Book Review: Star Wars: Darth Plagueis

A couple of reviews in a row.  Now what am I going to read?

Source: Amazon.com

Star Wars: Darth Plagueis by James Luceno

From the book’s cover:

He was the most powerful Sith lord who ever lived.
But could he be the only one who never died?

“Did you ever hear the Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise? It’s a Sith legend. Darth Plagueis was a Dark Lord of the Sith, so powerful and so wise that he could use the Force to influence the midi-chlorians to create life. He had such a knowledge of the dark side that he could even keep the ones he cared about from dying.”
—Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith

Darth Plagueis: one of the most brilliant Sith Lords who ever lived. Possessing power is all he desires. Losing it is the only thing he fears. As an apprentice, he embraces the ruthless ways of the Sith. And when the time is right, he destroys his Master—but vows never to suffer the same fate. For like no other disciple of the dark side, Darth Plagueis learns to command the ultimate power . . . over life and death.

Darth Sidious: Plagueis’s chosen apprentice. Under the guidance of his Master, he secretly studies the ways of the Sith, while publicly rising to power in the galactic government, first as Senator, then as Chancellor, and eventually as Emperor.

Darth Plagueis and Darth Sidious, Master and acolyte, target the galaxy for domination—and the Jedi Order for annihilation. But can they defy the merciless Sith tradition? Or will the desire of one to rule supreme, and the dream of the other to live forever, sow the seeds of their destruction?

The author, James Luceno / Source: StarWars.Wikia.com

Synopsis:

Did you ever wonder how Darth Maul, the red and black tattooed Sith bad guy from Star Wars: the Phantom Menace could kill Liam Neeson’s Qui-Gon Jinn and then get cheap-shotted by a frog-jumping Obi Wan Kenobi only moments later?  Or in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, when Christopher - I was a covert operative in World War II and then Dracula in the ‘60s - Lee comes out of nowhere and acts all evil and stuff, even though we’ve never heard of him and this is supposed to be the story of how Anakin Skywalker becomes Darth Vader, for heaven sake.  Or how about how in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, when Chancellor (soon to be Emperor) Palpatine goes all wicked crazy and duels it out with Samuel Jackson and then gets his face all mangled by the reflection of his own purple light show?  And by the way, are you a Star Wars geek?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, but most especially if you fit the last one, then
Star Wars: Darth Plagueis by James Luceno may be right up your alley.

In fact, I’m going to do something I only do every now and then, and jump over to another person’s review.  This one comes from a user named Peter Morrison on Amazon.com, and I’ll use it only in part.  

Before you ever begin or contemplate beginning to read Star Wars: Darth Plagueis, be aware that whatever I or other reviewers say, this book will receive tons of hype. I only have one thing to say to you, believe it. Darth Plagueis is simply pardon the pun, a tour de Force.

At 368 pages Darth Plagueis isn't the biggest novel in the Expanded Universe but of any EU work it may have the biggest impact on the story that George Lucas told in the film saga. Author James Luceno delivers his magnum opus with such skill and care that you can tell this was a novel years in the making. Originally slated for release in 2008, this book idea was shelved and then reclaimed. What Luceno delivers is a galaxy spanning masterpiece that takes place in three distinct periods of time and follows the Sith Lord Darth Plagueis as he navigates the Sith Rule of Two, searches and grooms an apprentice, and his subsequent fate. Along the way we are introduced to a young Palpatine who would go on to become Senator, Supreme Chancellor, and Emperor, all the while living a secret life as a Dark Lord of the Sith. The story revolves around the relationship between this Muun (that’s Plagueis’s alien race, by the way) and this Man as they seek to enact the revenge of the Sith, bring about the destruction of the Jedi and the conquest of the galaxy.

Through the course of the novel Luceno manages to bring various threads of continuity together from novels, comics, video games, The Clone Wars animated series and the Star Wars films in such a way that is both seamless and stunning. Multiple times throughout this novel, I was stunned with how boldly Luceno went in his storytelling, treading on ground that I was surprised that George Lucas would allow anyone but himself to interpret. This book gets to the very foundation of Palpatine, the conflict between the Jedi and the Sith, Sith philosophy, and the immediate background facts surrounding Episode I.

