Ahsoka by E.K. Johnston

Ahsoka by E.K. Johnston (4/5)

When Ahsoka Tano showed up in Star Wars: The Clone Wars movie, few expected much of the character. For older Star Wars fans, she seemed to be shoehorned into the film as an audience surrogate for younger viewers, which isn’t necessarily a problem except that the Star Wars series has had, at best, a mixed record when it comes to appealing to the younger set. But over the course of The Clone Wars TV show, Ahsoka proved herself to be one of the best additions to prequel era Star Wars. In 2016, E.K. Johnston wrote a standalone novel that follows Ahsoka after the close of The Clone Wars series, and the result is a highly enjoyable, if somewhat slight, look at how one of the last remaining Jedi survived Order 66.

Near the start of the novel, Ahsoka is living in obscurity away from the newly established Galactic Empire and anyone she may have known in her past life. Afraid that her Jedi past might be uncovered by the imperials, Ahsoka flees her makeshift lodgings on Empire Day, the one year anniversary of when Palpatine declared himself emperor. (I wonder if they still celebrate Life Day, or if that was outlawed when Palpatine came into power. I’m all for people celebrating Life Day, but I’m not sure it should be a galactic holiday, since it seems kind of religious in nature. I’m for the separation of church and empire). Eventually, Ahsoka finds a new hideout on the farming moon of Raada, tucked away in the Outer Rim.

On Raada, Ahsoka befriends Kaeden Larte and her sister Cietra. The two are orphans who were taken in by a group of farmers. This is actually a nice spin on the family assembled from outcasts trope, which usually form into some sort of gang of thieves like in Oliver Twist. The Lartes and the rest are good people. Ahsoka adopts the name Ashla and works as a mechanic. But just as she’s starting to get used to wearing a new identity with new friends, the Empire arrives on Raada. Soon Ahsoka and her gang of farmers find themselves forming a rebellion after the Empire takes control of farming production and hopes to squeeze more efficiency out of the population. Ahsoka and her allies form a band of guerillas, a development that mirrors her time working for the resistance on Onderon during the Clone Wars, which is even referenced here.

While on Raada, Ahsoka has had to hide her Jedi powers, and when she must finally use them, she decides to flee the moon rather than put her friends at risk. In the second half of the novel, we leave Raada, and Ahsoka even encounters Bail Organa who is in the midst of forming the Rebellion. I almost wish we had stayed on Raada and focused on the rebellion there, but perhaps E.K. Johnston thought this would be too similar to the Onderon arc on The Clone Wars. And while Ahsoka is a fun read and well plotted, it’s a young adult novel and sometimes suffers from the pitfalls of that category. The writing is sometimes prosaic, which is something you generally expect in Star Wars novels, but I’ll admit to cringing a little when a character’s hair was described as “very, very curly.” And you don’t get into quite enough of Ahsoka’s psychology. I wish Johnston had better laid out how Ahsoka reacted to both Order 66 and the Jedi’s betrayal of her.

But perhaps the most interesting moment in Ahsoka occurs towards the end when Ahsoka returns to Raada and rescues Kaeden from the Empire (for the second time!). While being whisked away to safety, Kaeden admits to Ahsoka that she’s in love with her. We never hear Ahsoka’s response, and the moment evaporates without further comment. Still, there’s something joyful about the fact that a female character can express her romantic interest in another female character in a young adult Star Wars novel. I’m of the belief that Johnston is able to slip this moment into the text because the Jedi code of celibacy provides enough room for maneuvering to allow creators and audiences queer these characters. This happened not too long ago when fans insisted that Luke Skywalker was gay.

Gender politics aside, Ahsoka is a fleet little novel that benefits from its limited scope. The title may have promised that the book contained the whole of Ahsoka’s history from Episode III to her appearance in (Spoilers!) Star Wars Rebels, but it’s really just one adventure among many. Hopefully this means that we’ll get more stories about what happened to one of the last remaining Jedi in the time of the Galactic Empire.

Dark Disciple

Dark Disciple by Christie Golden and Katie Lucas (4/5)

Without appearing in any of the feature films, Asajj Ventress has become one of the more fascinating and nuanced characters in the prequel era. Originally developed by the Lucas brain trust for Attack of the Clones, Ventress would go on to appear in the original 2D Clone Wars series and a number of comics during Star Wars’s days at Dark Horse. Throughout The Clone Wars she became a more rounded character, especially after a story arc finding her abandoning her apprenticeship with Count Dooku to strike out on her own. Star Wars is a world of light and dark, but it has always managed to find the complexity these two poles. And it’s that in-between space that Ventress best represents.

