Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor

"None of the stories people tell about me can change who I really am."
―Luke Skywalker[3]

Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor is a standalone novel by Matthew Stover that chronicles the Battle of Mindor. It was originally scheduled to be released in hardcover in February 2008 by Del Rey, but was later moved to October 21 before being eventually released on December 30. The paperback was released on February 23, 2010.

Publisher's summary

Hardcover

Back cover

Overthrowing the dark side's empire has made them heroes. But underestimating the fury of the Sith will make them targets.

Internal flap

Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader are dead. The Empire has been toppled by the triumphant Rebel Alliance, and the New Republic is ascendant. But the struggle against the dark side and the Sith order is not over. Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Han Solo, Lando Calrissian, and their faithful comrades have had little time to savor victory before being called on to defend the newly liberated galaxy.

Powerful remnants of the vanquished Empire, hungry for retaliation, are still at large, committing acts of piracy, terrorism, and wholesale slaughter against the worlds of the fledgling Republic. The most deadly of these, a ruthless legion of black-armored stormtroopers, do the brutal bidding of the newly risen warlord Shadowspawn. Striking from a strategically advantageous base at the planet Mindor, they are waging campaigns of plunder and destruction, demolishing order and security across the galaxy—and breeding fears of an Imperial resurgence. And another reign of darkness beneath the boot-heel of Sith despotism is something General Luke Skywalker cannot and will not risk.

Mobilizing the ace fighters of Rogue Squadron—along with the trusty Chewbacca, Threepio, and Artoo-Detoo—Luke, Han, and Leia set out to take the battle to the enemy at the site of its stronghold, and neutralize the threat before it's too late. But their imminent onslaught against Mindor will be playing directly into the hands of their cunning new adversary. Lord Shadowspawn is no freshly anointed Sith Chieftain, but in fact a vicious former Imperial Intelligence officer—and Prophet of the Dark Side. The Emperor's death has paved the way for Shadowspawn's return from exile in the Outer Rim; and mastery of ancient Sith knowledge and modern technology has given him the capability to mount the ultimate power play for galaxy-wide dominion. Dark prophecy has foretold that only one obstacle stands in his way, and he is ready—even eager—for the confrontation.

All the classic heroes, all the explosive action and adventure, all the unparalleled excitement of Star Wars come breathlessly alive here, as the further adventures of Luke Skywalker continue.

Plot summary

The Taspan system is a hellish cataclysm, the site of an Imperial gravitic weapons gone awry that reduced the second planet into a chaotic asteroid field and showered the first planet, Mindor, with devastating debris. The cascade of shattered planetary material into the star has unsettled the system's primary, causing scorching solar flare activity and tipping the star inexorably toward nova. This apocalyptic system is a fitting base of operations for such a theatrical villain as Lord Shadowspawn, the latest Imperial tyrant to challenge the New Republic. Shadowspawn has many names and faces. Often portrayed by proxies, he appears as a towering humanoid in flowing dark robes and moon-shaped helm. Shadowspawn is an alias of Lord Cronal, a former Emperor's hand and an aged, decrepit man once also known as Blackhole. Force-sensitive, Cronal has transcended the dichotomy of dark side/light side that preoccupied the Sith and Jedi of old. Instead, he is devoted to a nihilistic ethos centered on the Dark, the inevitable, entropic force of destruction. Like other dark side devotees, he is also obsessed with immortality, and he has hatched a plan to seize it.

Repeated raids on New Republic ships have scored Shadowspawn legions of hostages. When reports trace his activities to Mindor, General Luke Skywalker leads a New Republic task force to the blighted world to confront the dark sider. A gravity bomb shreds Luke's flagship, but the Jedi successfully lands the tortured remains of the ship on the planet. There he surrenders himself to the Shadow Stormtroopers – black-armor-clad soldiers loyal to Shadowspawn. Amid Shadowspawn's cultists, Luke Skywalker is oddly venerated by the brainwashed horde. They call him Emperor Skywalker and deem him to be the worthy successor to the Emperor's throne – an opinion apparently based on a pulpy holothriller, Luke Skywalker and the Jedi's Revenge. Luke sees firsthand the twisted machinations of Shadowspawn. He has used his Force ability as well as technology to mold an odd mineral on Mindor called meltmassif – a rock that can liquefy and also transmit energy. He has impregnated fibrous strands of meltmassif into the minds of his followers through shadow crowns, allowing him control of his pawns. Shadowspawn even subjects Luke's mind to a meltmassif invasion. He intends to use the mineral as a conduit to transfer his consciousness into Luke, who would then bodily inherit a legion of followers ready to proclaim him Emperor.