Truth, lies, droids, clones, slaves, citizens, all of these are but tools to the Sith. With the Sith the ends always justify the means...  ...Palpatine plays Anakin Skywalker expertly and manipulates the young man to get what Palpatine wants. How did Palpatine learn these skills, how exactly can someone be... fundamentally evil? This book goes a long way to pulling back the curtain on the mystery that is this man who has one foot in the world of the profane and one in the mystical world of the Force. The danger with telling Palpatine's back-story is that in giving (the) character more dimension, you diminish him, the more we learn the less imposing is the towering menace that we were introduced to in the films.

One of my favorite things about this books is the unique spin that Luceno puts on some of the Sith, each has their own way of viewing things, much like we have seen in the Expanded Universe with the portrayal of Jedi and how they view and access the Force. There is a ton of Sith philosophy in this book and while relatively light on action, this book is instantly one of my favorites in all of the Expanded Universe.

While there are still some questions this book leaves up in the air, one thing is for sure. You will never watch the Prequel trilogy in the same light again...

Except for some spelling errors (which I have amended, although I must admit that I do enough of them myself as well), the guy puts things better than I could do myself.

An artist's depiction of the title character, our very own Darth Plagueis. / Source: Uludagsozluk.com

What I liked about it:

I have been of two minds on the Star Wars prequel trilogy.  On the one hand, it’s more live action Star Wars, which with the exception of the Special Edition which was released in the late ‘90s, we hadn’t seen since a few specials on TV in the mid ‘80s.  Or 1983’s Return of the Jedi, depending on how conformist you may be.

On the other hand... well, what can I say?  Episodes One through Three were not what most Star Wars fans were expecting.  And many of us were... disappointed.  That’s a polite word for it.  Yes, it would be difficult to match the wonder that the so-called “original trilogy" brought to us, before Lucas went and changed things around (Han shot first, let’s just agree and let that badly changed scene lay still).

Well I’m still somewhat disappointed in the prequels, I’ll not deny it.  But Luceno’s novel makes that disappointment less palatable.  It helps the back-story of the fall of Anakin Skywalker have more of a context.  Remember how Episode One: The Phantom Menace had all that complicated (read: boring) mumbo-jumbo about trade and legislation and politics and such?  Did it make a lot of sense to you?  Luceno finally makes sense of it all.  That is, he makes sense of the ideas behind it.  If it makes sense after reading the book, you’re a smarter person than I am.  But I’ll get to that in “What I Didn’t Like About It.”

And more importantly, Luceno’s novel makes Palpatine (it's just Palpatine, by the way... the author decided to do the smart thing and not add first name to this villain, and the reasons why actually make sense and give the character more interest) into a real bad guy you can love to hate.  I don’t know about you, but I found the sudden transformation of Palpatine from patrician senator in Episode One to slightly ominous but otherwise harmless politic Supreme Chancellor in Episode Two to total whack job in Episode Three (see the scene where he’s throwing those senate hover pod thingys at Yoda) to be kinda jarring.  I know the idea was to see Anakin Skywalker’s transformation and just assume the Emperor was bad, but... well it left me kinda scratching my head.

I’ve talked a lot about Palpatine/Darth Sidious/the Emperor, but what of the book’s title character?  We hear a snippet of dialogue about him in Revenge of the Sith, but nothing more.  Is he worth the book’s star position.  For that, see “What I Didn’t Like About It” also.

I also, as the above review mentioned, laud Luceno’s ability to bring in such a disparate number of Star Wars sources and tie them together in such a masterful manner.  I was surprised and pleased to see one of my favorite Expanded Universe stories, Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter (see here for more info) not only referenced in Luceno’s novel, but woven into the plot in an integral and, in my view, masterful manner.

My last comment on what I liked, and this is important.  Star Wars: Darth Plagueis is the first and, to my knowledge only Star Wars Extended Universe (if you don’t know that term, Google it) novel that is told exclusively from the point of view of the bad guys.  We usually have some balance of good guys (read: Jedi or perhaps some well meaning Han Solo-wannabe Smuggler-type) and bad guys (Sith most often, but the Imperials are occasionally in there as well) taking up the narrative flow and competing for our interest.  This sometimes ruins the story, in my opinion.  Plagueis doesn’t bother us with some pointless token Jedi perspective.  No sir.  We get the whole story from the dark horse’s mouth as it were.  Kudos to Luceno for being bold enough to take this initiative and telling us the bad guy’s story without unneeded embellishment from some well meaning do-gooder’s point of view.  I found it refreshing.  This alone might have made the book worth the time invested.