For fans of Ventress, it was a pleasant surprise to see the novel, Dark Disciple, take the focus off of Obi-Wan and Anakin to explore the character of Ventress. Taken from unfinished Clone Wars storylines, Dark Disciple showcases what that series did best: explore the moral Catch 22 of war. Believing the toll of the Clone War has become too great, the Jedi Council decides, with some desperation, that it would be better to assassinate Count Dooku rather than let the war linger. Mace Windu is the chief proponent of this plan, but he manages to get the rest of the counsel to go along. Obi-Wan recommends that Quinlan Vos, a rebellious and unorthodox Jedi, carry out the assassination plot.

Vos knows he won’t be able to take out a Sith Lord by himself, so he’s told to recruit Asajj Ventress as an aid. The fact that she had previously attempted to kill her former master makes her an ideal ally. Knowing that Ventress would never trust the Jedi, Vos goes undercover as a fellow bounty hunter. He arranges a “chance” encounter with Ventress by going after the same bounty as her, and in the tradition of Marvel comics, after they squabble with one another, they soon become partners, Vos’s exuberant personality complementing Ventress’s guarded, no nonsense approach to everything.

For a time, Dark Disciple follows the time-honored narrative of the undercover cop ingratiating himself with criminals, but [spoilers] that thankfully doesn’t last too long. There are plenty of twists and turns throughout the novel, and you can tell it had been expertly plotted before being transformed from a series of 22 minute episodes into a book. I also won’t spoil anything else for you. The person who developed the original story was none other than Katie Lucas, daughter of the Maker himself, George. Here she’s helped by author Christie Golden. In a postscript, Katie Lucas writes about how she was drawn to Ventress because she’s a strong female character. I also feel as if the inclusion of Ventress and Ahsoka in the series speaks to the necessity of including female creators and artists in the world of Star Wars. Would these character be as rounded and complex if someone like Katie Lucas wasn’t there to influence the creative process?

What drew me to The Clone Wars cartoon was how it handled some of the moral entanglements hinted at in the prequel films. For all their flaws, the prequels had some legitimately interesting ideas that were, unfortunately, poorly executed. The idea that you could win a war and still lose seems particularly relevant today considering America has been waging a seemingly endless war on terror for fifteen years, and yet somehow global acts of terrorism have actually increased. But there are other ways to lose a war. Dark Disciple, and much of The Clone Wars, suggests that we lose by blurring the line between the “good” and “bad” guys. By engaging in assassination, the Jedi Council have lost their purity. But this isn’t an easy decision. You could see how the Jedi might come to the conclusion that engaging in what’s considered an immoral act, even during wartime, would be their best option, even if it is ultimately an abandonment of their principles. And in the process they have sacrificed the welfare of Quinlan Vos, who must struggle with the Dark Side during his mission.

Not everything about Dark Disciple is completely successful. Maybe it’s because I’m a bit older and more cynical, but at times it seems as if the romance between Vos and Ventress seems driven more by the plot than by the characters. But because the novel focuses on secondary and tertiary characters, there can be real consequences. Dark Disciples feels like more than just another adventure in the life of these characters. And the novel reminds us that even in a world with a light side and a dark side, it’s not always easy to know which side you’re on. Like Star Wars itself, this is a lesson that is both of our time and timeless.

I, Jedi by Michael A Stackpole

I, Jedi by Michael A. Stackpole (2/5)

It’s not clear whether the title of Michael A. Stackpole’s Star Wars novel, I, Jedi, is an allusion to Isaac Asimov’s short story collection, I, Robot, or Robert Grave’s work of historical fiction, I, Claudius. What’s more, I’m not sure which allusion would be more pretentious on the part of Stackpole, since the novel doesn’t come close to the quality of either work.

As a preteen devouring Star Wars novels, I always liked Stackpole’s X-Wing books the best. I vaguely remember his novels as great page turners that made something new out of the Star Wars Universe. I liked that only George Lucas’s perpetual survivor, Wedge Antilles, made his way from screen to page as a major character in Stackpole’s novels. After reading I, Jedi, I’ve come to think that perhaps twelve year old me may not have had great tastes in books. Either that or I, Jedi is a massive step down from Stackpole’s X-Wing series.

