<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: A good Star Wars story if you're looking for a light read.
Review: "Soldier for the Empire" is an entertaining and fun Star Wars story on its own, but it's really geared toward those who are already fans of the "Dark Forces" computer game. While I enjoyed this book, I felt that the (often odd) illustrations hampered my experience as a reader. The book would have been better served using the artwork as chapter breaks, rather than having it so often disrupt your own mental picture of the story. Also, and more purely from a continuity point of view, "Soldier for the Empire" takes some liberties with established Star Wars characters, which may be annoying to those readers who are fans of the "Dark Forces" games and the Star Wars universe in general.
All in all, "Soldier for the Empire" is an entertaining piece of Star Wars fiction, but it is not particularly well-written or especially well-illustrated.
Rating: 
Summary: Dietz could help to write Episodes 2 & 3
Review: Great book, actually, a great trilogy, if you get the hardcover editions they also make a great display for any respectable collection. The writing is down to earth, yet descriptive and complete, leaves you wanting to know more, especially great is the step by step narration Dietz makes of the first Dark Forces level. The illustrations are great, but i found a couple of errors in this book: Acording to JK game, Kyle doesn't get his lightsaber until level three of the game, this book refers to Dark Forces, so why is he painted with a saber in the cover and other 2 illustrations? Also, when he meets Jan, the description tells us he's wearing a Stortrooper armor, yet in the drawing he's not...great book, nevertheless...
Rating:
Summary: Reads like a bullet, and leaves nothing out.
Review: I had this book for a year before I actually read it. Since I primarily bought it for the great, poster quality, painted, full page illustrations it didn't matter. Besides I was under the impression that it was a "juvenile", a kid's book. Yeah, right, this is about as much a juvenile as is Heilein's _Starship Troopers_. There are some very gritty combat scenes here- and very well developed characters of depth. This is amazing in a novella of less than 120 pages (after you subtract the illustration pages.) There are hack writers out there that would have told this same story in 300 or 400, or more, pages, but Dietz does it in less than 120 without ommitting any detail, atmosphere, or continuity. That's the mark of a very skilled writer. Combined with the cover quality illustrations this book is practically a cinema quality experience all by itself. Moreover, I had not read the first two books of the trilogy, nor played the games, yet the book held together on its own.
Another thing, for a book that is so good on the combat and technical atmosphere, the metaphysics are also very satisfying. The tale of Lord Hoth and the Army of Light is truly worthy of the best of the Star Wars mythos. Indeed, it could almost be a grand finale in itself.
As a measure of how "in" to this I got, I finally ordered that universal remote shaped like a light saber for the TV. Hey, I needed a new remote anyway....
Rating:
Summary: Love Star Wars....love this book.
Review: I really enjoyed this book AND the illustrations. These beautiful paintings are really imaginative. It is an exciting adventure with new characters and some really amazing images. It made me want to know more and more about Kyle Katarn and the other characters they introduced. Although I don't get into the computer games, if they are anything like the images in the book, I bet they're really cool looking. I'm looking forward to reading the other books in THE DARK FORCES series while I wait for the new film.
Rating:
Summary: D2 Difference?
Review: In this final installment of the trilogy, just as the contributors changed from the first to the second book, a change was again made, and this makes the final installment the superior of the 3. Artist David Dorman was selected to illustrate this book; since he is a fixture in the Star Wars Realm he brings more credibility to the work. Mr. Dorman, or one of the other long-term illustrators should have been involved in this project from beginning to end. The other basic change was the involvement of core characters from Star Wars that everybody who is a fan is familiar with. The role-playing games and the video games are widely played and very popular. However the audience is smaller, and as this series found out, it is not large enough to support a stand-alone series of novellas, which are overpriced, and repetitive. The problem with this series is there is just too much of a gap between the Star Wars Universe as we know it as moviegoers and book readers, and these adaptations from the role-playing and video experiences. There is a way to greatly improve the readability of this series if you want to make it part of your collection. "Mastadge" has a great list of some of the illustrated soft cover books that cover the background and the ancient portions of the Jedi and Sith Histories. They cover material you will find nowhere else, and they will add a new dimension to your library, and to your understanding of this ongoing epic. Some of the titles to check out are, "Knights Of The Old Republic", "Dark Lords Of The Sith", and "The Sith War". They are all available through Amazon, and while I have enjoyed many of them, I have never reviewed the works. But as I said, Mastadge has reviewed almost all the varieties of Star Wars writing, and the list he has put together is well done.
