X-Men: Empire's End [Hardcover]

Diane Duane (Author)

Book Description

Series: X-Men | Publication Date: October 27, 1997

The heroes of Marvel Comics' most popular series are joined together in the first X-Men hardcover novel! Shi'ar empress Lilandra runs an empire heading toward chaos. Now, she must turn to her long-distance love, Professor X, and the X-Men, or face total annihilation. Illustrated with chapter-opening line drawings.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 347 pages
• Publisher: Putnam Adult (October 27, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399143343
• ISBN-13: 978-0399143342
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,220,681 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars An OK read, June 5, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: X-Men: Empire's End (Paperback)

Diane Duane, in my opinion, did a great job on the Spider-Man novels. But this book was a major letdown. First of all, I have always found the Shi'ar, even in the comics, to be quite boring and dull. Sadly, this is also the case with this book. I read this book, and then I re-read a few issues of Uncanny X-Men, and I have to say that the characterization in the comics is leaps and bounds over that in this book. The characters in this book are undeveloped, and seem just "off" from their normal selves. Some of them don't even have that many lines, which is always a problem with so many characters being sqeezed into one book (at least in the comics, they can alternate character focus each issue).

However, this aside, I found myself not even enjoying the plot. The main villain (that being the galaxy-devouring creature) was completely and utterably uninteresting and static. And the idea of the X-Men fighting it with a "device that increases their powers a thousandfold" is just corny, and even more "comic booky" than the comic itself. It didn't sit right with me from the beginning, and it still doesn't even now.

Another thing that bothered me was Duane's apparent misunderstanding of Gambit's mutant abilities. Throughout the book, she seemed to be operating under the assumption that his abilities involved the charging of EXISTING kinetic energy. However, Gambit's abilities actually deal with converting an objects potential energy INTO explosive kinetic energy. The book never gave any evidence that Duane realized this to be the case. Of course, maybe I was too bored to notice if she did...

One last thing: she really seemed to be writing this the way she would a Star Trek novel. This book was absolutely cluttered with space jargon, from mini blackholes to blue and red shifting to galactic cores going quasar. It just really seemed to take up a lot of space without really saying much at all.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars it's not bad, but..., February 10, 2001

By 

Diana Nier (Ithaca, NY, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: X-Men: Empire's End (Hardcover)

Well, she made an effort. And she raised interesting issues, though she never really resolved them. But I think Diane Duane works better with a smaller cast. Her original novels are fine; they have much smaller casts. Her Spiderman trilogy is fine; it has only three main characters. Even her Star Trek novels are fine; she tends not to use more than five major characters per book. In "Empire's End," she's dealing with Professor X, Beast, Gambit, Wolverine, Storm, Bishop, Iceman, Cyclops, Jean, Lillandra, a Shi'ar lord, etc. There are simply too many characters, and though each gets a few scenes or "moments," they all seem shallow.

The plot is as follows: the Shi'ar discover that a mysterious creature, which destabilizes galaxies by eating their cores, is heading their way. They enlist the X-Men to stop the creature. This totally unequal confrontation is made "plausible" by a strange device that enhances the X-Men's powers. Gosh, how convenient. Meanwhile, Lillandra's council is pressuring her to marry a Shi'ar noble and produce an heir, instead of continuing her relationship with Charles. Ooh, look, a romantic subplot.

There are some interesting discussions about the effects of absolute power, and the enhancement of the X-Men's powers at the expense of the more human aspects of their personalities, but when they finally save the day (you never seriously thought they wouldn't, did you?) those issues vanish like mist, never fully confronted. The power-enhancing device also conveniently disappears; I sense an author avoiding the implications of a bad concept.

Also, I'd really like to know exactly what the huge, ghostly X-Men-shaped constructs are. They are first described as psychic projections, or something along those lines, but later seem to become real. They seem to be a device for avoiding the idiocy of pitting the X-Men against a creature larger than Manhattan. I say, if you're using the X-Men, give them an adversary they can confront as is. But if you lack the foresight to do that, the least you can do is remain honest to your original premise, and keep the relative sizes of the space creature and the X-Men as is. (Actually, the ghost figures aren't needed for the final victory, which makes me wonder even more why they were there in the first place. I sense more bad concepts.)

The story is fast and fun, and Duane's style is quite readable, but "Empire's End" feels like a rush job by an author not quite familiar with her world and characters, who tried to make up for the gap by shoving them into Star Trek.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A True Waste of Time, February 28, 2000

By 

Charles Chang (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: X-Men: Empire's End (Hardcover)

I can't believe I wasted my time reading this book. It was atrocious! The characters were reduced to 2 dimensional garbage. You knew what was coming chapters ahead. The author tries to draw out the dark temptations each character experiences but it was so bland, so cartoony, and very very unimaginative. She discards characters because their abilities just so happens not to fit in battle, how convenient. Ugh, I don't know why I even read it. I kept giving the author another chance with each chapter, and it was not worth it. Truly, stay away from this book.