I, Jedi follows Corran Horn, a Rogue Squadron pilot who also served as the de facto protagonist of the X-Wing series. Here Stackpole writes in the first person as Horn, which was the first time a character not from the films was given a first person point of view. In the earlier novels, we learned that Horn is Force sensitive, but at the start of I, Jedi he has undergone no formal training. After returning from a mission with Rogue Squadron, he learns that his wife Mirax has been captured by pirates while on an undercover mission. Instead of rushing out to save her, Horn decides that he must first join Luke Skywalker’s newly founded Jedi Academy to cultivate his nascent Force powers.

The novel is split into two halves. During the first half, Horn trains with Luke and other Force sensitives at the new Jedi Academy on Yavin 4, the planet where the Rebellion launched its attack on the Death Star in A New Hope. This inaugural class, however, is tormented by the risen spirit of Exar Kun, an evil Sith Lord whose ghost has apparently been waiting thousands of years for the right time to pounce. (This subplot made me wonder why we haven’t gotten a full on Star Wars ghost story yet. Get on it, people!)

As I read this portion of the novel, something seemed off. It was as if sections of the narrative had been carved out of the novel, like we were only getting part of the story. One of the Jedi trainees, Kyp Durron, is seduced to the darkside by Kun and steals a superweapon called the Sun Crusher or some such nonsense. But none if this is all that well developed. Even the final confrontation with the big bad, Kun, occurs off stage.

A little dip into the internet makes it clear that these events are covered in The Jedi Academy Trilogy by Kevin J. Anderson. This section of the novel appears to require some familiarity with The Jedi Academy Trilogy in order to have any real impact on the reader. If anything, I, Jedi, is exhibit A for why Disney was right in wiping out the Expanded Universe. When a reader must be intimately familiar with the larger expanded web of Star Wars novels in order for the story to be satisfying, the author just hasn’t done his or her job. Sure, the idea of covering the same territory as another novel from a unique perspective has potential, but the execution is way off.

The second half of I, Jedi is more engaging. Horn goes undercover with the space pirates who have taken his wife and must infiltrate their ranks. It’s a well worn narrative, but it’s fun to see it applied to the world of Star Wars. The first half of the novel does deflate some of the story’s urgency. Why doesn’t Horn run out to rescue his wife the moment he finds that she’s missing? And it doesn’t seem like his time at the academy was all that well spent. Horn ultimately finds his Jedi training unsatisfying and gives Luke a kind of douchey speech about how he’s had tougher training before and he doesn’t really need the weak sauce that Luke is serving. It’s largely self-aggrandizing and makes Luke, who should be the galaxy’s preeminent expert in the Force, look like a fool.

In general, I found Horn to be an unlikeable character. There’s one aspect of the character that conspicuously pops up again and again: his goatee. The man is always thinking about his goatee. He’s stroking his goatee or dying his goatee or finding some way to insert his goatee into the story. The man is obsessed with his own facial hair. This does lead to one of my favorite lines in the book: “I laced my fingers together and pressed the index fingers against my moustache” (306). I don’t think I have ever read of a more seductive dance between digits and facial hair.

The obsession Stackpole has with Horn’s goatee seemed a bit odd. Sure, it might just date the novel to the 90s when this sort of outlandish facial hair was marginally more acceptable. But I had a feeling that Horn’s goatee signified something deeper. I googled Michael Stackpole and found his picture, and sure enough, there it was: a stupid-looking goatee clutching the author’s mouth and chin.

There’s a distinct Mary Sue quality to Horn, which is only aggravated by the novel’s first person point of view. For those who don’t know, a Mary Sue is a term for a character who is amazing at just about everything and is often the surrogate for the author. The most obvious example is Wesley Crusher from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Despite feigning difficulties here and there, in this novel Horn is just the best. He defeats Luke Skywalker in a duel and then lectures the Jedi Master on what he’s not doing right at his academy. Later, he’s so irresistible that the female leader of the space pirates tries to seduce him. But, you know Horn. He’s a standup guy, and, besides, he’s married. Also, he has killer facial hair.  

After spending over five hundred pages with this guy, I couldn’t wait to get away. The novel also made me think that Disney made the right choice. When it comes to the Expanded Universe, maybe they were right after all to burn it to the ground and let something else grow in its place.

