Books STAR WARS: LORDS OF THE SITH by Paul S. Kemp

Kemp said that it will be fixed in the second printing of the book.

 

I just came across that Sixes thing last night; made me chuckle.

 

I really enjoyed this book. I think it's my favorite canon novel so far (though if we add in junior novels, the Servants of the Empire series wins by a landslide). My current ranking would be:

SotE 1 & 2
LotS
AND
HttJ/Tarkin (both of these get a shrug from me)

Though there's a big gap between AND and the bottom two. I'm mentally leaving about three slots that, unless every new book is absolutely terrible, will be filled in after a year or two. (Not that HttJ or Tarkin are that bad, objectively, they just don't work for me as a reader.)

The biggest reason LotS edges out AND (and it is an edging-out, and I suspect if I re-read AND having watched Rebels and read the Kanan comic, I'll like it better) is the characters:

All of the characters in LotS were compelling (even if they weren't all likable). I know others were bored by Cham and the Free Ryloth rebels, but I found their parts of the book just as strong as the Vader/Palpatine segments. You know going in that Cham is going to fail to assassinate Vader and Palpatine, but when his forces are able to bring down the Perilous, the question becomes how close is he going to get? And how much is he willing to risk in the process? Cham's an impressive character. Even when they realize just what the Emperor and Vader are capable of, he still persists in his mission. That takes guts.

Isval's also a great character. If she were force-sensitive, this would be a story of her fall to the dark side... it's kind of a neat parallel to have a character following that kind of arc even as she's trying to take out the two baddest dark siders around.

Vader and Palpatine were really well done. For Vader, this is a great bridge between the emotional guy at the end of RotS and the in-control dude of ANH. He thinks about his past but he quashes those thoughts pretty quickly. And Palpatine steers him further down that path. Palpatine's wonderfully manipulative and powerful. The guy gets off on this stuff.

Belkor's probably the least interesting as a character, but watching him fall apart as everything slips out of his control is wonderfully entertaining. This is a guy who thrives on controlling every detail and he just can't handle it when **** hits the fan. He's got this terrible opinion of Mors, but she's just the opposite. She starts out lazy and uninterested, but by the end she's become a capable leader. Not a good person by any stretch of the imagination, but I liked her arc. And as far as her being gay and playing into negative stereotypes goes, I suppose I can see it, but even in Belkor's description of her, there are hints that she's more than she appears. It's clearly a biased opinion. So, provided any further LGBT characters are varied individuals, I have no problem with Mors. She was handled just the way she should have been: matter-of-fact, with no fanfare (at least until the media got word of her existence). I don't put that on Del Rey, because it was kind of out of their hands at that point. I'd have been more bothered if they touted her existence looking for Aren't-We-Good-People? points.

Other positives: This is a tight, fast-paced story, especially once the Perilous gets to Ryloth and things get crazy. Hardly any wasted scenes, no wasted characters (except the weird vaporized-then-not imperial guard). Kemp's writing is straightforward and he doesn't waste too many words (though there are times when he gets in his characters heads and I feel a little talked-down-to, but that's more my bias against 3rd-person-omniscient narration than anything). This is the kind of Star Wars novel I want to see more of.

Bonus points for making Ryloth feel very fleshed out without being overly descriptive. No flowery prose, but it's not a cardboard backdrop either.

Negatives: Kemp's writing is straightforward, but at times it's stiff. He also chooses weird adjectives sometimes; it's a nitpick, but I was completely thrown out of the narrative at the description of lylek movement as "herky-jerky." Not once, but TWICE. It's just such a... Dr. Seuss description. I was willing to read past it the first time, but the second time it showed up, I made a face and groaned.

The beginning of the novel was slower than I'd have liked. Part of the reason it took me this long to finish the book was that I had trouble getting through the first few chapters. But once those were behind me, the book was a fast read all the way to the end.

I thought the bit with the lyleks dragged a bit. I know why it was there and the purpose it served, but essentially having two chase scenes with two groups of characters back to back felt a bit like deja vu. That was the only part that felt like padding.

But, yeah, overall, really enjoyable read! I might even read it again. Believe me, that's a rare thing.

 

OK, so, I've heard a lot of yak yak yak about gays and action scenes and power levels and pacing and characterization and whatnot, but I haven't heard anything about the only thing that matters:

Does Ryloth rotate?

 

Suspect I'm missing something here but...

It's a bloody planet, why wouldn't it rotate?

 

Ryloth used to be a tidally locked planet, one side permanently facing the sun. They changed it to a more traditional planet a long time ago.

 

Ah, thanks.

 

This may be helpful to you:
http://www.starwars.com/news/the-legendary-star-wars-expanded-universe-turns-a-new-page

 

It is Star Wars and Sci-Fi. Another universe. Give us something different.

 

I thought this book was the best book so far under Disney. I enjoyed it

 

Yes, it rotates.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Sometimes it rotates clockwise, and other times it choses to run counter-clockwise, depending on its mood.

 

Or depending on which pole you're looking "down" at

 

Don't we all, amirite?

 

If Ryloth doesn't rotate, Star Wars is ruined.

%#& this $#!&.

 

What page is "Sixes" mentioned on.

 

Page 195:

Spoiler

The captain of the Royal Guard sat on the ground across from them.
"You should remove your helmet, Captain, the Emperor said. "It must wear on you to have it on all the time."
"Thank you, my Emperor," the captain said. He removed his helmet to reveal a mien familiar to Vader, the scarred face of a clone, the features an echo of so many faces from Vader's past. Rex. Cody. Sixes. Echo. The roster of names moved through Vader's mind, each of them a trigger for a memory, each of them a ghost from his past.
"Is there an Imperial installation nearby, my lords?" the captain asked. Sergeant Deez removed his helmet, too, showing a face that wasn't that of a clone: a clean-shaven, ax-jawed human with short-cropped blond hair and tattoos of abstract patterns inked on his cheeks.
If Deez had been a clone, Vader imagined they'd have called him Ink.

 

Thank you I actually just read that page in the book not to long ago 5 or so minutes

Anyway I like that a clone is a red Gaurd.

 

And also, that there's an ordinary human Red Guard. Maybe, like with the stormtroopers in Tarkin, they're going through a transitional phase?

 

Palpatine has Red Guards in AOTC before Obi-Wan discovers the clones on Kamino. I figured that they must be ordinary humans at that point.

 

While I suppose that Dooku could be skimming the best of the clones from Kamino and sending them to Palpatine before AOTC starts - it does seem more likely that there were non-clone humans being used in the Red Guard back then, and that some clones were inducted later. Rather than vice-versa (all the Red Guard being clones for a long period, then non-clones being inducted later on).

 

Exactly my point.

 

I'd assume the original Red Guard were recruited from the Senate Guard.

 

That's what it was in the old EU anyway.