Book Review: "Dark Lord" fills in some "Star Wars" gaps

I read "Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader," by James Luceno, a while ago, and I deeply enjoyed it. I am a "Star Wars" geek, and I've always been curious about those missing years between Episode 3 and Episode 4. There are about 18 years between the two. This novel begins almost right after "Revenge of the Sith" ends. There are very few Jedi left, and their clone trooper commanders are told to kill them. Some of them failed to kill their Jedi "friends"' either because they missed or because they thought that someone was being crazy and irrational. No one knows what's going on.

The first part of the novel focuses on Jedi Roan Shryne and his Padawan. They meet lots of interesting people and get into a lot of trouble because the Emperor (Palpatine/Sidious) ordered all the Jedi dead.

The remaining Jedi are trying to think of why this is happening. They hear rumors that a Jedi betrayed everyone, but at first, they don't know who. Everyone is shocked when they hear that it's former Knight Anakin Skywalker. At first, they don't believe it. They thought he was killed. They still continue on a quest for answers and safety.

Meanwhile, Darth Vader, formerly Anakin Skywalker, is miserable. Sometimes he feels guilty for killing the Jedi, and he wants to go back to the way things used to be. Sometimes he feels guilty for what he did to his late, secret wife, Padme. But then he tells himself not to feel guilty and that the Jedi were liars, and Padme betrayed him.

He also hates his suit. It's uncomfortable and hard to move in. People only respect him because they're scared of him. He doesn't blame them. He blames Palpatine, his Sith Master. He wants to be the Master. Right now, he's nothing more than a learner and a slave, just as he was all those years ago on Tatooine.

Palpatine sends him to Courascant and makes him look at things in the Jedi Temple, just to torture him. He thinks that seeing everything he's done wrong will make him become more dependent on his master, or that seeing all the blood spatters and smelling the remains of rotting Jedi will make him immune to the pain, immune to feeling sympathy.

Palpatine sends Vader on a mission to Alderaan to meet with Senator Bail Organa, a friend of Padme's, who he suspects is not entirely with the cause.

Bail Organa worries. It's not necessarily about getting jailed or killed or interrogated for not being entirely loyal to the Empire. He's nervous because he has Vader/Anakin's infant daughter, Leia, who Vader would presume to be dead with Padme. He fears that Vader will sense it and try to take her. What would he do? Make her his Sith apprentice? Kill her? Wonder if he has another child? This can't mean good things.

All these subplots are what make the novel interesting. This novel is for hard-core "Star Wars fans," especially the parts about Vader, the Emperor, and Bail Organa. The first part will probably only make sense to the hard-core fan, or someone really interested in Clone Wars/Expanded Universe stuff. Luceno does a great job of integrating the Clone Wars time frame with the weird time frame after "Revenge of the Sith" and before "A New Hope."

I think it's still more of a Clone Wars story than a classic trilogy story. I love it.