The Last Command by Timothy Zahn

The Last Command by Timothy Zahn (4/5)

Here we come to the final installment of the “Thrawn Trilogy” as Zahn’s series of novels have come to be known. It’s a largely satisfactory ending aided by Zahn’s deft plotting and ear for the dialogue and cadence of Luke, Leia, and Han. In the previous installment, Dark Force Rising, Grand Admiral Thrawn had not only gained control over the “Katana Fleet,” a fleet of ships thought to have been lost or destroyed, but also started manufacturing cloned soldiers to man those ships, shifting the balance of power in the galaxy in the process.

Thrawn’s bolstered forces make the Empire a reinvigorated adversary, and Zahn smartly accomplishes this without using another superweapon as a crutch. While the New Republic deals with this new threat, Leia prepares the birth of her twins and Luke questions which side Mara Jade, former assassin for the Emperor turned smuggler, will ultimately join.

In the first part of the novel, Luke conscripts Talon Karrde into helping him track troop movements for the New Republic. Karrde, a smuggler with a heart of gold, stands as one of Zahn’s more indelible creations, and here he showcases Zahn’s ability to invest his plots with clever moves and countermoves. In fact, Karrde’s subplot might be my favorite element of the entire novel. He must form a shaky alliance between normally competitive smugglers in order to provide Luke and the New Republic with the intelligence they seek while also keep an eye on Thrawn’s attempts at seeding dissention within the group.

Zahn’s other and more popular contribution to the wider Star Wars Expanded Universe is of course Mara Jade, a Force sensitive former assassin for the Empire.  Throughout the trilogy, she seems hell bent on finally killing Luke who she blames for the death of the Emperor. In a risky move, Luke decides to trust her and bring her along on their mission to destroy Thrawn’s hidden cloning facilities. Because of Jade’s work with the Empire, she’s the only person with enough knowledge to lead Luke, Han, and the rest to where the clones are being produced en masse. They even defy the New Republic by sneaking Jade off of Coruscant where she has been detained because of her ties to the Emperor and newly discovered evidence that points to current collaboration with the Empire.

Jade has apparently become a fan favorite character, and she gives us another fully rounded female character other than Leia, something Star Wars needs more of. She’s an intriguing character because she seems to have lost her place in the world following the death of the Emperor. But it is a little silly how quickly Luke decides to trust her, especially considering the fact that she openly states multiple times that she plans on killing him. In fact, we’re just supposed to trust her because Zahn has decided that she’s going to be one of the good guys, which kind of sandpapers her edges in a way that makes her character less interesting.

When the New Republic detains her because they receive information from an Imperial agent that she’s still working for the Empire, Han steadfastly defends her innocence merely because the agent is likely untrustworthy. Sure, but if we’re going to think about the issue rationally, it would be idiotic for New Republic to allow a potential Imperial spy and former aid to the Emperor to freely move about their government headquarters. Zahn seems to ask us to trust Mara simply because he knows in the end she’s one of the good ones.

It’s interesting to see ways in which The Last Command contradicts canonical information from subsequent films. Bringing in the idea of clones, which at this point were nothing more than a quick allusion by Obi-Wan in A New Hope, smartly unweaves the seemingly definitive conclusion to the Empire at the Battle of Endor. But it’s suggested in the novel that the cloning process means the clones go insane after a couple of years, information completely missing from the prequels, likely because Lucas decided to just ignore this version of events. It’s a nice example of how the Star Wars EU never truly was canon. (There’s also no mention of Kamino as you might guess).

Eventually, Luke and Mara face off against insane Jedi clone C’baoth while the forces of Admiral Ackbar try to survive one of Thrawn’s traps. The novel ends with the remnants of the Empire more powerful and the New Republic a little weaker, a finale that guarantees the detente will continue. The expansive Star Wars EU wouldn’t have had the impact that it did without Zahn’s trilogy. He clearly understood Lucas’s creation, and when reading his novels, I often felt like I was visiting old friends.

