written in 2008, in an era when the post return of the jedi expanded universe was nothing short of massive. Del Rey had concluded the 9-book Legacy of the Force novel series earlier that year, and of course we already had the New Jedi order that lasted for 19 books; and before that, countless novels published throughout the 1990s. So much has happened in the galaxy since the original trilogy of star wars films, and the classic characters have developed to the point where they are no longer reflective of their portrayals in the movies. Whether or not you think the progression of the characters has been compelling throughout the course of fifteen-plus years of off-screen storytelling, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Leia Organa have changed significantly- to the point where it could be difficult for newcomers who haven't been following along since 1991's Heir to the Empire. Things would only get crazier as another 9-book series, Fate of the Jedi, would begin publishing the following year in 2009.
Enter Matthew Stover, recruited to write this standalone novel right in between Legacy of the Force and Fate of the Jedi. Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor was written as a throwback to the earlier days of the EU, when the portrayals of the characters were closer to the movies rather than being based off of hundreds of books and comics that not everyone has read. Taking place only one year after the events of Return of the Jedi, you could watch the original trilogy and then read this book without having read anything else from the EU much like Timothy Zahn's original Thrawn series.
I'm a HUGE fan of Matthew Stover as a star wars writer. his take on Revenge of the Sith is one of my favorites in star wars, canon or legends. Coming off of that phenomenal work of art, I was highly anticipating giving Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor a read. So- did it live up to my immeasurable amount of hype? or did I set my expectations too high?

THE STORY: The Rebel Alliance may have defeated the Empire at Endor, but remnants of the Empire still run wild. A particularly evil warlord named Shadowspawn has built a stronghold on Mindor in the Taspan System, kidnapping people throughout the galaxy. Luke Skywalker leads a New Republic task force to swiftly take out Shadowspawn before he can relocate again.

THE BAD: There are some significant problems with this novel, and it did not turn out to be Stover's best work.
Pretty much the entire book is a dragged out battle sequence, making the pacing feel pretty sluggish. Most of the book is constant action- and it ends up getting tiring at times. I really liked how this book opens and how it ends, but the middle frequently turns out to be a slog.
Aside from Luke himself, Stover could have done so much more with the classic characters we all know and love. Han and Leia feel consistent with their characterizations in the original trilogy but Stover doesn't seem to add anything to them that we haven't seen already. They just fly the Millenium falcon, express their love, and get in a bunch of action scenes. They just aren't that interesting here. And Lando feels completely shoehorned into the story, just here because he's Lando Calrissian, and we need to have all the recognizable characters here because that's what the 90's EU novels did.

THE GOOD: For all its flaws, I did often see the brilliance of Stover's writing shine through the cracks in the metal.
I LOVED how Luke Skwyalker was written in this book. It's a compelling progression from Return of the Jedi and offers something completely new with his character I haven't seen before. Most of the time, I see writers focus on Luke's lack of training in the force and how his lack of confidence affects him. It's compelling given what happened in the OT, but this offered something different- what it means to be an idolized hero. I loved when the book described various "holothrillers" about Luke's adventures that were either fabricated or exaggerated, something that is extremely common with famous people in our world. I also liked how we got to explore Luke's reaction to the way people idolize him, almost like how we as audience members or readers hold up Luke as this amazing hero.
Shadowspawn makes for a pretty interesting and creepy villain as well. I like what Stover does with the character and I didn't always see where his character was going. The back cover artwork featuring Shadowspawn was an excellent choice and makes one of the developments more impactful.
Aeona and Nick also make for likeable side characters. I was constantly rooting for them and I enjoyed how they were handled by the end. It also leads to a very funny joke on the last page of the book that long time EU fans will really appreciate.
Even if it wasn't paced that well, I did like the story. It works both as a Luke-centric character study and an interesting deconstruction of the Original expanded universe in general, especially the Bantam era EU.

