Revan

 

AUTHOR: Drew Karpyshyn

COPYRIGHT: 2011

TIME PERIOD: The Old Republic 

In a period after galactic war with the Sith, disgraced Jedi Revan, who had turned to the Dark Side during the war, is haunted by dreams of his past and fear of a growing threat. Meanwhile, a Sith Lord named Scourge uncovers a plot within the Sith Empire which may have lasting consequences for the galaxy.

Darth Revan is a character from a role-playing game. He was briefly mentioned in some of the Knights of the Old Republic comics, and some of the surrounding story plays into events of the Old Republic video games. I haven't played any of these games, and I think that puts me at a disadvantage with this novel. I'm not even certain who this book is really for. For a casual reader, there's so much backstory that is only hinted at here, and I don't know that it really pays off much in the end. Indeed, I wouldn't even call Revan the main character, despite the novel bearing his name. Much of the first half of the book follows Scourge as he uncovers an assassination plot, works to protect his own skin, and learn of the Emperor's renewed plans for war with the Republic. The book alternates chapters with Revan, but so much of the first half concerns Revan going rogue from the Jedi and trying to reconnect with people from his past. This leads to expeditions with former Mandalorian contacts and the discovery of secrets he had buried. But ultimately, once he gets caught up and regains memory, filling in those readers for whom these events are new, Does it really go anywhere?

The second half of the book skips ahead 5 years with Revan has been captured by Scourge and rescued by Meetra, a former Jedi. Her adventures are also intercut with Scourge until the climax. Ultimately they prevent the Emperor from war for now, but I wouldn't call it much of a resolution. Revan doesn't really succeed himself in anything and the book ends with him in a bit of a tragic state. Yet I don't particularly care because the book hasn't delved much into his character. If anything, his sole accomplishment is in opening Scourge to Force visions, which play a key role in the ending. But there really isn't much plot here, and it feels less like a novel and more like an expanded RPG campaign.

So much of the book is action scene after action scene, and I dislike the way Karpyshyn writes them. Chapter after chapter is description of each pose and strike and counter-strike a character makes, often with very utilitarian prose. But I wasn't invested in the action most of the time and I couldn't really see it, even if the text plainly told me "he moved like this, then they moved like this." Halfway through I felt like this should have been a comic book or some sort of visual medium instead of a novel because it just moved from little action setpiece to little action setpiece. The few character moments were nice, but they were very few. 

The only times I was really interested was in some moments involving the Force, such as when they arrive on a world so completely ravaged by the Dark Side that all life is gone and therefore there is no presence of the Force at all. Some of the description here was very good. But for the most part, I wasn't particularly invested in any of the characters nor in Karpyshyn's prose. I was hoping for a little more from this book, as Darth Revan seems to have been an interesting character at some point. But this isn't really his story and feels like it's just filling in gaps between other stories that I don't have. An epilogue 50 years later teases that their actions had lasting consequences for Revan's family, but I didn't leave the book feeling satisfied. I am wrestling with how to grade it because while it isn't exactly bad, it also isn't exactly anything. 

Grade: C

Into the Void

 

AUTHOR: Tim Lebbon

COPYRIGHT: 2013

SERIES: Dawn of the Jedi

TIME FRAME: Dawn of the Jedi -- before the Republic

It's been a long time since I read a Star Wars novel, so I decided to start up again. This is the earliest book in the timeline, telling of a time before the Jedi existed. Instead, we have Force-sensitive characters in an order called the Je'daii. They don't have lightsabers, but carry actual swords. They aren't knights, they are Rangers. This story is set many millennia before the Republic, in a time where they didn't even have hyperspace travel. The world is smaller, mainly concerned with the planet Tython. One aspect I liked is that the planet has two moons, Ashla an Bogan, and the Je'daii of Tython use these as terms to describe the light and dark sides of the Force.

 Je'daii Ranger Lanoree Brock is sent on a mission to find her brother Dal, long believed to be dead. He has shunned the Force and gotten involved with a group called Stargazers who aren't content to stay on Tython or the few surrounding planets but want to see more of the galaxy. He seeks out ancient technology to use dark matter in hopes of opening a hypergate that will allow further travel... but this might also destroy the planet and all life on it. There are deep mysteries down in the caverns of Tython, mysteries which maybe shouldn't be explored.

 I have mixed feelings about this book. It's a serviceable story about divided siblings, one a darling of the Je'daii who loves the Force and one who is pulled to the dark. I do have a few qualms. For one, the book is populated not just with humans but with typical Star Wars fare like Twi'leks and Wookiees. But the story only really works if Tython is cut off from the galaxy. So we have to introduce a conceit that millennia ago all these different species came or were brought to this planet and somehow this technology was lost. I think the book would have worked better if it had the guts to not populate with known aliens. And it's also crazy to begin a story set so far back in time, and yet within it there are over 9 millennia of past history involving a technologically advanced race known as the Gree. In a way, some of it felt like reading a later Dune novel, right down to the little epigraphs that open each chapter.

The worst thing about the book is its slow pacing. There just isn't enough story here and it gets drawn out as we move from location to location not advancing the plot very far. Each chapter includes a flashback to Lanoree and Dal's early Je'daii training pilgrimage. Lebbon makes the very odd choice of telling the flashbacks in present tense. Using tense to differentiate between time frames isn't a bad idea, but it seems to me it would have made more sense to tell the present story in the present tense and the flashbacks in past tense. There are several mysterious plot threads hinted at early on that reference events of long ago, but these end up not going anywhere or being followed up on. It made me wonder if they were sequel bait for later stories in this Dawn of the Jedi initiative. 

I did like going back so far and seeing what the Jedi might have been like before their religion was codified and their rules stricter. This is not a world that abolishes attachments. It's nice to divorce the world from laser swords and hyperdrives (though blasters are still here). I think Lebbon writes the Force pretty well, and the book is at its best when Lanoree is sensing it and trying to maintain balance. There's also a subplot about Lanoree performing "alchemy of the flesh", experimenting through the Force to manipulate biological material cloned from her own cells. Could this be the beginnings of how Anakin was created? Where Lebbon is less successful is in writing action sequences. I wasn't all that interested in most of them, and found them sort of flat and boring, as if they were included because he had to put them in, but it's really not where he excelled as a writer. 

Overall, the ideas and hints at the larger world were more interesting than the story itself. It wasn't an amazing book, but neither was it one that made me angry. 

GRADE: C