@Reverend
I agree wholeheartedly. Shadows of the Empire was excellent. I recently re-read the book again and have been listening to the excellent soundtrack too. Track 8 called "Night Skies" is an excellent mix of the Imperial theme, Vader's theme, Luke's theme, Binary Sunset, with an ominous Vader theme at the end.
It reminded me of the orchestral theme at the end of the Mandalorian season 2 finale. I played the hell out of Shadows on the N64 and it was one of 10 titles, I bought in the first three months of owning an N64 in 1996. I liked the fact that Lucas had said Shadows was G canon until Disney. I only wished the novel was longer with the side stories of the comics and game included, especially the bounty hunter fights, playing hot potato keep away with a carbon frozen Solo. I know part of it was in the Excellent Tales of the bounty hunters anthology. I recommend reading that anthology and the Tales of Jabba's Palace for the Fett story too.
It's too bad none of the Shadows characters AREN'T a part of the Vintage collection but Amon Nor from NJO was? Stupidly. Go figure.
Xizor died too easily. I wanted Xizor to be a force user and a fight with Vader one on one. Perry did a great job with the story, but Xizor's sexual escapades and sleeping with Guri was just downright creepy towards the end. It didn't serve the story. Xizor was acting like a lizard creeper near the end. Needed to go.
Dash Rendar looked like Kevin Costner most times. Ditch those stupid 1980s shoulder pads. Rendar needed less of a Solo look, and more original. I'm thinking trench coat and flair, and twin powerful blaster pistols, worn backwards, but keep the Corellian bloodstripe. Rendar needed to one up Solo. Leebo needed more to do in the story. Leebo was 22 years before Lando's L3.
Why did Disney leave out the bounty hunters more in the Sequel Trilogy made no sense. Someone needs to do a Oceans 11 with a bunch of bounty hunters in the original trilogy timeline.
I never knew Doug Chiang designed the Outrider. What a ship. Just as awesome as the Falcon. I loved the gun turret sequence in the N64 in the Hoth System asteroid field.
But, most importantly the Xizor/Vader competition for Luke Skywalker wasn't original to Shadows of the Empire, but was originally in Lucas's 1981 rough draft of Revenge of the Jedi.
Cheers all,
-Koric