THE CONCLUSION: Final rating is 3 stars.
There was a good amount to like, but this was overall a disappointing book for me. Matthew Stover is my favorite author from Star Wars Legends, so I was expecting far more from this one. It was an enjoyable novel but nothing like Stover's Revenge of the Sith, which has blown every other legends novel I have read out of the water. That said, it works fine as a standalone Matthew Stover penned star wars novel and a throwback for those who have gotten fully immersed in the post Return of the Jedi legends storyline. If you're a legends enthusiast, go check this one out. But unless you're a diehard Matthew Stover fan, there's probably plenty of other legends novels that you could prioritize first.

[Jared · Rating 3 out of 5]

Star Wars Legends Project #323

Background: Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor was written by Matthew Woodring Stover and published in December of 2008. Stover has written 3 other Star Wars novels, including the novelization of Episode III, and a couple of short stories.

Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor takes place about a year after the Battle of Endor (5 years after the battle of Yavin). The main characters are Luke, Leia, Han, Lando, Rogue Squadron, Artoo, Threepio, and Chewie, along with Nick Rostu, Kar Vastor, Fenn Shysa, and Blackhole. The story takes place almost entirely in the Mindor system.

Summary: A new Imperial leader calling himself "Lord Shadowspawn" has started a campaign of piracy that has become a significant threat to trade and travel in the galaxy. When the New Republic manages to track Shadowspawn's raiders back to their home system, Luke Skywalker is put in charge of the special task force sent to deal with them. What no one knows is that Luke's arrival is all part of Shadowspawn's plan, and that's just the beginning . . .

Review: Stover is easily one of the best Star Wars writers. His adaptation of Revenge of the Sith is the standard by which all other film-to-novel adaptations should be measured. Traitor, his entry in the New Jedi Order series, is mind-blowingly outside the box, and brilliant. And Shatterpoint is, bar-none, one of my all-time favorite Star Wars novels. So anticipating his take on a Classic Trilogy-era story, my expectations were quite high. And, as usual, he didn't do what anyone would have expected . . . I'm just not sure how I feel about the results in this case.

The story begins with one of the best hooks I've ever run across . . . In the wake of a victory that left large casualties in its wake, Luke Skywalker tasks an independent investigator with determining whether he should be prosecuted for war crimes. What follows is, presumably, the account found by that investigation, though there's one final coda at the end that . . . Well, I don't want to spoil anything. But it suggests that Stover is both paying homage to and deconstructing the early EU works by Alan Dean Foster and (as suggested by the title) Brian Daley. On one level, that's exactly the kind of thing I look for from Stover, but on another level, I just didn't love the results this time around the way I normally do.

I do like the way he pulled in deep-cut characters from the Marvel run, though I'm not sure about his use of his own characters. I *like* his characters, mind you, and I don't begrudge any Star Wars author, Stover least of all, the standard practice of bringing back your own creations for whatever new story you're writing. The presence of all of them just felt a little more forced than usual here.

There's a clever setup, plenty of action (too much, if I'm honest), a plausible reason to draw all of the major characters into the same conflict, and then plenty of legitimate peril and suspense. What the whole thing suffers from most is a sort of hyperbolic overload. The story puts its characters in a VERY extreme position early-on, and then just ratchets up and ratchets up and ratchets up for a couple hundred pages. But where it started was already so over-the-top, that really soon it all just starts to feel a bit ridiculous. And over and over, insane, massively catastrophic events happen that seem like they should kill everyone, but no one much seems to actually die most of the time.

Like, the New Republic starfighters spend hours of this book flying through a figurative storm of enemy starfighters at odds of at least dozens to one, AND through a figurative storm of meteors that's beyond any other in the galaxy, AND there are kinds of gravity mines and anomalies everywhere, AND the local star is sending out waves of deadly radiation, AND the enemy base has a massive array of ultra-lethal defenses . . . but the number of starfighters in the fray never seems to diminish at any point? On either side! Because even though the enemy starfighters are going up in flames by the hundreds almost constantly, there's always a new never-ending wave about to emerge from somewhere, and it's not really clear where all these ships or their pilots are coming from? Like, what are the logistics of any of this? And also, why didn't any of these fleets of starfighters emerge the LAST two times the villain ordered "all" of his forces into battle?

