Having read, again, literally hundreds of Star Wars novels I still put Heir to the Empire in the number one spot. Now, much to my joy and regret, I’ve read probably every Star Wars book written up until Deathtroopers (that’s when I realized I no longer cared ‘quite’ as much about Star Wars as I used to-I only have Luke Skywalker looking down at me with a green lightsaber from my desk right now). Now, it’s probably as much due to the ridiculous popularity of Star Wars that this book was a runaway hit but Timothy Zahn’s writing also deserves a lot of credit.At heart, it does what every Star Wars fan secretly longed for a writer to do: take the saga seriously.
Literally hundreds of books owe their existence to the explosive success of Heir to the Empire and its sequels. Sure, there had been previous Star Wars novels but not nothing quite as successful as this. I’m sure I’m not alone in this regard because this book more or less set off the Star Wars Expanded Universe as we know it. However, as an eleven year old, it was far more mature than the original trilogy (not hard I know). Having re-read Heir to the Empire as an adult, it’s not a particularly deep or serious science fiction book like I remember it being. You know, that place which existed before Borders but like it has since faded into the mists of time. Being the industrious lad I was, I immediately sought out the original book and purchased it at Waldenbooks. I devoured Dark Force Rising and thought it was the best thing since sliced bread despite not having any idea who half the characters were. My first Star Wars toy was Jabba the Hutt because all of the other ones were sold out at KB Toys.
I made my own lightsaber out of a wooden pole because the plastic ones sucked (IMHO). My favorite character was Luke Skywalker instead of Han Solo, I never saw the original trilogy in theaters but I’d seen it repeatedly on television to the point I’d already memorized the words. “It’s so large! Like the books my dad reads! It looks so adult and serious!” I didn’t know this was the sequel to Heir to the Empire but I can remember my first thoughts seeing it. I, like many young boys, lived and breathed Star Wars. Let us journey back to an ancient time known as 1992 where I was a boy aged twelve and the book, Dark Force Rising was available in a book rack at a hotel gift shop.
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