Book is available on Amazon
Lords of the Sith follows Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith by just a few years. The Empire is at it's peak, and the Rebel Alliance has yet to be dreamed up. When a rash of terrorism breaks out on Ryloth, the Twi'Lek home world, the Emperor decides that he and Lord Vader will pay a personal visit to smash the early seeds of rebellion/terrorism. What follows is an engaging, swashbuckling romp through the Ryloth system that pits Vader against increasing odds, and an interesting look at the beginning of one part of the Rebel Alliance.
Paul S. Kemp does a good job realizing the Star Wars milieu and making it feel seedy and lived-in. He also does a really good job making it feel sci-fi, a dimension of it's identity that most Star Wars stuff chooses to ignore. Ships feel isolated and fragile in a very good way, technology feels embedded within the world, and honestly, I really loved that side of Lords of the Sith.
I also enjoyed reading about Vader, for the most part. He's written with surprising depth, and his relationship with the Emperor is really unsettling. It's both disarming and disgruntling to see their emotionally-abusive relationship played out like that; and yet, Vader doesn't become the victim in the way the prequel movies tried so hard to paint him. He is fully aware of his actions, their implications, and his ultimate monstrosity. Indeed, he revels in it, believes that this is the role he was cast into by the Force--that he is the bloody hammer necessary to make everything else right. It's twisted and messianic and conflicting in a good way. I do wish that Kemp had been given a few more Force-related descriptions in his bag: the biggest letdown of Lords of the Sith is that the force-users are written with a numbing repetition.
Though the book does feature the titular galactic bullies as, if not protagonists, than certainly narrators, most of the book is actually told from the perspective of the Twi'Lek terrorists, or the Imperial Colonel Belkor, whose station on Belkor has led to an escalating corruption in pursuit of personal power and accolades. Vader accounts, as a narrator, for less than a quarter of the book, with the Twi'Leks taking at least half, and Belkor the remaining third or so. No narrator is particularly weak, though the politick of Ryloth did wear on after a while. When Kemp finally brings everything to a close, and the remaining narrators are standing on top of each other, it's a marked relief.
This is a rock solid entry in the new Star Wars canon. It treats the sci-fi aspect of the series with much more respect than Chuck Wendig's Aftermath, or the Lost Stars book, and bridges the gap well between the prequels and original trilogy. I'd recommend it without reservation.
Book is available on Amazon
0 comments:
Post a Comment