Star Wars - Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader
I couldnt find my original thread on this, I wonder what happened to it, I made it like in August, at any rate,
I completely forgot this came out today! 😱 Has anyone picked it up? Rhonderoo at TFN posted some great excerpts from it. I am SO getting this book.
Spoiler:
The Vader parts of this book rock. Unfortunately like most CW novels, I have a hard time reading random Jedi. But the book couldn't be all Vader, I guess. Luceno has written a very, very good Vader. I recommend it. One interesting thing is he never meant to try to kill Obi-Wan, and instead was trying to keep him with him like Padmé.Here's some random stuff:
This is after Vader has been ruminating on how much pain he's in and how the suit was a prison worse than death. He starts to question if Sidious deliberately engineered this prison, but admonishes himself, stating that's Anakin talking, and Anakin is dead.
Vader recognized the voice of the one who posed the question as the specter of Anakin. Anakin telling him that he was not as powerful as he thought he once was. The little slave boy, cowering because he was not the master of his fate. A mere accessory in the world, owned by another. Passed over.
And now newly enslaved...
He had only wanted to save them! Padmé, from death; Obi-Wan from ignorance. And in the end they failed to recognize his power; to simply accede to him and accept on faith that he knew what was best for them.
Instead Padme was dead and Obi-Wan was running for his life, as stripped of everything as Vader was. Without friends, family, purpose...
Clenching his right hand, he cursed the Force. What had it ever provided him but pain? Torturing him with foresight, with visions he was unable to prevent. Leading him to believe that he had great power when he was little more than a servant.
But no longer, Vader promised himself. The power of the dark side would render the Force subservient, minion rather than ally.
Vader's thoughts in the first chapter I got to that was him (Chapter 9!!! )
This is not seeing
This is not hearing
This is not breathing
This is not living...And on the suit and his life support: (One word here - "Ouch!"😉
Beyond the limbs and everything we knew, the alloy of his limbs were shoddy and the suit was always catching on strips that were anchored to the knee and ankle joints. The tall boots were a poor fit for artificial feet that had no sensors in them, and were raised in the heel forcing him to move with exaggerated caution lest he stumble or topple over. They were so heavy the often felt rooted to the ground, or as if he were moving in high gravity. He had to call on the Force to walk.
He can barely see out of his own damaged corneas and retinas, and hates the mask, calling the cheekbones "needlessly angular". He realizes he is meant to look this way to strike fear as he is modeled after ancient Sith War Droids used to fight the Jedi.
His eardrums were melted in Mustafar's heat, and beyond repair. Soundwaves are transmitted through sensors transmitted in his inner ear.He called his lungs where the med droids truly failed him. He has a control box strapped to his chest, and a thick cable enters his torso, linked to breating appartatus and a heartbeat regulator. The ventilator was implanted into his chest, along with tubes that run directly into his lungs and others that entered his throat, so that should the chest plate develop a glitch, he can breathe unassisted for a limited time (read: long enough to tell his son goodbye).
And this part....
The incessant rasp of this breathing interfered with his ability to rest, let alone sleep. And sleep, in the rare moments it came to him, was a nightmarish jumble of twisted, recurrent memories that unfolded to excruciating sounds.