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It’s hard to imagine now, but Star Wars had a decade-long absence from popular culture, and before the first book of Zahn’s trilogy, we last saw our heroes froloking to the sounds of that catchy “Yub Nub” song on the moon of Endor with a bunch cuddly teddy bears. Zahn’s trilogy started feeding fans information about where our characters ended up after the films ended, and he deserves credit for both demonstrating that there are still plenty of great stories to tell in the galaxy far, far away and that there was a pretty big appetite for this material. The Star Wars novels of 90s, Zahn’s as well as others, could often be found on the New York Times bestseller list. If it weren’t for the popularity of these books, I wonder if we would even have the prequel trilogy. (Whether that’s a good or a bad thing, I’ll let you decide).

In fact, the Thrawn Trilogy had become so popular before Episode VII came out that plenty of people wanted Disney to straight up adapt Zahn’s novels. Ignoring the fact that the Thrawn Trilogy takes place five not twenty years after Return of the Jedi, I’m glad Disney didn’t go that route.

I obviously enjoyed the Thrawn Trilogy, but it also clearly has different goals than The Force Awakens. Zahn’s clearly trying to stretch out the battles fought in the original trilogy so that other authors can work within a world that looks much like it did in Episodes IV, V, and VI. I actually don’t think The Force Awakens goes far enough in differentiating itself from the original trilogy, something Lucas managed in the prequels. (One of the successes of the prequel films was the fact that Lucas created a world and conflicts that were different enough from his original creation while also still feeling like they’re a part of the Star Wars universe). But adapting the Thrawn Trilogy would have only compounded this problem. Zahn doesn’t even manage to differentiate the new villain from the Empire in any way.

There also seems to be less at stake in the Thrawn Trilogy. I’m not necessarily talking about that dumb extra-large Death Star used in The Force Awakens. Lucas had established the main Star Wars cycle as an intergenerational tale, but Zahn’s novels basically serve as an addendum to the events of the original trilogy. The death of Han also raises the emotional stake in a way that Zahn’s novel doesn’t accomplish. (In his defense, it would be kind of a dick move to kill of Han Solo and make it impossible for any other Star Wars EU writers future use of the character.)

And while Thrawn’s a great villain, he never gets to be as menacing as he could be. He never interacts with the core protagonists, and in the end he’s killed by the Noghri, aliens who discovered that the Empire has been lying to them in order to gain their loyalty. It works within the context of the novel, but in a film it would come across as anti-climactic. (Hell, I was kind of hoping that Thrawn and his stooge, Pelleon, would make it out to fight another day.)

The less said about the clone of Luke that’s dropped into climax of the novel, the better.

Still, there are things Disney could learn from the Thrawn Trilogy. You don’t need another stupid, stupid superweapon to create a threat. That’s a crutch used by plenty of lesser authors who followed in Zahn’s wake. I would also love to see Mara Jade or a Mara Jade influenced character in the new trilogy. We need more female characters who are unaffiliated with either the villains or the heroes. Hopefully Disney will borrow from the Star Wars Expanded Universe while not forgetting to blaze their own path.

Reflection on the Star Wars Universe

Reflection on the Star Wars Universe

I’d like to make a quick programming note about my exploration of the Star Wars Expanded Universe and any further Star Wars related reviews in the near future. When I started investigating the Star Wars EU many months ago, I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. Would the novels recreate the joy twelve-year-old me had of discovering a galaxy beyond the original three films? Or would they be embarrassingly bad like so much of the popular cultural detritus of the past? Turns out it was somewhere in between.

As much as I enjoyed revisiting the Star Wars EU, not all of it worked. At the very least, even those works that capture the character and feel of the original trilogy--such as the Thrawn Trilogy--were hampered by the fact that the Clone Wars saga had not been fleshed out, meaning any references to events prior to A New Hope never fully meshed with George Lucas’s overall plan as it unfolded from 1999 to 2005. But there were also some goofy ideas that felt like hastily written fan fiction (Dark Empire, I’m looking at you).

I’m planning on continuing my journey through the Star Wars EU. After all, I still have to finish off the Thrawn Trilogy. It will be interesting to see the Star Wars EU now that we have a very real “official” vision of how the saga should continue. I would also like to take a look at the new ancillary novels and comics that have the Disney stamp of approval. Of course, I won’t be able to immerse myself in all Star Wars all the time. I think it was Jesus (aka Young Anakin) who said, “Man cannot live by Star Wars alone.” But I might keep this up until the release of Episode VIII. Hell, I haven’t even watched those Ewok movies yet, which will likely require some time, whisky and gumption to get through.

