concept of the dark

Was it ever explained why Luke wanted to be investigated for war crimes?

I think it was just Luke's guilty conscience of how many people died in the operation. Perhaps he felt that a better qualified commander could have come up with a better solution to the problem. Maybe he even felt that he'd made the wrong decisions, like not just going straight after Cronal and taking him out without risking everyone else's lives. Luke did seem to be a bit more self assured when the inspector guy told him he'd done all he could in the battle.

And since you brought it up...

The Dark = AWESOME! I can't believe how many little Sithy tid bits Stover threw in there. First there's these Sorcerers of Rhand who worship the Way of the Dark, then there's these Kanzer Exiles, a Lord Ravager, Dathka Graush and Sith Alchemy, and the Taurannik Codex. So much great stuff.

It would also seem that Luke may be versed in the Light (some lightside complement to the Dark). Plus since Cronal escaped, I'm hoping he'll show up in the FOTJ.

Hypothesis: Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor (excluding any part with Geptun) is actually Geptun's holothriller.

Basic evidence:

1) Title reads like a holothriller (i.e. Think Luke Skywalker and the Revenge of the Jedi)
2) The story ends with Artoo (as Geptun suggested), not with Nick/Luke (as Luke suggested)
3) Luke comes off as a hero in story (despite his obvious discomfort and trouble state of mind with Geptun)

That's the crux of the evidence without going into a whole lot of detail (really didn't feel like going with an essay). I think there's also a case to be made that Geptun is a metaphor for Stover (and other authors) in that both are contracted to write a story and then do so with their interpretation of events. That's the basic theory but there's a bit of a larger one as well (Skuldren helped a bit with this).

Hypothesis: Many (possibly all) of the novels we read are essentially holothrillers (Skul: Written by the Whills?)

This one doesn't (and can't) have any hard evidence since it's essentially an interpretation. Essentially, we're all reading holoplays in that we're reading someone's interpretation of events (as opposed to straight history for example). It certainly fits the Bantam era as we get a number of books with a very clear "Hero complex" so to speak. You could argue that it fits in Del Rey as well, despite the definitive change in style (think Spiderman's comedic light hearted movie vs. The Dark Knight's gritty realism). It'd also go a long way to explaining some of the inconsistencies in the EU as well (i.e. Of course Caedus comes off differently in each novel. We have different holothriller writers). As Skuldren mentioend when I mentioned this idea to him, he connected it to the Whills. Instead of having a journal of the Whills, we have the Whill Holotheater.

Anyway, that's basically what came to mind after reading that last chapter.

For Iron Fist's Stover = Geptun statement, I couldn't agree more. The whole epilogue there immediately made me feel like I had just "watched" the holothriller that Geptun wrote that Luke made him rewrite. The final line about hating rewrites is something I'm sure all authors think when their editors say "nu uh".

For the Dark, I didn't know Stover was going to throw another view of the Force at us! The Dark was a great idea, and you can use it to describe a lot of the events that have happened in the SW universe much like Blackhole did with Palpatine's rise and fall. I'll have to reread the book some time to better understand the Light, but I'm sure it's just an element of the Force that the concept of the Dark deems irrelevant.

However, I think the idea of the Dark would even offend Sith. The Sith philosophy really stresses control over everything by using the Force as a tool. I guess a Sith would embrace this idea to gain power by eliminating their enemies, but will always fall away from the idea when they are in a position of complete control.

Now, best book ever? Sorry, but it still didn't beat Traitor in my eyes, but is still a phenomenal piece of work. And Luke did do some cool things (like using Vastor to cleanse the black metal) but making the trillions of beings in the galaxy believing you are dead except for one, is still the ultimate trick Luke has demonstrated and not making thousands of people die (IMO)