Star Wars: Darth Bane Trilogy - Legends

Title: Star Wars: Darth Bane Trilogy
Author: Drew Karpyshyn
Genre:  Science Fiction
Publication Date: September 1, 1998 (US)
Publisher:  Lucasfilm Ltd. (US)
Pages:  1009 (2009 US edition)

Rating:  2 out of 5

Amazon Book Blurb: 
  

After a high-stakes card game ends violently, Dessel, a lowly miner, vanishes into the ranks of the Sith army and ships out to join the war against the Republic and its Jedi champions. There, Dessel’s brutality, cunning, and exceptional command of the Force swiftly win him renown as a warrior. But in the eyes of his watchful masters, a far greater destiny awaits him . . . if he can prove himself worthy. As an acolyte in the Sith Academy, studying at the feet of its greatest masters, Dessel embraces his new identity: Bane. However, in order to gain full acceptance into this chilling Brotherhood, he must surrender completely to the dark side. Only by defying the most sacred traditions of the Sith can Bane hope to triumph—and forge from the ashes a new era of absolute power.

Review: I jumped into this trilogy as soon as it appeared on my Kindle, a digital gift from my son. I immediately identified with Dessel’s struggles as a sweaty manual laborer trying to break free of the enslaving debt that his deceased father had bequeathed to him. I was also intrigued by the promise his special gifts held for future freedom, fame and fortune.

As his life circumstances forced him into a career as a mercenary soldier in an army of Sith, transforming him into an archenemy of the Jedi Order, I could not help hoping redemption from the dark side would eventually come.  But when he donned the dark lord identity of “Bane” I couldn’t resist mentally rolling my eyes a bit. 

The first book began fresh and fast-paced and then seemed to settle in for a long ride toward the final chapters as if to prolong the ending. I slogged through the second book which, looking back on it now, seemed to rely overly much on Bane’s discovery of ancient Sith artifacts in tombs for his meteoric rise to top Sith Lord. Although Bane is not naturally the brightest Sith that ever lived, he is somehow the only one to crack into the most powerful secrets of infamous tombs and pyramids after thousands of years.

After he concludes that the Sith army’s problem is its abandonment of the Rule of Two, Bane plots to kill off every Sith in existence except for one who is worthy to be his apprentice, the one destined to eventually challenge him in mortal combat and replace him or die. I understand Bane’s aversion to a Sith “brotherhood” but am I the only Star Wars fan struggling to see how destroying every Sith in the galaxy save for the apprentice is a smart path to Sith dominance? I would have preferred a tribal equilibrium more like that of the Spider Queen culture in the Forgotten Realms books where the social dynamics based on hate and fear quickly rebalance in the wake of every bloody coup or assassination. How can the Sith rule an entire galaxy when its society is reduced to a single Dark Lord at the end of each leadership stint?

The body of the story is pocked with some serious mistakes by Bane that disappointed me. His best candidate for an apprentice – sufficiently wicked, power-hungry, treacherous and traitorous that she qualified with flying colors – is killed by his first mass destruction plot. Then he settles for a youngster without any evil experience whatsoever to be his apprentice.

If the galaxy in the story is anything like the Milky Way, it would have about half a billion habitable planets. So, it stretches credulity that the Jedi Order is fooled into thinking that all the Sith would gather at one place and allow themselves to be killed in a single event. Are the Jedi that gullible and the Sith that stupid?

As if to compensate for the loss of the Sith’s force of numbers, Bane’s advantage for several years is anonymity while he pieces together his master plan to wipe out the Jedi, although the reader is not made privy to the ingenious details. Either the author figured the reader would be bored or confused by such trivia or too stupid to understand (or the author didn't have the details either). Bane’s apprentice isn’t privy to such details either. As if to keep the reader occupied as the years slip by, the story has Bane track down more and more long lost Sith lore that enables him to become insanely powerful. Yes, insane and powerful. The skills of the best Jedi pale by comparison. The years slip by without any visible progress on taking down the republic. Bane’s only real enemy seems to be himself for a while. Finally, Bane’s veil of anonymity is blown as his uncharacteristic sparing of a teenage Sith-wannabe catches up with him.

More years slip through Bane’s fingers without much happening other than the waning of his skills as he ages and succumbs to the side-effects of the force and parasites that feed on it. The major source of suspense is the question of how and when Bane’s apprentice will try to strike him down. Other characters such as revenge-seekers are brought into the story to keep it going and boring background narratives are included for context. I found myself skimming to find the next action scene.

