}); The Road to Episode Infinity: Death Troopers

Friday, October 31, 2014

Death Troopers

        

In October 2009, the first true Star Wars horror story was released. The somewhat disturbing cover let audiences know that this was not our childhood Star Wars novel. With a lot of blood and a tiny hint of stormtooper innards, Death Troopers was something new. Something unsettling had arrived to the Expanded Universe.


I hadn’t heard much about Joe Schreiber’s “Death Troopers” when I started reading it. I saw the book on occasion sitting in the Star Wars section of Barnes and Nobles, but it’s not something that I ever thought I would read. It seemed more like a gimmick- mixing Star Wars with horror. But as I read the thing I remembered, Star Wars is horror!


Flashing back to my childhood I remembered a dream from when I was quite young. Maybe four or five years old. This was a few years before I was even aware of Star Wars. I think my babysitter had watched “A New Hope” one night. I don’t remember sitting through anything past the opening crawl, but I must have because that night I had a dream of the Mos Eisley Cantina- All the weird and ghostly aliens drinking at that bar. To a five-year-old Star Wars isn’t just scary, it’s a nightmare! Darth Vader, the Tusken Raiders, even the Dianoga. After seeing the thing a hundred times fans forget how scary it must have been to a child of the 1970s or 1980s.

But as I read Death Troopers, I discovered a new height of horror in the Star Wars galaxy. The book takes place on a prisoner barge, dead in space, the engines broken. But there is hope. They come across a derelict Star Destroyer that has been abandoned by its crew. Or has it? There are no life forms on board, but maybe the Destroyer is not as empty as it seems.


         Is this set-up original as far as the genre of Space Horror is concerned? Not really. It’s kind of predictable if you’ve seen enough episodes of Star Trek or Firefly or even Doctor Who. But it is scary and it’s the first time Star Wars has been this scary. Also, about halfway through there is a little surprise for the reader. Let’s just say the Empire has been keeping a few prisoners in solitary confinement. Maybe a certain smuggler and a certain co-pilot.

        Death Troopers is a fair tale. It has good elements of horror. There are disturbing moments that churn your stomach. There are deaths. Not all the characters make it out alive. This is not a children’s book by any stretch of the imagination. 

There are also good elements of Star Wars within the pages of Death Troopers. Therefore the book accomplishes what it sets out to accomplishes- it is a good blend of the two genres.


In December 2010 Joe Schreiber would publish a prequel to Death Troopers called “Red Harvest”. The title, of course, pays homage to Return of the Jedi’s working title “Blue Harvest: Horror Beyond Imagination”. Both books are available at your local book store or digital book store for those who have witnessed the death of book stores in their community.

Happy Halloween and until next time “May the Horrors be with you!”


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