– Spoiler-Free Review –
Lando Calrissian is on the search for his kidnapped daughter! But an even deeper shadow lurks in the farthest reaches of the corner…can Luke Skywalker help Lando stand against it? Read my review of Shadow of the Sith and see if you want to tag along!
When a new Star Wars movie comes out, there’s an unspoken rule (maybe less unspoken lately) a novel will come along soon enough and start bridging some of the gaps between the current movie and the past movie. And boy howdy, when The Rise of Skywalker came out, fans were clamoring for a novel that would start to bridge some of the gaps between what we thought the story of the Sequel Trilogy was compared to what it turned out to be in the end. Shadow of the Sith does not seek to be a complete bridge (it is only one novel), but I think that the novel does a lot of heavy lifting to bridge those gaps and mostly does it really well.
This review will be hard to talk about without spoilers, which is both a good and bad thing. This book genuinely works well within the bridge between Endor and Exegol, and it shows really well how Luke Skywalker’s journey to rebuild the Jedi turned (subtly) into an attempt to destroy the Sith forever. But there are some surprising twists and turns along the way, including the main villain of this novel, which I think would be best experienced in the course of the novel.
I think the question on most people’s mind is: does this book answer all of my questions The Rise of Skywalker asked? Absolutely not. Does it try to? Thank the Maker, no it does not. Does it answer the ones it brings up? Very much so. I was pretty cynical going into the novel, thinking that it wouldn’t be able to do a satisfactory job in answering some questions I had about the movie. Not only did it answer them well, it answered some of them in really surprising ways. I was impressed how much writer Adam Christopher could fit in without overstuffing the novel (though it is long), and how many he could answer in almost off-handed ways. I almost want to recommend this novel based on this alone, as it really brought some sharp relief to the ST storyline in my mind. I’m not convinced every single person alive is going to find the answers satisfactory, but that’s almost okay. I think this book brings a lot of meat to the ST and a lot of new elements that I felt were missing. I might even revisit The Rise of Skywalker novelization after this one to see all of the ways that it connected.
I noted that this book is very long. It clocks in around 500 pages. It’s always good news to me when a Star Wars novel is longer rather than shorter – provided that they use the page count well. Since I read this novel initially with a digital ARC, I had no idea how long the novel was. I think this worked in its favor, as I was shocked to see the huge page count. The novel’s pacing moves quickly, and I felt myself unable to put it down at times. I hate to compare this novel with another, as comparisons are a bad way to write a review, but it did strike me how differently this novel and the third Thrawn: Ascendancy novel could use the same amount of pages.
That being said, I think part of why this novel feels so well-paced is it focuses on the plotting more than the character work. I applauded Mike Chen’s Brotherhood for deftly using a large cast to interrogate main characters, but that came at (in my opinion) the cost of the plotting. This novel uses a far smaller cast (really something like five protagonists and two antagonists, with a middle-sized supporting cast) to tell a singular story: what is Ochi after? The plot moves around believably, keeping characters apart who need to be separated and bringing some together who may need to be brought together more and more! The plot really only slows when I think it’s important to take breaks, and I never felt like too many scenes went on too long.
Now, I don’t want to imply that there was no character work. Lando and Ochi are the stand-outs of this novel. Ochi is one of the deutero-protagonists/antagonists (depending on who you are!) in Greg Pak’s current Darth Vader comic, and I’m not sure I really like the character in the comic. I find him too over the top and don’t always understand his motivations. But Christopher is able to make him into a pretty great character, pulling directly on stuff from Pak’s run. I thought the synergy here worked really well. Ochi is finally dangerous, not just an idiot with a knife, and I thought he served this novel well. I also thought that Christopher brought an interesting new angle to Lando, playing on both the Lando that we know and love and a new side of Lando, one of loss and regret. Seeing him years after his daughter is taken means we see someone whose whole world has been turned upside down, but has started to adjust yet again. I would love to see more of this Lando.
Really, I think this novel is well worth your time if you’re a fan of the Sequel Trilogy. Though, that being said, I’m sure most ST fans were already planning on picking this book up! Thankfully, I think it does well what we hoped it would: it answers important questions about the story and about the timeline, sometimes in surprising ways. (One HUGE problem I had with Episode IX was answered by the novel, and I am not sure it was intentional.) But it’s not just a novel that exists to tell one story or fix one plot device. It actually serves as an entertaining book in it’s own right and one that I think should give Adam Christopher a few more ST stories in the future, if he wants them.
You can follow Chris on Twitter @ChrisWerms, and of course, you can follow the Manor on Twitter @MynockManor and Instagram @mynockmanor!
DISCLOSURE: I received a copy of this book, through NetGalley, from the publisher at no charge in order to provide an early review. However, this did not affect the overall review content. All opinions are my own.
ALSO BY ADAM CHRISTOPHER:
“The Witness” – From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back (novel) | “End of Watch” – From a Certain Point of View (novel)
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