Luke's friends soon join him on Mindor – Leia follows impressions in the Force that tell her Luke is in danger. She brings Han and Chewie with her aboard the Millennium Falcon and convinces Rogue Squadron to come along against orders. When General Lando Calrissian learns of this, he redirects a task force to Mindor, bolstered by Fenn Shysa's Mandalorians, who are allied to the New Republic. They must battle Shadowspawn's space defenses as well as the volatile of the gravity-strained star system. For a moment, the New Republic ships are trapped in the system, pinned in a place by gravity projectors and threatened by the impeding nova. On Mindor, Leia and Han tangle with Aeona Cantor, the hardened leader of the local resistance. After a series of tense misunderstandings and fighting, they eventually recognize each other as allies and join forces to explore the depths of Mindor, seeing to free Luke and the pawns of Lord Shadowspawn.

Luke defends himself against Shadowspawn, but discovers the villain in the robe to be an imposter under the influence of a shadow crown. Luke tears the crown free, returning will to the thrall. It is Nick Rostu, a Clone Wars veteran, disguised by Shadowspawn to be his proxy. Luke brings Nick with him to the Millennium Falcon, where Nick reunites with his lover Aeona. Through his meltmassif connection with Luke, Shadowspawn comes to understand that Leia is a more fitting receptacle for his consciousness. He dispatches the mighty Kar Vastor, one of his mind-controlled warriors, to kidnap Leia. Luke pursues Vastor into Mindor's depths and does battle with the hulking warrior. Rather than kill his opponent, Luke uses the Force and the meltmassif still contained in his body to free Vastor's mind. The flood of light causes Shadowspawn to retreat from Vastor's body and back into his withered form. Shadowspawn escapes from Mindor in a rocky starship concealed in a volcano. Shadowspawn exhibits his ultimate control over his shadow stormtroopers by having them turn on Luke. In a great display of Force ability, Luke frees the troopers from their meltmassif influence, but trips a dead man switch within their bodies that kills thousands of troopers. An act of liberation becomes a massacre, and Luke is haunted by what he will later describe as a mass murder.

Defeated, Shadowspawn retreats into hyperspace. Nick and Aeona agree to continue their search for him, with Kar Vastor as a surprising ally. Shaken by the experiences on Mindor, Luke has an old friend of Nick's, Lorz Geptun, investigate the mission to see if Skywalker is culpable of war crimes. Geptun's analysis paints Luke as a hero. Nonetheless, he is haunted by Mindor and considers this his last military campaign. He resigns his commission as a general in the New Republic military.

Continuity

Matthew Stover stated on his blog that "Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor is my attempt to get the EU back to its pre-Zahn roots -- specifically, to evoke memories of my all-time favorite Star Wars books, Brian Daley's Han Solo novels."[4]

Beginning with its structure, with a frame story and an inner narrative, evidence abounds that the bulk of Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor, complete with opening crawl, excessively colorful language and a curiously-named villain, is, in fact, the mostly fictional basis for a holothriller or a novelization thereof, penned by one of the characters of the frame story. This would put the majority of the book into a quantum state of being possibly, but not certainly, canonically true. Two interviews with Stover, linked to on his blog, lend credence to this theory.[5] Throughout the novel, C-3PO's name is misspelled C-3P0 (with a zero instead of an "oh").

In addition to be a rousing adventure, Shadows of Mindor was a deliberately postmodern rumination on the authenticity of heroic accounts. The novel acknowledges that the Star Wars heroes live in a galaxy of stories, where their exploits are celebrated as legendary tales. The story's finale purposely suggested that the entire account may be a dramatized telling from a less than reliable, ultimately biased storyteller.[6]

Cronal had a peculiar origin as a villain, as he was pieced together from three separate, unrelated accounts. He first appeared as Blackhole, an immaterial holographic foe in some of the earliest Star Wars newspaper comic strips by Russ Manning, published in 1979, and then was largely forgotten. West End Games’ Gamemaster Screen for Second Edition (1992) included abbreviated story ideas for the roleplaying game, such as a story that featured Lord Cronal, described as “one of the Emperor's most powerful dark-side servants” and “a powerful scientist and mystic.” [6]

The Dark Empire Sourcebook (1993) by Michael Allen Horne, published by West End Games, mada a single mention of a Lord Shadowspawn among the early villains of the New Republic. In "The Emperor's Pawns," an article that appeared in Star Wars Gamer #5 (2001), author Abel G. Peña wove those histories together into a connected story that Shadows of Mindor would build upon.[6]

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Notes and references

  1. ↑ PenguinRandomHouse-Logo Matthew Stover on Random House's official website (original site is defunct)
  2. ↑ StarWars.com Sue Rostoni on the StarWars.com Message Boards (content obsolete and backup link not available)
  3. ↑ Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor
  4. ↑ Blogger-Logo StoverBlog — Hey on Blogspot (February 25, 2007) (backup link)
  5. ↑ Blogger-Logo StoverBlog — Ahoy on Blogspot (March 5, 2009) (backup link)
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 The Essential Reader's Companion

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