Finally, I wonder how my time spent in the Star Wars EU affected my experience watching Episode VII. As I noted in my review, I liked Episode VII, but I was also ambivalent about how much of A New Hope the film borrowed. If anything, familiarity with the Star Wars EU eased expectations I had of Episode VII. Of course, the roman numerals in the title ask the audience to see this entry as even more important. They’re telling us that it’s a part of the cyclical myth of the Skywalker family, which has always been central to Lucas’s vision. But, at the same time, it’s also one of hundreds of stories told using tools fashioned by Lucas. I love having all of these stories, but they by necessity make the films a little less special. After all, if you increase the supply, then the value of the “product” diminishes.

For me, the original trilogy will always be the very heart of Star Wars. After that, the prequels and the Clone Wars cartoon constitute Lucas’s insane and uneven vision. Everything else, good and bad, will stand apart. And I’m okay with that. I love Lucas’s influences and the world he built, and I’m just happy to get some more stories told within that galaxy. For now, I’ll take it.

Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords

Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords (3.5/5)

As you might guess from the title, Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, was designed to follow the lead of Empire Strikes Back by going darker than the original installment. Where the first game attempted to recapture some of the energy of the original trilogy, Sith Lords really rubs our noses in the darker side of Star Wars. Once again, the Jedi have been nearly wiped out. (The Jedi seem so prone to mass extinction that it’s a wonder they’re still around four thousand years later). Your character stands as the last Jedi, but you have lost nearly all of your Force powers.

Slowly your backstory is revealed. During the the Mandalorian War, previously mentioned in the original game, your character decided that the Jedi Council was too slow to act and joined Revan and the other Jedi who mounted a defense against the Mandalorian onslaught. Upon returning to the council, you were stripped of your connection to the force and exiled. Since then, the Jedi have seemingly disappeared from the galaxy, and a bounty has been placed on your head, because you are the last of their kind. Eventually you discover that other Jedi exist, but they are in hiding, attempting to uncover the threat facing them and to strike when the moment’s right. Your goal is to assemble these Jedi and face this threat together.

Like most RPGs, Sith Lords follows the Wizard of Oz narrative structure of a long journey where new and strange character join your party as you continue on your quest. There’s the soldier, Atton Rand, the blind Force wielder, Visas, the bounty hunter with a heart of gold, Mira, a Mandalorian only known as the Mandalorian, and of course the droids from the first game, HK-47 and T3-M4, who, liked Artoo and Threepio, make a reappearance. This list is hardly exhaustive, and like too many RPGs, the number of characters are overwhelming. I don’t think I once included in my party, G0-T0, the robotic avatar of a crime boss (don’t ask).

But perhaps the most important character is Kreia, an old crone who has a strong connection to the Force and bond with the main character. You first meet Kreia after waking up on a seemingly abandoned mining facility. Kreia is neither fully Jedi nor Sith, and instead represents a middle path between the warring philosophies. This is best illustrated in the game in a cutscene that occurs after you have given some money to a panhandler on Nar Shaddaa. Kreia advises you against this seemingly altruistic action, suggesting that it may have unseen consequences, which turns out to be the case since the man you gave money to is later attacked for his recent boon. There’s an interesting comment here about how actions reverberate across the galaxy in ways unknown to us.

The Sith Lords was a notoriously rushed game, and it’s obvious to anyone who plays it that the story’s incomplete. Recently, a bunch of good samaritans developed a patch that restores a good deal of the lost content, but The Sith Lords still feels unfinished. However, there are those who have championed the game as better than the original. While I enjoyed playing The Sith Lords, I can’t agree that it’s necessarily an improvement. With the exception of some more micromanaging, the gameplay is nearly identical to its predecessor. (No one finished an RPG and thought to themselves, I really wish I could spend more time tweaking my weapons and armor). And because of the game’s unfinished nature, you don’t delve as much into the characters. I never felt as if I knew my allies as well as I did those in the first game.

I think some who claim The Sith Lords is better than KOTOR fall under the false assumption that just because something is darker then it is necessarily more complex. Certainly, a game can be gritty and explore complex moral grey areas, as this game accomplishes during the cutscene on Nar Shaddaa. But just as often, going dark can merely be a juvenile’s idea of what it means to be adult. In The Sith Lords, any moments of genuine moral exploration are counteracted by sophomoric understanding of dark and gritty.

