Book review: “Hiding from the Darkness: A Star Wars Horror Novel”
Lucasfilm's recent efforts to explore different genres within the Star Wars galaxy have already taken readers in some exciting directions. The first book in this new initiative, Eyes Like Stars, immersed the reader in romance and offered many unexpected details about the galaxy leading up to the events ofAwakening strength". Now, Star Wars is delving into much darker themes with the first canonical Star Wars horror novel.
Kirsten White's novel Hiding from the Dark tells the story of Bia, a young girl living an ordinary life with her mother, an Imperial officer, on Coruscant. But when her mother disappears, Biya finds herself pursued by a sinister figure in black: Darth Vader.
White's novel lives up to its subtitle, "A Horrible Star Wars Novel," primarily because of its approach to Darth Vader. Instead of treating Vader as a recognizable character known to every Star Wars fan (and probably almost every person on the planet), White treats the Sith Lord like a classic horror movie villain in the vein of Michael Myers. His name is never mentioned. Instead, he is simply there: an unnatural, inexorable, seemingly unstoppable force that follows Biya everywhere. White turns one of cinema's most recognizable villains into something truly frightening, stripping him of much of his conventional image.
Bia turns out to be a compelling young heroine to relive this nightmare through. There is something inherently scarier about horror stories with a child at the center than stories with adult protagonists, and White exploits this fear effectively throughout the novel.Like many great horror heroes, Bia doesn't always make the most logical decisions, and some of her actions only make an already horrific situation worse, but she is also amazingly resourceful and resourceful, repeatedly finding ways to survive when it seems like nothing can be done.
Unlike Eyes Like Stars, however, Hidden from the Dark offers relatively few major new revelations about the Star Wars canon. The story takes place in a rather uncertain period of time, sometime after A New Hope and before Vader's death in Return of the Jedi. This vagueness allows the novel to tell its own story without trying too hard to fit into a larger mythology. Those looking for significant additions to the broader canon may be left disappointed, but that's clearly not where White's interests lie.
It's always nice when a middle grade novel successfully appeals to its target audience while also offering plenty of interest for adult readers, and Hiding from the Dark largely achieves just that. Young readers will find a protagonist they can relate to and a truly gripping survival story (that may even serve as a gateway to other horror films and novels), while older fans of Star Warsand horror will appreciate the novel's original use of one of the franchise's most iconic characters.
VERDICT:
Hiding from the Darkness lives up to its title as a "Star Wars" horror novel by perfectly presenting Darth Vader as a classic horror movie villain in the mold of Michael Myers. Kiersten White creates an effective horror story that can appeal to the target young audience, while offering plenty of suspense and entertainment for mature readers.While the novel contains few revelations about the broaderStar Warscanon, it works best as a standalone experiment in genre storytelling and is another success story of Lucasfilm's recent initiative to createStar Warsgenre stories. It proves that the galaxy far, far away remains fertile ground for stories ready to venture into darker territory.