Films and Fiction

After reading Heir to the Empire a while ago, I was eager to continue with this trilogy, and so started on Timothy Zahn’s second installment Dark Force Rising, and can say that it lived up to my expectations.

The story follows Han, Luke, Leia and the former Rebellion as they try to restore order to the galaxy and form the New Republic. Tension is building on the political side, as Admiral Ackbar is forced out of his position as the Republic’s military leader. Meanwhile, the heroes face up to the new threat of Imperial Grand Admiral and master strategist Thrawn, who is trying to get hold of the Dark Force, a fleet of star dreadnaughts that were lost in deep space decades ago.

The book is a balance between what Zahn reuses from the original Star Wars trilogy and what he creates from scratch. With regards to the former, he does a good job of blending the lines between the movies and books. There are several references to events that we’ve seen onscreen, and sometimes scenes and dialogue mirror them to keep a sense of continuity. The main cast of Han, Luke, Leia, Lando, and others all return to save the galaxy yet again, but they’ve progressed somewhat since Return of the Jedi, as Luke struggles with his lack of formal Jedi training, while Han and Leia are preparing to become parents for the first time.

On the opposite side, Timothy Zahn does a sound job of introducing new elements of his own. The chief of these is Grand Admiral Thrawn, the most important and interesting new character, who far outshines his onscreen depictions with his intelligent and often ruthless tactics.

Besides the Grand Admiral, the most individual character is Mara Jade. It’s clear to see with her how different Star Wars lore was in the early ’90s. She is the Emperor’s Hand, basically a Force-sensitive minion who does any of the jobs he’s not willing to carry out personally, and was sent to kill Luke Skywalker on Tatooine during the events of Return of the Jedi. Despite this, there’s no mention of how this fits into the Rule of Two, or the wider Sith hierarchy, both of which have yet to be invented. In many ways, though, she might have been a better choice than the Inquisitors that we eventually got in Rebels and the like. There’s something more dogmatic about her, and more competent, rather than the often ineffectual wannabe Siths with spinning lightsabers.

When it comes to the story being told, it’s not so much a second installment, but just a second act. More The Two Towers than Empire Strikes Back. The action picks up exactly where Heir to the Empire left off and is the same story. There’s no big twists, no hugely important new characters, and not much change in the state of play, except to turn up the tension with the introduction of a particularly large MacGuffin that takes the form of two hundred dreadnaughts.

The biggest complaint I have is one that carries over from the first novel, which is that Zahn’s strength is in plot not prose. While the story is compelling, he’s liable to repetition with his prose, and can sometimes fall flat, without the weight needed for a novel where the fate of the entire galaxy is at risk. He should also have tried to find a variant on the line “Luke looked”, which is used a lot.

In every other way, though, it’s a satisfying read, and I can see why this book trilogy has become one of the most popular with the Star Wars fandom.

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