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Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.0876208
EAN: 9780553578768
ISBN: 0553578766
Label: Spectra
Manufacturer: Spectra
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 368
Publication Date: 1997-11-03
Publisher: Spectra
Product Release Date: 1997-11-03
Studio: Spectra

Culled from the pages of the Star Wars Adventure Journal, one of the most popular Star Wars magazines in the field today, comes this exciting new short-story collection. Here are stories from such award-winning and New York Times bestselling authors as Timothy Zahn, Michael A. Stackpole and Kathy Tyers as well as exciting newcomers, including Erin Endom, Laurie Burns, and Patricia A. Jackson. From the desperate flight of a civilian mail courier carrying vital Rebel intelligence through an Imperial blockade, to a suicidal commando raid on an impregnable Imperial prison, to a Corellian smuggler mysteriously hired by an actor turned Jedi Knight turned Imperial assassin for one final transformation, these tales capture all the high adventure, imaginative genius, and nonstop action that are the hallmarks of the Star Wars saga.

What's more, the centerpiece of this magnificent collection is the short novel Side Trip, the first-ever collaboration between Timothy Zahn and Michael A. Stackpole, in which a freighter smuggling arms for the Rebels is commandeered by an Imperial Star Destroyer led by a mysterious helmeted figure who claims to be the notorious bounty hunter Jodo Kast. It is all part of a devious plan that includes Hal and Corran Horn, who are working undercover to nail the infamous Corellian warlord Zekka Thyne. But one slip-up can get them all killed.

Collected for the first time, Star Wars(r): Tales from the Empire is one book no fan will want to be without.

(r), TM and (c) 1997 Lucasfilm Ltd. All rights reserved. Used under authorization.

Customer Rating:
Review Summary: great book
Review: i loved this book becouse you got to see what alot of the characters were like before they became heros of the new republic or before they knew they were jedi. this is a really great book to read.

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Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Far-Flung Reaches of the Empire
Review: Tales from the Empire contains ten stories told by several different authors, including Timothy Zahn and Michael Stackpole. They finish the book with an excellent joint effort in four parts called "Side Trip." The tales in this book have been culled from the Star Wars Adventure Journal, and they give the reader a chance to explore the off-screen characters, planets, conflicts, and stories that fill the Star Wars universe.

One of the highlights of the book is "Missed Chance'" by Michael Stackpole. We get to spend time with Corran Horn and his sassy droid Whistler as they help a team of Rebels escape from the planet Garqi. Then in the last tale in the book we meet Corran again along with his dad Hal. Another highlight is an early look at Mara Jade in Timothy Zahn's "First Contact." The book as a whole deals with situations such as a civilian mail courier trying to carry vital Rebel intelligence through an Imperial blockade, an apparently impossible commando raid on an impregnable Imperial prison to rescue two children, and a Corellian smuggler hired by a mysterious Jedi knight to take him on a puzzling errand. All good stuff.

The writing in the book is good, the characters are interesting, and we get to learn about new areas of Star Wars. Give Tales from the Empire a shot.

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Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Mix of good and bad stories not particularly connected to the Empire
Review: Unlike the short story collections centered around the Mos Eisley Cantina, Episode V's bounty hunters, and Jabba's Palace, Tales from the Empire does not present content written specifically for a book. Rather, these stories are compiled from the Star Wars Adventure Journal, a periodical published in the 1990's by RPG licensee West End Games. For the most part, the authors are not from the usual gang of Bantam Spectra suspects, with the exceptions of Timothy Zahn, Kathy Tyers, and Michael Stackpole. When the Star Wars Adventure Journal began publication, they wanted a New York Times-bestselling author for the launch issue. Zahn had already completed the outstandingly successful Thrawn Trilogy and had no plans to write more in the Expanded Universe. Happily, the magazine's editor persuaded him to offer up some fresh content exclusive to the journal. Conversely, Stackpole's X-wing: Rogue Squadron had yet to be published, so his short story contribution acted as a preview for the novel to come.

Zahn's solo contribution "First Contact" tells us of how the former Emperor's Hand Mara Jade came to be in the service of rogue Talon Karrde. Talon is a well-written character and it's enjoyable to see him on one of his earlier adventures. Mara doesn't come into the story much but as always, Zahn provides an intriguing plotline, even in the brief length of this tale.

