Drew must be stopped
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Don't buy this book. Drew Karpyshyn is one of the worst authors to pen a Star Wars story in quite some time. This is the man who brought us one of the worst characters in Star Wars history...the pathetic Revan. Now, in this book, he makes Revan the one whose holocron grants Bane the knowledge he uses to lead the Sith into a new Era. Drew's ego knows no bounds, as he is clearly attempting to leave his own permanent stamp on Star Wars by claiming Revan as the greatest Sith of all and the guiding force behind nearly every aspect of their history. Stop buying crap like this and Lucasfilm ltd. will stop paying him to wreck the Star Wars universe.
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Worst Star Wars Novel Ever!!!
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I read this novel over the weekend and after seeing the other reviews posted here, I had to express my own opinion about it. Now to start off, I'm a big Star Wars fan and I've read loads of the books but this was quite simply the worst one I've ever read. Seriously, worse than The Truce at Bakura, worse than The Mandalorian Armour.
This book did have a lot of potential but so much of it was squandered. A big attraction for me was the setting of the novel. Set One Thousand Years before the adventures of Luke, Leia and Han, I wanted to see what the GFFA was like back then. Yet apart from the absence of familiar characters, there is no difference at all. There is no noticeable difference in technology, even the slang used is the same.
Then, there's the characters. Everybody is completely shallow and one-dimensional. The Jedi are paragons of virtue and bravery and the Sith are all scheming treacherous bastards. They want power but its never clear what they want to do with it. They're out to conquer the galaxy without any explanation as to why, beyond...well, thats what evil supervillains do, y'know?
At first, it seems like Bane himself has some depth with a cool backstory and a decent reason for hating the Jedi but then he hooks up with the rest of the Sith and quickly becomes as shallow and clicheed as the rest of them and you quickly lose all interest in the plot.
And the plot itself is full of holes. Why use a thought bomb -no, seriously- to kill the Jedi when your fleet can nuke them from orbit?
If you want to read a cool book about the Sith, read Darth Maul-Shadow Hunter. But avoid this one at all costs.
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An Excellent Stand Alone Novel
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This is the kind of Star Wars book I've always had trouble with in the past, the 'stand alone' novel. Frankly, after the initial Thrawn Trilogy, some extremely dubious stand alone novels were published and drove me away from the franchise (I'm sorry I never bought into the Hutt's potential rein of terror with a reconstructed Death Star laser, or Luke's seemingly endless run of bad relationships with force users when the Mara relationship was obvious right from Heir to the Empire blah blah.) I only returned for New Jedi Order and since then for Legacy of the Force. Amazon recommendations kept on throwing this book up at me and I kept ignoring and rejecting it... it is, after all, a stand alone novel.
And it's GOOD.
This is the work of a writer who's clearly existed in the world he's writing about for some time (being I believe one of the designers of the Knights of the Old Republic games) and he's come up with a well told, cohesive story with a solid plot line that really takes us through why the Sith become what they are by the time of the Prequel films. The development of the lead character is believable and well handled. That he isn't invulnerable from the start and does fail (unlike certain characters in the films) in what he sets out to do, before coming back all the stronger, gives him depth and motivation. Nor are any of the characters (who are all essentially villains) cliched and 'bad' for the sake of it.
I read this novel in one afternoon (I'm a fast reader) and if I had any criticisms of it then those would be first that the circumstances Bane starts his life are something sci-fi readers have seen several times before (the STEN series comes to mind for the background, but even that took the concept from elsewhere) but at least it's new to Star Wars. My other criticism is that the ending is slightly less satisfying than the quality of the rest of the novel suggests it should be. On the other hand the author is dealing with a fixed ending - he has to leave the Sith Order as it will be in Episode 1 and therefore he doesn't have the freedom to do more than close Bane's story. Small niggles in an excellent Star Wars story, even if it doesn't involve any characters we've seen before.
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A damn good effort!
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Despite the review below, this book is set long before the films. It's a fairly fast pace romp through the fall of a muscular miner and his contribution to the warring sith empire, i.e. the rule of two that proves so popular with Darth Sidious many years later.
Definatly a good read. However it suffers like many of the stand alone books do, despite Karpyshyn's efforts I struggle to empathise with the characters unlike those of the NJO that I've seen grow from children.
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A great Star Wars Read...
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I have to say I really enjoyed this book. I tend to shy away from any star wars books set after ROTJ, and mainly read clone war books. So having read the three novelizations to go with the new trilogy (Mathew Stover's excellent Revenge of the Sith the pick of that bunch) and clone war novels such as Dark Rendezvous', Shatterpoint, Labyrinth of Evil and The cetus Deception, I have to say this is as good or better then any of them.
This book details the life story (set over about five years) of the creator of the new Sith order Darth Bane. The book details the reasons for his joining the Sith, his early life as a sith and his rise to Sith mastery. All well written and exciting. Couldn't put the book down and finally finished it about twelve hours after starting. a great Star Wars read.
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