Luke Before
The first new Luke Skywalker book in the official canon is Heir to the Jedi. Written by Kevin Hearne, it takes a very interesting approach to the traditional Star Wars book by being completely told from a first person perspective. Heir to the Jedi is a sincere, quality book that that would be a good book even if it wasn’t reliant on the Star Wars universe and name. Even more importantly for me, however, is that it does some very good things for Disney’s official canon and explains the characters a bit more deeply within the Original Trilogy.
Heir to the Jedi, the 4th released novel from Disney, takes place in between Episode IV and Episode V. Luke has just destroyed the Death Star and has a base understanding what the force is, but with Obi-Wan’s death he has been left with his first taste of the force and no one to teach him. I like to imagine it as if someone were to give you one bite of chocolate only to have them disappear without telling you how to get more. Without anyone to guide him, Luke is left to explore for himself and struggles to figure out where to even start developing and mastering his connection to the Force. He is now relied upon by the leaders of the Rebel Alliance because of his recent victory against the Empire’s Death Star. Luke becomes essential in successfully completing sensitive and solo missions for the Rebels; this pulls him away from force development. He ends up being teamed up with an original character, Nakari Kelen, who as the book puts it, has “got a score of her own to settle with the empire,” for a Rebel mission that allows them to develop a relationship that helps Luke move forward in his minuscule understanding of The Force.
Luke After
Heir to the Jedi is an excellent addition to the Star Wars Universe. The development of Luke as a person as well as the Jedi throughout the novel expands fans’ understanding, if only half a parsec wider, of the way Luke learns, acts and developed in the Original Trilogy. For example, we learn how he acquires the force skills to pull the lightsaber out of the ice bank in the Wampa’s cave on Hoth. We feel his frustration towards Ben’s abandonment of him as well his sorrowful and desperate plea to his old master’s voice on Hoth. We are also reminded of Luke’s age and how young and unsure of himself he is. He is uncomfortable and the mistakes he makes are a glaring reminder of where he has come from as well as what he has been through, but he learns from his struggle and, as we all know, he learns and develops into a Jedi Master. As the book progresses, Luke develops as an asset for the rebellion just as much as he does with the Force.
There is a small assumption here on my part that the limits of Force powers will be similar to the what the Legends’ canon has shown us. It seems to me that nothing in the new canon has shown us the full potential of the Force, which has me concerned. If the Force is limited to what we have seen in the movies, TV shows, and the other official novels, it won’t even we compare to what we have seen of it’s potential power from the Legends universe. The Legends canon consists of the EU or Expanded Universe canon from before Disney purchased Star Wars. Disney has decided to start fresh with its new official canon, which consists of all of the media that it puts out, games, novels, comics, movies, and TV shows. In the Legends canon, Sith Lords ate planets and Luke created a whole phantom fleet; the powers were only limited by the imaginations of the novelists and creative directors, which was amazing to follow.
Of course, most questions will likely be answered on December 18th in the new movie and I will wait with bated breath like many other fans. Based on this book and the understanding and knowledge Luke manages to find on his own there is very much hope for him to learn, all on his own, everything he can about The Force to become the strongest, wisest Jedi in the galaxy, like he was in the old EU.
Heir to the Jedi is a unique, solid book for everyone, including fans new and old, to enjoy. It does a fantastic job of deepening our understanding of Luke and his place in this universe during the time between Episodes IV and V. It also gives me hope for the future of the Star Wars Universe if Luke can learn like he did in Heir to the Jedi he can learn what he needs to be the same or similar Luke that we knew from the EU. It gives me a very bright outlook on the future of Star Wars and what Disney can do with it.
Jeremy Harris
Staff Writer/Jedi
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I have been reading Star Wars books since I can remember, but my introduction to the extended universe began when I was 10, starting with Star Wars: Jedi Apprentice. I haven’t stopped since those Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan adventures. However, being only 27 years old, I clearly came into a universe already well established and already growing with every passing moment. Years and many, many hours of reading, video games and TV shows later, I get the unique experience at being on the ground floor for the new Disney Star Wars canon. I am personally super pumped for this, and will be walking you all through my reading experiences, starting with Lords of the Sith, which was the most recent novel I finished.
So What Do Lords of The Sith DO All Day?
Lords of the Sith is the third novel released in the new Star Wars canon, written by Paul S. Kemp. It takes place in between Episodes III and IV before Tarkin, focusing on two different sides of the a conflict around Ryloth, home planet of the Twi’leks. A Ryloth freedom movement group causes some problems for Vader and the Emperor, which kicks off the action-packed events which propel us into the beginning of Lords of the Sith. This book reads very much like an action movie. From the beginning you are on a ride showing you how powerful Vader and the Emperor really are. The opening is so strong that it leaves you daring to hope for more throughout the rest of the book. The exhibition that Vader and the Emperor put on exemplifies how much they outclass the rest of the galaxy and how they managed to take over and stay in charge for so long.
Unfortunately, what helped the book early on ends up being the single note that it plays over and over again. This gets exhausting by the end of the book and it takes away the levity of the trials that Vader and the Emperor are going through. Every step of the way the book pits them against the rebels but it never really gives the rebels a victory–destroying the dramatic tension. The story seems to suffer from trying to make the rebels and the empire both teams you are rooting for. This ultimately muddles the reader’s feelings. The story would have fared much better if the author kept the point of view restricted to the rebels, and used Vader and the Emperor as boogey men. Or if the author wanted to use the Empire’s perspective, they could have tried keeping it limited to a royal guards first time really seeing what the Emperor and Vader can do together giving some shock value to the events.
Is It Worth It?
While the book has a weakness in its writing , it is not to say that the book doesn’t do well at expanding the Star Wars universe, which I believe is a very important distinction. In terms of building the universe there are many parts that help create, show and exemplify the rift between Vader and the Emperor. Since the events of Revenge of the Sith happened so recently to the events of this book, Vader and the Emperor are still developing their relationship with each other, but it does squarely show us Vader’s place beneath the Emperor. There are some tie-ins to Rebels, the Disney XD show, but they are used more as passing mentions than universe-changing implications.
As an avid Star Wars reader, old canon and new, this book does a great job of deepening my understanding of the Vader/Emperor relationship while it was still developing. Lords of the Sith also helped me understand Ryloth’s involvement in the overall universe. However, that was all I was really able to take away from this book. Hera gets name dropped a couple of times because she is a Twi’lek but it doesn’t add to her own character. Only Vader and the Emperor get developed in this book, and while they are two of the top five most important characters in the Star Wars universe, the trials that they go through didn’t feel like they were required for the minimal developments that are made. A lot of the developments seemed to stem from the way the Emperor talked down to Vader, in which case a really long conversation would have had the same outcome. This book ended up feeling like a “Dark Side Showcase” but it didn’t want you to root for the team it was showcasing. That made me extraordinarily conflicted throughout most of the book, which did not make it an enjoyable read.
Ultimately, this book succeeds at developing the Vader/Emperor relationship, but it fails at making the reader feel like there are actual stakes. It hits the reader over the head with their power, which would have been much better done as a reveal instead of a constant. If you are as invested in the Star Wars universe as I am, you have probably already read it, otherwise you can avoid this one.
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