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cyris_reads's review
adventurous
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
pinkpoodle's review
adventurous
inspiring
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.75
Star Wars fans, this book is for you!
thebearnest's review
adventurous
hopeful
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
jaredkwheeler's review against another edition
1.0
Star Wars Legends Project #315
Background: The Glove of Darth Vader was written by [a:Paul Davids|20276453|Paul Davids|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] and [a:Hollace Davids|30365|Hollace Davids|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] and published in June of 1992. It is the first book in the Jedi Prince series. The Davids, who are married, also wrote the rest of this series.
The Glove of Darth Vader takes place a year after the Battle of Endor (5 years after the battle of Yavin). The main characters are Luke, Leia, Han, Artoo, Threepio, and Chewie, along with the evil Trioculus. The story hops around, but mostly takes place on Kessel, Yavin IV, and Mon Calamari.
Summary: The Emperor is dead and the Empire is in disarray as Imperial warlords battle each other for scraps of power. But a new evil is about to rise, claiming to be the Emperor's heir. According to prophecy, the only thing he needs to lay claim to this power is the lost glove of Darth Vader himself.
Review: Is this a joke? Am I being punk'd? Did the Davids blackmail some poor publisher to get this into print? This is genuinely and without question one of the worst Star Wars things you will ever read (if you're foolish enough to pick it up). Everything is equal parts stupid and poorly-executed. The writing is awful, the characters are awful, the story is awful, the ideas are insane. The only joy you could possibly get while reading this will be the occasional chuckle or chortle of sheer disbelief at something you see that they've written . . . Like whenever the bad guys meet up with each other and say "Dark greetings." A Saturday-morning cartoon villain would be embarrassed to try and make their hellos "evil" by saying "dark" in front of them. Assuming blackmail wasn't involved, whoever waved this through the publication process should be shamed out of the industry for thinking "it doesn't matter if it's terrible, it's for kids" was a justification for this. I doubt it took any longer to write than it took me to read.
The innermost core of the idea is absolutely sound. The Emperor is dead, so the Empire falls into chaos as they search for a new leader. The concept of that leader as an evil mutant spawn of Palpatine is also sound. And even the idea of building the story around an interesting MacGuffin like Darth Vader's glove is . . . fine? Just everything about the execution from there burns away anything that might have had any promise. One of Darth Vader's gloves (but just one) was apparently indestructible. How? Why? What does that even mean? Doesn't matter . . . it just has to be to explain how it survived . . . the destruction of the Death Star? Or the fire on Endor? I should remember which glove it was. I'm sure they said . . . It must have been the Endor one, because Luke sliced through the other one at the wrist in Return of the Jedi, right? And that's why only one of the gloves is indestructible. Too bad they didn't make both out of the same stuff . . . Vader would have won that duel. For that matter, why not make ALL of his armor out of the stuff?
But I feel like I distinctly remember that the glove WAS supposedly on the Death Star when it blew, which makes no sense at all from what we know of the movies. And so they're searching through space for this thing, which . . . again, like JJ Abrams later, the Davids seem to have no concept of the distances involved here. Particularly since the glove somehow ended up (minor spoiler I guess) deep in the oceans of Mon Calamari. It's a thin excuse for us to visit that planet, and that's not a bad choice of planet, honestly. Nor is the unusual pairing of Luke and Admiral Ackbar inherently bad. I could have done without the incredibly ham-fisted "Save the Whales" (sorry, no, "Save the Whaladons") subplot . . . not because I have anything against the message, but because it's such an embarrassingly silly early '90s thing to shoehorn into a Star Wars book. And Star Trek had already done it, and done it much better.
The one thing I will say in defense of this trash, and I can't believe I'm even doing that much, is to acknowledge that it was released in the same month as Timothy Zahn's Dark Force Rising, only a year after Heir to the Empire. That places it right at the beginning of the renaissance of the Expanded Universe that happened throughout the '90s, and as I read there was one thing that this reminded me of over and over: The awful Star Wars Marvel comics run of the '70s and '80s. This feels like it fits squarely within that tradition in terms of the world-building, the characters, the dialogue, etc. . . . just without any of the scant enjoyment that could occasionally be found in the artwork. All we have are the Davids' words . . . their dreadful, amateurish, inadequate words.
F
Background: The Glove of Darth Vader was written by [a:Paul Davids|20276453|Paul Davids|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] and [a:Hollace Davids|30365|Hollace Davids|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] and published in June of 1992. It is the first book in the Jedi Prince series. The Davids, who are married, also wrote the rest of this series.
The Glove of Darth Vader takes place a year after the Battle of Endor (5 years after the battle of Yavin). The main characters are Luke, Leia, Han, Artoo, Threepio, and Chewie, along with the evil Trioculus. The story hops around, but mostly takes place on Kessel, Yavin IV, and Mon Calamari.
Summary: The Emperor is dead and the Empire is in disarray as Imperial warlords battle each other for scraps of power. But a new evil is about to rise, claiming to be the Emperor's heir. According to prophecy, the only thing he needs to lay claim to this power is the lost glove of Darth Vader himself.