It’s a curious thing that any flow of talent seemed to be from light to dark side only. I kept waiting for one of the ex-Jedi traitors to think better of their decision once they experienced the dark loneliness of life as an evil self-serving Sith. I also expected some degree of romantic passion to weaken the dark resolve of Bane or his apprentice momentarily. But nothing other than sterile Sith darkness ruled those two until the end. The story felt like one book that, with effort, was stretched into a trilogy. The beginning of the first book was interesting and the end of the last book was interesting. If you bog down in the first book, bail out and jump into the middle of the third book to see how it ends.

SPOILER ALERT: The clue given at the very end of the trilogy, confirming that what the reader expected in the final scene actually happened, was clever but biologically nonsensical.

Did you love the whole trilogy?  Does the Rule of Two make sense to you? Please comment below!

Review: "Ravenor" by Dan Abnett

Title: Ravenor
Author: Dan Abnett 
Genre:  Science Fiction
Publication Date: 2004
Publisher:  Games Workshop
Pages:  416

Rating:  4 out of 5

Amazon Book Blurb: 
  

When his body is hideously damaged in an enemy attack, it looks as though Inquisitor Gideon Ravenor's promising career would be abruptly brought short. Now, encased in a life support sytem that keeps him alive but forever cuts him off from the physical world, Ravenor utilises his formidable mental powers to continue his investigations and thwart the machinations of Chaos. Along with his retinue of warriors and assassins, Gideon Ravenor fights to protect an Imperium he can no longer see, hear or feel.

Review:  Ravenor takes place in the Warhammer 40k universe which is easily one of the greatest examples of lore-creation in the greater Sci-Fi and Fantasy genres.  And in this universe, Dan Abnett is king.  Or God-Emperor if you prefer.

Speaking of heresy, there's something about the all-powerful inquisition and its agents of the throne that draws readers in.  Answering only to the Emperor, who isn't saying much from his golden throne, the only check to their power is their fellow inquisitors.  That isn't to say that agents of the inquisition go around throwing their limitless power in everyone's faces.  More often they work in secret as to prevent the vile elements they hunt from going to ground.  But the mix of clandestine work they perform as well as the occasional demonstration of absolute authority satisfies a craving I had that I wasn't aware existed.  Dan Abnett is particularly adept at weaving these two approaches into a compelling narrative.

If you were to check my kindle's dictionary you'd find that almost all of the words I've looked up while reading were from Dan Abnett's books.  His vocabulary is impressive and refreshing for logophiles:  Caromed, funicular, balmacaan.  These are just a few interesting words I picked up to help me sound pretentious when I'm chatting with my three year old.

Anyone familiar with the Warhammer 40k universe is also familiar with its often gruesome nature.  While not as constant or quite as visceral as the more war-oriented novels, Ravenor still has its moments.  Mr. Abnett is a master of description.  He perfectly captures the essence of any given scene and moment in time.

On the other hand, his love for a perfectly set scene can also be a hindrance.  I've found myself sifting through several pages that describe the setting in an incredibly detailed and time-consuming manner that left lulls in an otherwise engaging plot.  However, I've noticed that this is a matter of preference among readers.  I know many get upset by Orson Scott Card's lack of scenery description.  He prefers to leave as much as possible to his reader's imagination.  I know many readers prefer Mr. Card's briefly descriptive style.  I think, however, that most of us fall somewhere in the middle of the two extremes.  So be aware that Mr. Abnett tends to fall on the very descriptive end of the spectrum.

Those who've read Mr. Abnett's Eisenhorn series are aware that those novels were exclusively first-person narrative which, as Mr. Abnett himself has said, can be hard on a story as it strongly limits what an author can present to the reader.  He works around this problem while keeping a little Eisenhorn flavor in Ravenor by presenting every character's viewpoint as third-person with the exception of Ravenor himself who is presented in the first-person.  It sounds a little awkward but I thought it worked well.

The biggest hindrance to Ravenor is that the character for whom the book is named, Ravenor, is never actually 'seen' by the reader.  Having been horribly wounded by a previous terrorist attack, he resides inside an armored 'chair'.  We hear his thoughts and his monotone voice when he uses his 'chair's' speakers but this leaves very little humanity in the character with which the reader can cling to.  As a result, Mr. Abnett spends a lot of time writing from the perspective of members of Ravenor's coterie.  Having said that, it didn't really bother me but I strongly suspect it will bother others.

Summing up, I enjoyed the book immensely and I guarantee that any fan of dark sci-fi will also be satisfied.

Do you have questions?  Are you an ardent WH40K fan who noticed a heretical mistake in my review?  Let me know in the comments below and may the God-Emperor take mercy on me.