Shadows of the Empire
Steve Perry
Han Solo, frozen in carbonite, is now in the hands of bounty hunter Boba Fett. His friends, with the help of Rogue Squadron and a daredevil pilot, set out to rescue him, not knowing that the Empire is stronger than they might think. For the Emperor has gained a new ally, a crimelord so powerful that he may one day supplant Darth Vader as the Emperor's right hand. To gain this position, however, he must do one thing that he knows the Emperor wants more than anything else and that Darth Vader wishes to prevent from happening. He must kill Luke Skywalker.
I felt this book had a lot of the action-packed sequences that people love to see in science-fiction. However, the new characters were well-rounded and fit right in. Dash Rendar, though obviously a spin-off of the Han character type, is believable as a smuggler, and Xizor is as evil a character as any Dark Jedi. Perry is serious, but not too serious and the book is punctuated with humorous scenes just at the right moment ("My master is not here at the moment. Who is calling, please?"). The ending especially was very powerful and dramatic. I also liked the tie-ins to the movies (the Bothans, the thermal detonator). Though Shadows of the Empire was a project and not just a book (designed by Lucasfilm to come as close as it could to a movie without making a movie-having a video game, a soundtrack, a book, and a comic), I felt that made it more like part of the trilogy. In essence, I can think of Shadows as a fourth Star Wars movie between Empire and Jedi.
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The Beggar's Canyon Chase scene I felt was unnecessary to the plot. Sure it provided an action sequence (probably meant for the video game) but it didn't quite fit in with the rest of the novel. Also, the scene between Leia and Xizor was just disgusting and didn't belong at all.
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