Dark Lord - The Rise of Darth Vader

Following Revenge of the Sith this novel could have held so much promise of being a great book... sadly this being the second of James Luceno's books I have read I have come to the conclusion that he is not that great of writer. While it had it's moments they were equaled with boring battles and bland story telling... bordering on silly and pointless scenarios and too many characters but not enough quality of characterizations. But at least I didn't have flashback of 9/11 reading this one! (See my review of Labyrith of Evil)

You do get to know a Jedi named Shryne and another called Starstone who survive "Order 66". Others enter the picture but good luck keeping up with all of them and in doing so it is pointless due to very little is said about them other then they are there. Maybe they show up in later books but that is left to be seen.

I will give him this, he did an OK job at transforming Anakin Skywalker to Darth Vader. And that's one thing that makes it sorta worth reading. You got to know more then you ever thought (or ever wanted to know) about what it was like to wear the black armor that is so well known.

Fan art I came across on Google.
Captures exchange between Sidious and Anakin.
Not sure what the caption says, looks Russian to me.

It's a thought provoking question on how did Anakin become such a killer... a man who did what he did because he loved someone (Padme) and ended up killing her and on top of that what was his thoughts on his Sith Master Sidious who was the master mind of it all. All this becomes an issue when his son returns later. I'm not sure I can buy all of this author reasoning but I give him a hand for trying.
I was happy to see Luke and Leia do appear in this novel! So does Chewbacca! Another thing making it worth reading.
On the cover it states that this is a "must read"! That's a little over hyped... at least in my option. While it's an OK read I just think this writer is not the best the Star War Universe has seen... sadly, far from it.