Review: Is this a joke? Am I being punk'd? Did the Davids blackmail some poor publisher to get this into print? This is genuinely and without question one of the worst Star Wars things you will ever read (if you're foolish enough to pick it up). Everything is equal parts stupid and poorly-executed. The writing is awful, the characters are awful, the story is awful, the ideas are insane. The only joy you could possibly get while reading this will be the occasional chuckle or chortle of sheer disbelief at something you see that they've written . . . Like whenever the bad guys meet up with each other and say "Dark greetings." A Saturday-morning cartoon villain would be embarrassed to try and make their hellos "evil" by saying "dark" in front of them. Assuming blackmail wasn't involved, whoever waved this through the publication process should be shamed out of the industry for thinking "it doesn't matter if it's terrible, it's for kids" was a justification for this. I doubt it took any longer to write than it took me to read.
The innermost core of the idea is absolutely sound. The Emperor is dead, so the Empire falls into chaos as they search for a new leader. The concept of that leader as an evil mutant spawn of Palpatine is also sound. And even the idea of building the story around an interesting MacGuffin like Darth Vader's glove is . . . fine? Just everything about the execution from there burns away anything that might have had any promise. One of Darth Vader's gloves (but just one) was apparently indestructible. How? Why? What does that even mean? Doesn't matter . . . it just has to be to explain how it survived . . . the destruction of the Death Star? Or the fire on Endor? I should remember which glove it was. I'm sure they said . . . It must have been the Endor one, because Luke sliced through the other one at the wrist in Return of the Jedi, right? And that's why only one of the gloves is indestructible. Too bad they didn't make both out of the same stuff . . . Vader would have won that duel. For that matter, why not make ALL of his armor out of the stuff?
But I feel like I distinctly remember that the glove WAS supposedly on the Death Star when it blew, which makes no sense at all from what we know of the movies. And so they're searching through space for this thing, which . . . again, like JJ Abrams later, the Davids seem to have no concept of the distances involved here. Particularly since the glove somehow ended up (minor spoiler I guess) deep in the oceans of Mon Calamari. It's a thin excuse for us to visit that planet, and that's not a bad choice of planet, honestly. Nor is the unusual pairing of Luke and Admiral Ackbar inherently bad. I could have done without the incredibly ham-fisted "Save the Whales" (sorry, no, "Save the Whaladons") subplot . . . not because I have anything against the message, but because it's such an embarrassingly silly early '90s thing to shoehorn into a Star Wars book. And Star Trek had already done it, and done it much better.
The one thing I will say in defense of this trash, and I can't believe I'm even doing that much, is to acknowledge that it was released in the same month as Timothy Zahn's Dark Force Rising, only a year after Heir to the Empire. That places it right at the beginning of the renaissance of the Expanded Universe that happened throughout the '90s, and as I read there was one thing that this reminded me of over and over: The awful Star Wars Marvel comics run of the '70s and '80s. This feels like it fits squarely within that tradition in terms of the world-building, the characters, the dialogue, etc. . . . just without any of the scant enjoyment that could occasionally be found in the artwork. All we have are the Davids' words . . . their dreadful, amateurish, inadequate words.
F
shane_tiernan's review against another edition
2.0
Reading this with my 10 year old. He loves it but man is it bad.
UPDATE: Just finished this 85 page novel last night. It stayed about the same. Crappy diabolical villain-speak, uncharacteristic dialogue from well known characters such as Luke and Admiral Akbar. Abrupt ending. Silly illustrations. But he liked it because it's Star Wars, so we'll read the next 2 in the series.
My 2 stars "It was okay" rating is because he liked it.
UPDATE: Just finished this 85 page novel last night. It stayed about the same. Crappy diabolical villain-speak, uncharacteristic dialogue from well known characters such as Luke and Admiral Akbar. Abrupt ending. Silly illustrations. But he liked it because it's Star Wars, so we'll read the next 2 in the series.
My 2 stars "It was okay" rating is because he liked it.
artemisreads's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.5
hstapp's review against another edition
2.0
This book tells a tale about the reformation of the empire under a new ruler, the emperors own son!
It is an okay story if you can get past the weird incongruities and what appears to be a disdain for aliens from the authors themselves.
To be fair it was one of the earliest books written in the star wars EU but calling Admiral Ackbar a fishman from Calamari, and having him blindly follow Luke who is only a commander are both quite...Interesting choices.
I feel like a lot of other authors writing in the eu must have felt the same way, because very little of what takes place in this book is ever carried forward.
It is an okay story if you can get past the weird incongruities and what appears to be a disdain for aliens from the authors themselves.
To be fair it was one of the earliest books written in the star wars EU but calling Admiral Ackbar a fishman from Calamari, and having him blindly follow Luke who is only a commander are both quite...Interesting choices.
I feel like a lot of other authors writing in the eu must have felt the same way, because very little of what takes place in this book is ever carried forward.
olivas512's review
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
aknas22's review against another edition
2.0
Ok so before reading this book I read some of the reviews so I was forewarned about how bad it was going to be. The writing is awful, unless maybe you're a kid. But the adventure was ok so I gave it 2 stars. I read this book because as far as I could tell it was part of the Star Wars canon. Actually despite everything it was kind of enjoyable. The dialogue and descriptions had me chuckling in parts because of how over the top it was.
daftfader's review
2.0
This was an odd book. Most characters are very different to those in the movie, and quite heavy leaning on eco friendly message. I am glad I finally read book one in the series, as when I first got the books, I only had book 2-4, so filling in the blanks is an interesting experience. The second books is also the first book where the main protagonist is introduced.