Chat corner 149: Shadows of the Empire

[annathecrow]

Welcome to the Monday chat corner!

This week's topic is the novel "Shadows of the Empire" - set between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, it invents a brand new antagonist for both our heroes and Darth Vader in the person of Prince Xizor.

What do you think? Have you read it? Would you read it? Have you ever heard of the lizard-y prince?

Comments

[atamascolily]

Shadows of the Empire was not just a book, it was a whole multimedia marketing empire. There was even a "junior edition" of the book cutting out the infamous section where Xizor tries to seduce Leia with pheromones.

Other highlights I recall include Dash Rendar (a knockoff version of Han Solo), Luke building his green lightsaber, and Guri, the Human Replica droid assassin.

Like most interquels, it suffers from the fact that we already know what's going to happen, but it's got a lot of interesting ideas that, like so much of Legends, would never be followed up on or appear anywhere ever again.

[sathari]

Oh, Shadows of the Empire. I have definitely read it, though I haven't explored the other parts of the project, and I think Black Sun and the Falleen got used again in... IIRC it's Scoundrels by Timothy Zahn, which is basically Star Wars meets Ocean's Eleven. (Also I am embarrassed that it literally took me until I was writing this comment to make a possible connection between the name of the Falleen and the term "fallen angels" though I have no idea if Perry or anyone else involved in the development process meant to do that either!)