Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsSome Great/Some Awful.....Could Have Been So Much More
Reviewed in the United States on February 25, 2012
**WARNING: THIS IS A REVIEW CHOCK FULL OF SPOILERS***
What did I expect from Dark Lord?
A thrilling novel in the afterglow of Revenge of the Sith which focuses on Vader coming to grips with his new life as he takes the first steps towards becoming a true Sith Master. Hunting down some surviving Jedi seems like a good way to reach that next step in Vader's Sith career path.
What did I get?
A novel that does an excellent job of explaining Vader's sense of loss and disillusionment after the events of ROTS, but fails to really give a convincing account of how Vader develops from Anakin in a black suit to the most feared being in the galaxy.
Much of the story revolves around the most forgettable group of Jedi imaginable and how those individuals (mostly a Padawan named Starstone and a burnt out Knight known as Roan Shryne) come to grips with new galaxy order. We also have a ship's crew which accompanies our ragtag bunch of Jedi survivors, whose captain happens to be Shryne's mother (I wish I was making this up).
So what's good about Dark Lord?
As many previous reviews touch upon, the guy whose name graces the title and whose mug is on the cover seems to get the short end of the stick when it comes to pages dedicated to him. However, the most compelling reading of Dark Lord IS, indeed, the chapters involving Vader.
To criticize Vader as coming off too much as the whiny Anakin we have off come to deplore and associate with the face of Hayden Christensen is oft-center. Consider: Anakin converts to the Dark Side in a wave of confusion and angst, trusting his fate to the long-time father figure of Palpatine, only to lose everything seemingly a day later on Mustafar. He is now trapped in a suit forever, his long lush mane of hair only a holocron memory. Vader is led to believe he killed his wife and his child with her. All his Jedi friends and acquaintances are dead, many at his hand. And yet, despite all these sacrifices, he will never be as powerful as he dreamed of being and the sober realization that he was played by Sidious all along stings even more considering he'll never topple the old geezer unless a perilously open air shaft is available some time in the next 25 years.
Therefore, the moments when Vader is left alone with his thoughts to make sense of his new life, descriptions of his suit, and instruction from Sidious make for some good reading. Alas, there just isn't enough of it.....
So what went wrong?
The story is about as humdrum as possible. Why Vader is so adamant on hunting down remaining Jedi and killing them is never really explained, though that's hardly Luceno's fault; Lucas himself did a lousy job of explaining Anakin's motivations from wanting to save people from dying one moment to cutting Jedi breathren in half the next. Then again, if the plot to Dark Lord is any indication of how boring life in the galaxy must have become before Luke came along, then it's no wonder why Vader was looking for an excuse to chop somebody's head off.
The origin story of the Rebellion and Bail Organa's role in its development are pretty good. However, there are some corny moments on Alderaan that involve Organa hiding Leia from Vader's awareness, as well as Vader chasing some politician by taking gigantic leaps instead of running after him. What was likely intended to be a shocking indication of Vader's power instead conjures up some laughable mental imagery of a springy-heeled Darth.
Though the cynical renegade Jedi Shryne makes for some of the better non-Vader moments, it's shocking to realize how much focus is placed on the Jedi and their other allies considering A) we know they will make no impact on the course of future events anyway and B) despite the attention given them, they are all razor-thin in the "anything of interest" department. A few Jedi Knights, a Padawan, and some agricultural Jedi specialists who probably didn't know a lightsaber from a Bith's hookah hardly make for worthy adversaries, even for a Vader still tentative in the Dark Side. One Jedi Master appears in the book, only to reveal her identity before Vader and a whole legion of stormtroopers, allowing herself to get killed before she could be of any use (which only goes to show that the higher the rank for Jedi of the Old Republic, the dumber they were).
Vader himself grows more confident in his possession of the Dark Side without any real explanation as to WHY this is happening. We go from a man tormented by his decisions and uncertain of his abilities to a guy sounding like the Vader of "A New Hope" in a matter of a short time, all because he is embarking on a little Easter Egg Hunt of Jedi. His powers develop some over that time, but it's pretty much limited to the usual Sith talents of "choke" and "tear off stuff from a wall and fling it at somebody telekinetically". Some new abilities and real heavy immersion in the Dark Side would have gone a long way, but sadly, we are left with Roan Shryne and his mom instead (seriously).