**SPOILERS AHEAD** The worst instance occurs after you have finally found and assembled the remaining Jedi on Dantooine. And they are all quickly killed. So the main focus of your quest is rendered moot. What’s more, most of these members of the Jedi Council are kind of jerks. What makes this development less interesting is that the prequels, which have plenty of their own problems, actually explored the destruction of the Jedi and the difficulty of seeing the consequences of our actions in a more interesting manner. I would take questions of how war makes fascists of us all in the prequels over the veneer of dark and gritty The Sith Lords too often presents. So while the original game attempted to reignite a sense of fun and adventure missing from Star Wars during the prequel era, The Sith Lords competes directly against the prequels in their own arena and somehow ends up losing. **END SPOILERS**

Still, there’s plenty to like about The Sith Lords, especially if you liked the first game. While underdeveloped as characters, the designs of the Sith antagonists are admittedly pretty cool. Darth Sion is nothing more than charred remains apparently fueled only by his hatred, and Darth Nihilus dons an awesome mask that appears to be influenced by Japanese Kabuki theater. With more time, the game may have fulfilled its promise, even if it may never eclipse the original game.

Dark Force Rising

Dark Force Rising by Timothy Zahn (⅘)

The second entry in Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn Trilogy, Dark Force Rising, opens up shortly after the events of the first novel and the battle of Sluice Van.  Zahn takes this opportunity to splinter the characters, so that we follow a handful of different narrative threads: the criminals with a code of honor, Mara Jade and Talon Karrde, go on the run from Admiral Thrawn, Luke chases down the batty Jedi Master Jorus C’baoth, Han and Lando encounter a general from the Old Republic turned independent freedom fighter, and Leia negotiates with longtime Imperial mercenaries, the Noghri, to prevent them from coming after her and her unborn children.

Tying most of these disparate plot threads together is the Katana fleet, a lost fleet of starships that, if recovered, have the potential of shifting the balance between the New Republic and Admiral Thrawn’s imperial forces.  The Katana Fleet consists of two hundred Dreadnaughts, precursors to the Imperial Star Destroyer, and years prior to even the Clone Wars, its crew was infected by a virus that caused insanity, leading the crew to fling the compliment of starships out into the void of the galaxy.  (Along with unstable Jorus C’baoth, the madness of the crew of the Katana fleet makes insanity something of a recurring theme in the series).  As a MacGuffin, the Katan fleet bends each plot thread together by the end of the novel, although, because this is the second novel in a trilogy, plenty goes unresolved.

Dark Force Rising improves on its predecessor in most ways.  The multiple plots make sure that the narrative moves swiftly as we bounce around the galaxy catching up with what our characters are getting themselves into.  The sequel also provides Leia with a more satisfying role than Heir to the Empire.  In what is arguably the most interesting plot of the novel, Leia takes a Noghri captive to his homeworld where she uses her role as ambassador to try and convince the Noghri to abandon the Empire and join the Republic.  Leia must navigate the unique culture of the Noghri while also avoiding detection by Imperial forces.

Too often Leia gets scant attention, but she’s actually the highlight of the novel.  While tense negotiations with an alien race might not be the most visually interesting story in a film, it’s well tailored for the medium of a novel.  In fact, the role that the Republic has in keeping the peace is granted renewed attention.  In another wonderful moment in the novel, Luke must mediate between two seedy businessmen, and during the negotiation, he muses to himself that this must have been one of the central roles of the Jedi Knight.  With an exception of the opening of Episode I, we never really see the Jedi Knight as keepers of the peace, and it’s smart of Zahn to acknowledge this purpose.  (It’s also interesting to see how the prequels change Zahn’s timeline.  At one point it’s suggested that the Clone Wars occurred fifty or more years ago, but according to Episodes I-III, it’s probably more like twenty-five or thirty).  

Zahn’s great strength as a storyteller is his ability to plot out ways in which dueling characters continually think they have the upper hand until they don’t.  In fact, the strategizing reaches its wonderfully absurd peak with the character of Thrawn who studies a culture’s art in order to learn how they think and in turn how to defeat them.  At its most exciting, Zahn’s novels are like the sword fighting scene in The Princess Bride in which Bonetti is counteracted by Capo Ferro which is cancelled out by Thibault and then undermined by Agrippa.  These moves and countermoves are what makes the Thrawn Trilogy exciting, and by the end of Dark Force Rising, it’s easy to become eager to know who, in this interplay of strategems, gets the upperhand next.