Rating:
Summary: Out Of Step
Review: It has been years since I originally read this series, this particular episode, "Rebel Agent", is the second in a three-part cycle. This trilogy is based upon the role-playing games and I believe some of the video experiences. However they are out of synch with the rest of "Star Wars", and this is an issue. Previously I have commented on how seamlessly the books that now approach 200 in number have fit together, how all were worth the reading time, for bits and pieces of history were to be gleaned from their review. This particular cycle offered full-page paintings by a noted artist of the Science Fiction Genre, and while some readers would have preferred their mind's eye, I think they are good, if inconsistent. Specifically the image that is supposed to portray Princess Leia looks like her less than attractive sister. There is no sister, and there should not have been this image. At 128 pages in length, backtracking the story as if the reader decided to start in the middle is simply wrong. Star Wars readers tend to read everything, and if the story is weak, or too brief, then perhaps there should be a different story. Characters like Boba Fett have developed their personalities over the decades, and the version of Fett in this book reads as though the writer never read a word about this character before. Fett sounds like a bad lounge act. Fett actually sounds like someone else dressed in the Mandalorian Armor. This caricature speaks more in this book, than in a dozen other novels, and trite is being kind as to the dialogue. If someone were to start with this series after viewing the movies, they would be correct in feeling lost. These books populate the galaxy with Dark Side Jedi at every turn. They must have been hiding in the movies. There is one interesting bit as to Yoda's history, and it may sound strange to some, but if you are as addicted to this world of George Lucas as I am, it nearly justifies the balance.
Rating:
Summary: The Game was better
Review: Soldier for the Empire is a rather odd graphic novel. It combines a short book with illustrations that vary from strong to below average. It expands on the Dark Forces series of video games, and follows Kyle Katarn from his days as an Imperial agent to becoming one of the most trusted agents of the Alliance, to his days as a Jedi Knight. The book had its moments, and most of the illustrations did the games, and the Star Wars universe credit. Unfortunately, there were some problems with the story (the sequence on the asteroid was a bit questionable so far as realism goes), and the drawings sometimes referred to the wrong pages. The book is better than its sequel, Rebel Agent, but comes up short when taking on the finale to the series, Jedi Knight. Buy that one instead, it isn't hard to figure out what's going on, particularly if you have played the game.
Rating:
Summary: Not as good as the others
Review: The first Dark Forces "graphic story album," Soldier for the Empire, was a very good and beautifully illustrated book. Unfortunately, the sequel falls short in many ways. Picking up the action again after the Kyle Katarn's exploits in the Dark Forces computer game, this book takes place somewhere between Return of the Jedi and the conquest of Coruscant in the X-Wing novels. It details the first half of the Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight computer game, instead of being more of an original story like the Soldier, with mixed results. At times, the action is like the last chapter of Soldier, almost word for word out of the game. At other times though, it's hard to place what's going on. Also, for obvious reasons, the book can't parallel the game detail for detail. There are more characters and details filled in between missions. While the first book was well and succinctly written, this one is far too much so; it would have benefitted immeasurably from another fifty pages or so of materiel. Kyle, even with the extra stuff going on not in the game, seems to jump from adventure to adventure, unevenly able to call on the Force, and sometimes the chapters and situations seem to lose focus, or switch POVs without breaks. It's kind of annoying. And the ease with which Kyle takes out Pic and Gorc...straight out of Indiana Jones...just whip out the blaster and shoot the guy. It was kind of silly. Probably the most dissatisfying bit about this book though is the quality of illustrations. While by no means bad, the art can't stand up with Dorman's literal renditions in Jedi Knight, and certainly isn't even comparable to William's beautiful renditions in Soldier for the Empire. Despite all this, the book isn't that bad. It still has a bunch of cool action, evil enemies, witty dialogue, and even though it is very incomplete, the you know that there'll be a sequel to wind everything up. This book ent so good, but I'm looking forward to the third one.
Rating:
Summary: Great! Encore! Dietz Does It Again!
Review: The illustrations for the book were atsounding and very impressive. The story itself was at its peak for the Star Wars series and computer game, Dark Forces.
Rating: 
Summary: The best of the Trilogy
Review: This book continues the adventures of Kyle Katarn, a young man who is training to become a Jedi. It is by far the best of the trilogy, which began with Soldier for the Empire. The novella is generally pretty good, connecting chapters (levels in the game) pretty well, and developing on Jan and Kyle properly. The plot is not too bad, and the illustrations are great. The drawings alone make this the best of the series, but the plot thickens as a bonus. Still, the novella fails to improve on some of the other books failings. The long and drawn out lightsaber battles in the movies and the game are shortened to just a few paragraphs in length, if that. Maw's duel with the young Kyle lasted no more than three sentences, and Selonia somehow manages to lose a battle she clearly has the upper hand in. While not quite as dissappointing (or as humorous) as Gorc's demise in Rebel Agent, the battles are still far too short for their own good, and a character who ends up dying early is developed almost as fully as Jan and Kyle are. Still, this is probably the best of the series, and a fine ending the trilogy. If you don't have the other two, buy this one first to see if this is the kind of book you want. It won't be very hard to catch on to what happened in the others, and the money you save if you don't like it will be worth it.
<< 1 >>
| 
