With Crosscurrent coming out next week, the news team thought we would try to find as many stories to tie into it as we can - Jaden Korr was Kyle Katarn’s apprentice, he first showed up in a Jedi Knight game (one of the sequels to Dark Forces) - so that’s how I came to be reviewing this book. I shy away from using the phrase Graphic Novel. I like comic books - I just happen to like them collected into Trade Paperbacks nowadays, but they’re still comic books to me. Dark Forces is quite another thing though - and easily fits the moniker Graphic Novel - it’s really a short story with occasional one page artwork thrown in showing you a part of a scene. If you’re wondering how this format worked for me, I’ll go into a detailed review after the break. 

Soldier for the Empire covers the early part of Kyle Katarn’s career - mostly the time just prior to the first Dark Forces game.  I’ve played the first Dark Forces game, and I’m aware enough of the first sequel -Jedi Knight- to be aware of the connections that the author is trying to make in this ‘prequel’. We’re introduced to Jerec right from the get go - Kyle’s future enemy. Jerec has more to do with Kyle’s fate than I ever realized - hunting down Kyle’s father to retrieve some kind of map. Despite all Jerec’s attempts to make it look like a Rebel raid, Kyle is ultimately shown the truth about his father’s death - driving him to join the rebellion against the empire.

But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. First we’re introduced to Kyle’s father Morgan, who seems a simple farmer at first. But as the Imperial raid begins, we discover he’s actually a Rebel commander for his planet - and he also is strong in the Force. Plus he won the lotto. Ok, not that last thing - but frankly, it was a little over the top for me that Morgan Katarn just happens to be all of these things - plus he seems to have been the keeper of some kind of map he was given by a Jedi (yes, another Jedi who survived the Purge)… he’s just a little too important. I’m sure a lot of this has to do with the Videogame itself - keeping the story simple - but would it have killed them to have Morgan at least not be the one leading the Rebel group.

We get into the minds of the Imperials going on the raid - which is all well and good, but they seem to have nothing to do with the rest of the story - and when the whole book is only around 130 pages, that seemed a bit of a waste to me. Especially considering how quick things start to move at the end. But before that, we get to see Kyle’s last training mission through the Imperial Academy - upon completion of this mission, he get’s to graduate. But the reality of killing Rebels is much different than Kyle thought it would be  - and when faced with the chance to kill some Rebel leaders (including a woman whom he feels a deep connection to - can you guess who) he winds up showing them compassion.

But because his mission was successful he winds up graduating with honors - and taking a little furlough before getting his first assignment. On the cruise starship he finds himself on with one of his pals from the academy - he runs into the same Rebel girl, Jan Ors, who just happens to have recordings of the truth of what happened to Kyle’s father. He then joins the cause - leaving behind a career as a Stormtrooper that never really got started, and joining just in time to be sent on a very important mission to retrieve the plans for the Death Star from an Imperial facility. But when Jan is sent along to spy on him and make sure he isn’t actually a spy for the Empire - it leads to some nice additional scenes that you don’t get when playing the first level of the game Dark Forces - and was one of my favorite parts of the book.

But there was a lot that I didn’t care for. Jan seems to be this big rebel leader - instead of just being a Rebel pilot. Everyone’s roles just seem that much larger and more important - and events move so swiftly that it felt like very little detail was given or world building was going on. There were way to many references to everyone being an ‘agent’. Like Kyle’s name would be mentioned at the beginning of a paragraph - but from then on the author would call him ‘the agent’ (The agent then opened the air vent.). It was odd phrasing and not really necessary. I actually felt like once the mission into the Imperial Base began (the starting point of the game) - I couldn’t follow the story anymore. I’m not sure if the author was being too faithful to the game, or was just unable to convey the way the mission happens - but I felt lost.

The artwork throughout is ok; I wasn’t blow away, but it didn’t detract from the work. There were some highlights to the story - I liked the minor appearance by Thrawn and some of the additional background scenes - plus I think the connection made to Jerec will really pay off in the final book, Jedi Knight (which will be my next review, since my library doesn’t carry Rebel Agent). But in all, I wasn’t that impressed with Soldier for the Empire. It’s a short book though, so if you’re curious at least it’s not a huge time sink.