There's some equivalent to this kind of extreme situation happening in every arena of the novel's plot, and it keeps you on the edge of your seat for awhile . . . until it doesn't, and then it's just kind of tiring. And, in case it wasn't clear, the ending of the novel makes it explicit that this absurdity is actually The Whole Point, which is a clever and self-aware way to try and render all of the above critic-proof. And that's fine, I get all that, but it was distracting and ultimately it felt like it damaged the story for the sake of a gimmick. Maybe it would have helped knowing it was a gimmick all along, but I don't think it would have helped enough. It's a good gimmick, but not good enough to hang a novel on. There is still plenty of enjoyment to be had here, but I wish just this once he'd been a little less arch about the whole exercise.

B-

[Colleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The characters feel very much in-tune with the Original Trilogy movies and the misadventures are both serious and ridiculous - balancing that trope the same way the films did. I enjoyed the tale.

[María E. · Rating 2 out of 5]

¡¡Mae mia, que libro más malo!! :-D

Me ha sorprendido de forma muy negativa, porque he leído otros libros de Star Wars de este mismo autor y me gustaron mucho, especialmente la conocida como "Trilogía del señor oscuro" o "Trilogía del mal", según la fuente, que engloba "Laberinto del mal", "La venganza de los Sith" y "Darth Vader, el señor oscuro", el primero y el último son de James Luceno y "La venganza de los Sith" de Stover. En cuanto a "Punto de ruptura" no me gustó demasiado porque el protagonista es Mace Windu, que es un personaje que siempre me ha caído mal, pero el libro estaba bien escrito.

Este "Luke Skywalker y las sombras de Mindor" me parece un completo despropósito, la historia es absurda y disparatada, está contada de una forma caótica y farragosa y no he conseguido que me enganchara. En fin, no se si a este hombre, de repente, se le ha olvidado escribir o lo que se fumaba mientras escribía este libro, le estaba sentando mal. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Matthew Ciarvella · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's tough to be Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars expanded universe. Most authors have no idea what to do with him or even have any idea who he really is. You get the sense that he's just there because, damn it, he's the main character of the original trilogy, so he HAS to be included even though there are many other, more interesting characters.

This leads to depictions of Luke that are downright abominations of the original character; you've got the Luke from Legacy of the Force THAT ORDERS A WOMAN TO HUNT AND KILL HER TWIN BROTHER. Sure, that brother fell to the dark side . . . but how the hell is that the same guy who believed in the good left in Darth Vader, even though Darth Vader is likely even more evil than Hitler if we're measuring in "total number of people killed."

So, yeah, a lot of authors don't get Luke. Matt Stover does, though.

This is a Star Wars story that's about the power of stories. It's about heroes and myths and the power of what you believe. Most importantly, it's a book that perfectly captures the Luke Skywalker from Return of the Jedi. I think in the pop culture mindset, the caricature of Luke is "the whiny farmboy." We think of wanting to go to Tosche Station. We forget the person Luke grows into, the guy who walks into Jabba's palace without even wearing a lightsaber, the guy who believes in the good in people so much that it's what allows him to redeem Darth Vader.

Matt Stover reminded me why Luke Skywalker is awesome. That's a high achievement for a Star Wars book.

The other thing that Stover does is draw strong comparisons between Luke and Anakin, if you read his novelization for Revenge of the Sith (and you should, because it's very good). Luke is NOTHING like Anakin when it comes to being a Jedi. Luke is kinder, more humble, more protective (but not possessive). Yeah, they both save people . . . but for Anakin, he does it because that's just what he is supposed to do. Luke never even thinks about that; it just shows in every action he takes. He does the right thing. Luke's a good person in all the ways his father wasn't.