Stackpole's tale "Missed Chance" introduces former CorSec officer Corran Horn and his faithful astromech Whistler. Corran is stranded on the planet Garqi and is spearheading a scheme to simultaneously get away and damage the local representatives of the Empire. Tyers continues the saga of her character Tynian, introduced in Tales of the Bounty Hunters, with an origin story detailing the circumstances that led her to her life as a gun-for-hire and rogue.

The final story of the novel is an interesting collaboration between Stackpole and Zahn. Titled "Side Trip," the story is split into four parts (two for each author) and it more of a novella than a short story. Fan favorite Grand Admiral Thrawn is featured, along with Corran Horn once again. The labyrinthine plot has Zahn's stamp all over, and the twists and turns are good fun.

The other authors have a wide range of backgrounds and the quality of the stories is equally varied. Two that stood out are Laurie Burns' "Retreat from Coruscant" and "Do No Harm" by Erin Endom. Burns places her story right before the Empire's re-taking of Coruscant (the starting point of the famous Dark Horse comic saga Dark Empire). It involves two mail couriers swept up in the action as the New Republic attempts to evacuate the planet and move their operations to a new base. This time period would be fertile ground for a future novel. Endom's story is a first-person perspective of a medic sent along on a Rebel strike mission and learning of the horrors of warfare first-hand.

The other tales are largely solid and well-written. One which didn't hold up so well is Patricia Jackson's "The Final Exit," a story of a Dark Jedi's past which suffers from being severely over-written and a bit pretentious. It's OK to use the word "said" once in a while when a character speaks! In this story, everyone whispers, chuckles, grins, replies, demands, spits, blurts - there are so many descriptions it became a distraction to me. Using more neutral language allows the reader to interject some of their own interpretation of mood and tone, which makes for a more compelling reading experience.

Tales from the Empire is a solid if not particularly vital piece of the Expanded Universe; recommended for someone looking for a change of pace from the usual characters or someone wanting to learn more about Zahn and Stackpole's key characters.

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Customer Rating:
Review Summary: The adventures continue in this fine Star Wars anthology....
Review: Even though George Lucas' six-film Star Wars saga focuses intensely on a relatively small group of characters (the Skywalker family and the various Jedi and Sith Lords that tied their personal destiny to that of the rise and fall of the Galactic Empire), its setting ("a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away....") was, and still is, a very huge canvas onto which many other stories can be easily included. Many fans, either by playing with their action figures as children or by writing fan fiction, created their own personal additions to the Star Wars universe and, at least in their own imagination, took part in the noble struggle between good and evil that's one of the building blocks of this modern day mythology.

Eventually, as Peter Schweighofer, editor of Tales From the Empire, writes in his introduction to this 1997 anthology of short stories, the action figures were put away and the fan fiction stories stashed away in drawers or file cabinets, but the fans' appetite for new Star Wars stories -- on film and on the printed page -- never really went away. And with the 1991 publication of Timothy Zahn's Heir to the Empire, the fans received a cornucopia of "further adventures" featuring not only the beloved heroes from the movies but a whole new cast of allies and adversaries.

Tales From the Empire is a collection of nine short stories that first appeared in West End Games' Star Wars Adventure Journal, plus a short novel (Side Trip) co-written by two of the best writers of Star Wars fiction, Timothy Zahn and Michael A. Stackpole. Most of these brief excursions into Lucas' galaxy are set during the time of the Galactic Civil War and/or the first few years of the post-Endor New Republic era, with entirely original characters -- Darth Vader makes a cameo in the Zahn/Stackpole novel and events that took place in the films (the Death Star's destruction at Yavin) are mentioned in passing -- that inhabit the millions of star systems in the strife-torn vastness of space.

Although the stories by Kathy Tyers (The Truce at Bakura), Stackpole (the X-Wing series creator), and Zahn are as well-written as their published Star Wars novels, credit must also be given to lesser known writers as Tony Russo, Laurie Burns, and Angela Phillips, whose tale of a young hacker ("slicer" in Star Wars terminology) who joins the Rebellion in the face of her parents' opposition ("Slaying Dragons") is among the best pieces of short fiction I have read in a while.

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Customer Rating:
Review Summary: So that's why they're the dark side...
Review: This has about 10 stories in it, the last being of 4 parts, written by both master authors, Timothy Zahn(my personal favorite) and Michael A. Stackpole, a great author in his own right. This last tale takes up about 100 pages and is really good. In fact, Many of these tales are quite good. One is about a medic assisting a recue team at an Imperial prison, one describes how Mara Jade came into Talon Karrde's service, and the others are good too. I highly recommend this collection of tales.

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