Great art work wasted on unimaginative writing
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It's tough being asked to make fantasy Nazi's into regular Joes, or even heroic Joes, so even if I can't work up too much sympathy for the troops that protect the universe by enslaving it, I can image what a nightmare it might have been for some of these writers to get their assignments from Dark Horse. Their charge - convince you that the bad guys, the guys who keep the Emperor's machine running day-to-day, are, well, just like you and me, people with a job to do.
Perhaps the writer who has it easiest is Paul Alden, who has only to have Vader battle a pack of wild hyenas. You will recall that when the first Death Star exploded, Vader was spinning off into space. With a damaged ship and not too many options for pulling into the nearest service station, he manages to crash on a planet mostly empty of sentient life. There's plenty of fauna about, though, and the Dark Lord has to fight his way through them to an Imperial listening post. Thanks to artist Raul Trevino's fine work, Alden's willingness to step out of the way, and the almost complete absence of politics, "The Savage Heart" is sharp and quick-paced, ending with a touch of wry humor.
In comparison, the rest of the work in this volume is verbose, implausible, or, as in "Target: Vader," simply unremarkable. The story starts five months after Yavin with the Dark Lord checking in om one of his Bothan contacts for information on Alliance bases and locations. Lying in wait is a cabal Falleen assassins; what becomes of them is hardly a surprise. Hacking and slashing is provided by one of Star Wars better artists, Brian Ching, whose talents are fairly squandered on a story by Ron Marz that adds little to the lore of the EU and in which we learn even less about Vader (except that he cannot be placated with offers of Naboo slave girls).
Writer Jeremy Barlow takes a stab in "What Sin Loyalty?" at how the average Imperial deals with the daily drudgery of coercion, murder, enslavement, and theft. With only a few pages to deal with these questions, Barlow has to settle for stating things quite simply, that the universe would be an anarchic free-for-all without the Emperor's firm and ruthless control. The message is blunted somewhat by having it delivered by a Stormtrooper, a clone who comes essentially ideologically hardwired. But the deathbed scene of a (non-clone) Imperial gives Barlow a chance to show us a repentant officer, one who until his last moments was unable to express any doubt over the horrible things he did in the name of the Empire. Regrettably, Barlow's work is fairly ruined at story's end when the first person narrative provided by the Stormtrooper continues right up until the moment of his immolation on the Death Star, leaving us to wonder - how did his account survive?
Last (and perhaps least) is the three-part "To the Last Man," the incredulous tale of Lt Janek Sunber. A hick from the galactic sticks, Sunber is the guy Luke Skywalker might have been if he had made it to the academy, the Jefferson Smith of Imperial officers, a low-ranking lieutenant from the James Stewart school of naïve optimism whose Forest Gump-like mantra is "All Duty is Sacrifice." Sunber's not the kind of guy to worry about imperialism, slavery, or genocide. He's got a job to do and there's great value in hard work. On assignment to the Jungle planet Maridun, Sunber chips in to help the troops do field work, much to the horror and disgust of his socially superior fellow officers. When the Imperial forces are attacked, Sunber knows best how to position the troops. When the fighting gets tough, Sunber is the man with the plan. When the general lies dying, Sunber's the man the general summons and to whom he hands off command. And in the end, Sunber's the man who treats with the aliens to end the war in a jaw-droppingly hackneyed climax in which the aliens reveal that the fighting has been arranged to test the worthiness of the Imperial interlopers. The only redeeming thing about "To the Last Man" is the art, provided here by Davide Fabbri and Christian Dalla Vecchia, who do a fantastic job bringing to life a new alien species and in conveying the movement of troops in battle. It's too bad these two got stuck working on this story, which besides being unrealistic to the point of absurdity is also - particularly in its final chapter - overwritten, with too many florid passages telling us what things are like instead of showing us, slowing down battle scenes that should move at a quicker pace.
Skip this book. For completists only.
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Shows that a galaxy spanning fascist regime isn't all bad.
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THE STORY:
Four in fact, set during and after 'A New Hope'. In 'What Sin Loyalty' a Clone Stormtrooper struggles to uphold the Empire's order on the planet Ralltiir and on the new battlestation; the Death Star. 'The Savage Heart' shows how Darth Vader, after escaping the destruction of the Death Star finds himself alone on the savage world of Vaal. A battallion of the Empire's finest face overwhelming odds with little hope on Maridun in 'To The Last Man'. Finally, in 'Target: Vader', the Sith Lord finds himself attacked by a group of Falleen seeking vengeance for the devastation of their homeworld.WHAT'S GOOD:
These four stories are fascinating little snapshots of the other side of the Star Wars saga, showing that where humans are involved there's never simply good and evil, with even the servants of the Emperor being capable of honour and bravery. The two Vader stories are great because they give us even more insight into the pure implacable POWER of the character. The best offering here, however, is 'To The Last Man', which is basically a Star Wars version of 'Zulu' and consequently an exciting, touching story of courage in the face of death. WHAT'S BAD:
This book lacks the importance of the previous volumes. 'Betrayal' featured a major plot within the Empire and 'Darklighter' gave us the story of a character we've known vaguely since 1977, however, this book either deals with new characters or, the case of the Vader stories, doesn't really add anything significant to the character it features. NOTE: Despite the claims of the blurb above, this book does not contain 'The Short Happy Life Of Roons Sewell', which was actually included in 'Darklighter'. Not that it matters, it was a rubbish story anyway!
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