That all makes for a good book. It feels like classic Star Wars. It has some great twists and turns. Most of all, it reminds me that there's a version of Luke Skywalker out there that is awesome. He might have started as a whiny kid . . . but he matures into an excellent hero. It was something that I'd forgotten somewhere along the way. I'm glad Stover's book helped me remember.

[Caleb · Rating 2 out of 5]

It reads like one of those bad-lip reading videos that populate YouTube. Like Luke and Han and Leia and Lando are there, but someone who thinks they are funny is writing the lines instead if the characters actually being themselves.

So here's the positive that makes it a two star, not a one star:
- fun facts about other star wars Lore from other books (a vague reference to mara jade, barabels, Dromund Kaas, etc.
- unique point of view story telling including R2's point of view
- it's still a star wars story.

Now the reasons this gets a "I wont read it again and recommend others just read the x wing books and new jedi order"
- the book is written from an amateur writer's perspective, not from Stover's skill. So he intentionally uses extraordinary details (like the atoms of a rock and style of atmosphere) and absurd similes and metaphors that make no sense because at the end you find out the book is written from a character's perspective. So it's a book that is supposed to feel annoying and kinda like "garbage" according to Luke himself.
- It's kinda a dumb premise. A psychopath who believes "The Dark" aka chaos/entropy is God. Luke believe he should never fight again and kinda just mopes about how many bad guys he has killed. And living rock that melts and rehardens if you can speak its language.

All in all, for my 116th star wars book, it ranks in the bottom 10.

[Jacen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor, a self-effacing, often moving little adventure by Matt Stover may just be the ultimate in EU fiction. Finally we are given a Luke Skywalker that lives up to his reputation and lore.

Stover writes what feels like a light adventure which all at once becomes a study in The Force vs nihilism and the second law of thermodynamics. If you thought Vader was dark, Shadowspawn is quite literally a black hole.

The dead on movie sounding dialogue was joy. Stover really rivaled Allston in that regard. Great dialogue. Very funny and absolutely natural.

I actually had to smile a few times throughout the book at what a fanboy feast the novel really was. It was almost as if Stover used the many obsessions and complaints fans have had of late in Star Wars novels as a partial compass. We've all wanted more Lando. He gave it. We wanted more Rouges. He wrote it. We wanted to rediscover Luke's depth and power. He brought it.

Truly, the greatest thing about Shadows of Mindor is how Stover managed to go beyond the pastiche to make a philosophically dense concept book into a light, tongue-in-cheek little gem.

[grace · Rating 2 out of 5]

stover has. His own ideas about what the force is/should be that are. Cool, but completely discontinuous with the entire rest of the eu. it makes sense for the very off the deep end vong pow jacen to be thinking along such lines and is subtle enough to add a layer of depth to revenge of the sith, but i really do not think at the very least this point in the timeline it makes sense for luke to be mouthpiece of them. the fakedeep infodump-heavy prose stylization reads like my high school fanfiction and again is something that works, kind of, in rots but really doesn't here. i get what this book is TRYING to do; lampshade the unintentional camp of an expanded universe that takes itself very seriously, but it does so inelegantly enough as to fail to convince that it needed to be done. the plot is....difficult to follow, and several threads such as that of the mandalorians don't seem to contribute anything and drop off entirely besides

[Boshko Stanisic · Rating 1 out of 5]

Bad. Luke was out of character and came off as demanding and rude. The descriptions were much too long; I think one minor character got six or seven pages solely dedicated to introducing and describing their background, and it wasn't even interesting. Far too many quips, it ruined any tension and was so out of place. The holofilm parts were very cringe and unserious. The main enemy is just silly and unthreatening. The Millennium Falcon takes an insane amount of damage but remains mostly functional - it's nonsensical.

[Jeremy Campbell · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were some things I liked here- I thought Han was written really well and I enjoyed his relationship with Leia here. I enjoyed the couple of POVs we got from R2. Some of the humor was well done but at other times it was used too much and there were too many in universe comparisons that held no meaning and I found that frustrating. Also, the villain didn’t do much for me here and the ending felt a little incoherent.