A stand-alone novel that bridges the gap between 'The Empire Strikes Back' and 'Return Of The Jedi'.  Perry introduces us to a new villain in this book, Prince Xizor, head of the criminal empire known as Black Sun.  The interplay between Emperor Palpatine, Xizor and Darth Vader is perhaps the book's best element as each brings their own unique strengths to the scenes.  Vader is perfectly portrayed as man of direct action and power, Palpatine's exact plans are well hidden behind his scheming manipulation and Xizor's calculating brilliance adds the perfect balance.  There's also an adventure for the old heroes as Luke, Leia, Lando and Chewbacca, joined by the arrogant rogue Dash Rendar, attempt to rescue the carbon-frozen Han.  When Xizor attempts to assassinate Luke, in order to shame Vader's attempts to lure his son to the dark side, Leia tries to use Black Sun to track the assassins.  There is a great scene in which Xizor uses his species' power of pheromonal seduction on Leia but is foiled by a certain angry Wookiee.  As well as having an interesting, intelligent and exciting story of it's own, this book also reveals a lot about things we've seen in the films for years.  Things like how Luke learns how to build the lightsaber he has in 'RotJ' are covered, we learn how Leia gets the bounty hunter costume she wears in the film and we get to see the story behind the line "Many Bothans died to bring us this information".  This book is one of my favourite Star Wars novels of all time and is a perfect place to start if you're new to the whole Expanded Universe thing.  Hey, it's got Darth Vader kicking ass, what more could you ask for?

5 out of 5

 

Star Wars: Shadows Of The Empire - Evolution

(Graphic Novel with art by Ron Randall and Tom Simmons)

Set after 'Return Of The Jedi', this is the story of the Human Replica Droid Guri's mission to purge herself of the memories that make her a target for the remnants of Black Sun.  This book serves to nicely tie up some of the loose ends of 'Shadows Of The Empire', such as Guri's fate, how Black Sun copes without Xizor and also features the brief return of someone you may have thought dead.  My favourite element of the book is the new bounty hunter, Kar Yang, but I was disappointed by his anticlimatic end at Guri's hands.  Another flaw with this book is the use of the movie heroes (Luke, Han, Leia, Chewie, Lando and the Droids are all here) with their participation being entire superfluous and clearly tacked on because of Lucasfilm's fear of releasing anything without them in.

3 out of 5

Then you might like the work of his friend Michael Reaves, or possibly their collaborations, such as the Star Wars MedStar duology.

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