Title: The Empire Striketh Back
Author: Ian Doescher
Type: Fiction
Page Count: 176
Rating: 4/5
This book is pretty cool because it’s an instalment in Doescher’s William Shakespeare’s Star Wars series, in which he reimagines each of the Star Wars movies as a stage play in the style of the great bard himself.
Doescher does a pretty good job of taking all of the plot beats from the movie and turning them into a play, and it really does read like Shakespeare. I also liked the way that Yoda spoke in haiku, especially because he then felt it necessary to point it out in his afterword and I spotted it as soon as he started speaking.
I’m sure that this wouldn’t be for everyone, and indeed you’re probably best off avoiding it if you’re not a big Shakespeare fan because the language isn’t the easiest. For me, though, I found it easy to follow and fascinating to analyse as an adaptation. It was a genuine pleasure to work through.
