Shadow DawnChris Claremont & George Lucas
Bantam, paperback, 514 pages, £5.99
Review by David Clark (1998)
‘By Chris Claremont, story by George Lucas’. Two of a kind; Lucas is the creator of the blockbusting Star Wars and Indiana Jones series and inspirer of countless spin-offs, and Claremont is the (re)creator of the big-selling X-Men comic, inspirer of a few more spin-offs (a few other comic books no doubt, plus the tiresome Teenage Mutant Git Ninja Turtles). Both like to dumb down, to make everything understandable to the average pre-pubescent American (as Claremont and Lucas envision them). Both are near-to-full-time purveyors of pernicious, boring crap that is, mostly, bad for your children, bad for everyone else’s children, bad for you and most of all bad for the poor hacks who get sent it to review.
This particular sprawling fantasy adventure, full of easy-to-identify-with characters and cheap pseudo-drama, is no exception to Claremont and Lucas’ shameful oeuvre(s). A sequel to their Shadow Moon, Shadow Dawn will go down well with their respective fans and many other lovers of fantasy which, sadly, kind of proves the point I made above. Shadow Dawn (like its pestilential predecessor) is also a sequel to Willow, George Lucas’s fantasy film of 1998. Well, Willow wasn’t entirely without merit, but Shadow Dawn bloody well is.
Yes, Gentle Reader, you are right in thinking that, apart from a few crime novels that have had the misfortune to antagonise Gerald Houghton so, we don’t usually run such negative reviews as this in The Edge. Generally myself and the other hacks I associate with here pick out the most interesting books and writers and review and criticise those. We stick to the best, we don’t drag books in just to slate them. You know us, we love to be nice. But every so often something sidles shiftily and slimily up to the door, knocks in a respectful manner and politely asks for it. Shadow Dawn is the most obsequious, oleaginous caller for quite some time.