What a happy bunch they are.  From left to right (in case you're not a Star Wars geek or have been living under a rock for the past fifteen years) are Darth Maul, Count Dooku/Darth Tyranus (he didn't seem that tyrannical to me), our buddy Palpatine/Darth Sidious/The Emperor (known to his friends as "Chuckles"), and last but not least, that cyborg you love to loathe, the guy we all rooted against in the original trilogy and felt confused by in the prequels, here he is fresh from the planet Mustafar, Darth Vader! / Source: DevCentral.F5.com

What I didn’t like about it:

First gripe: the book gets tedious from time to time.  The whole galactic political and economic and intrigue thing is well executed, but just like in the prequel trilogy, it does wear on the narrative.  Especially from the beginning of the book up to the point where we are introduced to Palpatine.  After that the ball gets rolling.  Slowly at first, but the novel gains momentum as it goes, and by the end, you’re pretty well buried in the dark side of the Force.  But there were times when I tuned out.  It is kinda heavy stuff.  This is what I meant earlier when I said that if you could follow it easily, you must be smarter than I am.  Or have a better attention span for minutiae.  Either way.  Props to those who could follow all the ins and outs.  They wore on me.

Second gripe: Plagueis himself.  He was interesting, but the story gets more exciting when other characters from the actual prequel trilogies start filing in from the wings, as it were.  Sidious is more intriguing to me, for one.  That much is a given, if you’ve been reading this review with even half an eye open so far.  Darth Maul also, though his origin according to the book is a bit shaky from my point of view.  Even the subtle seduction of Count Dooku to the Dark Side of the Force is well laid out.

Plagueis is a well reasoned and fairly complex character, but he is more of a springboard to the rest of the story, and I think he could have been slightly more interesting.  He is at his best when he is dealing with other established Star Wars characters.  Even a pivotal moment, when he kills a former Naboo ruler who double-crossed him and tried to have him assassinated, comes off a bit... well, mild.  This guy would not stand a chance against such heavy hitters as Darth Bane (one of my favorite Expanded Universe Sith baddies) or even against Darth Vader in his prime.  But I suppose the idea Luceno is building toward is that Plagueis is not as big a bad guy as those who came before or after, but his plan to change things around made it possible for the Sith to rule the galaxy by subterfuge.  You thought that whole “let’s pretend to be a humble senator/Chancellor of the Republic”-thing was Palpatine’s alone?  Well (Spoiler Alert) according to Palpatine, it was, but that can be debated.  No, Plagueis is vital in shaping the future of the Star Wars galaxy, but as a person in and of himself, he’s not as impressive as some others I could name (yeah, I’m a Star Wars geek.  Couldn’t you tell already?)

What I learned, if anything:

Other than the obvious parts of the plot and how they apply to the Star Wars prequels in general, the only thing of significance I can say that I learned is that James Luceno is quite a talented author, and also quite the wordsmith.  His turn of phrase in places was quite good.  He did a great job of writing a book in a genre that, from time to time, is guilty of being clumsy and downright juvenile, and making it intellectually stimulating and full of both well reasoned plot and also interesting dialogue and narration.  Good stuff.

Nice. / Source: LupinPilot.Tumblr.com

Recommendation:

Yes, if you take into account that it is One: a Star Wars Expanded Universe book and Two: it can be a bit tedious from time to time.  If you want the prequels to be better, and are willing to take them for face value with some additions and explanations, then James Luceno has the answer.  But if you want to write off George Lucas’s attempt to make another gazillion dollars by releasing movies that took a beloved childhood experience (for many of us who saw the movies as kids, that is) and made it hollow and overwrought in special effects and standing around/sitting around talking (look how many times the plot is moved along by tedious exposition in standing around/sitting around scenes in those films), then you can easily skip this book without regret.  For me, I’m glad I didn’t.  Did it make Lucas’s folly worth it?  Almost, kids.  Almost.

Learn more about Star Wars: Darth Plagueis by James Luceno and read the full user review from Peter Morrison on Amazon.com  


The parting comment:

 
The end makes the whole thing.  Han walks in and Chewie has... well, you see for  yourself.