Books Reign of the Empire Book Trilogy

Not really. It very much goes against Dark Lord Rise of Darth Vader. It follows TCW so if that is legends for you it can work.

 

Should be easy to reconcile then

bail seems to be the biggest sticking point

 

Yes. His other star wars books are so good that fantastic doesn't reach their heights for me. Lol.

 

Slight spoilers but it is key to your question.

Spoiler

Bail and his relationship to Mon are the opposite from Legends, if you can just say they go back and forth or maybe Dark Lord Rise of Darth Vader comes after this? though that is more of a one canon thing.

It is a decent story though, in my view the best Freed has done.

 

And new senator characters that could perhaps be retconned to appear in ROTS?

 

sure they were just offscreen, like Ahsoka in the same film.

 

There's the human senators and the second Quarren senator who greeted Palpatine on his return. Then there's the Pacithhip delegation in the Declaration Senate scene.

 

LOL, I read your post wrong. I had thought it said "This was my least favorite SW novel" which is what confused me.

 

Picked this book up today. Now I just need to find the time to actually read it....

 

Spoiler: chapter 67

That is certainly the most poetic description of Amedda ever.

And that is certainly the best moment with him.

Suspiciously detailed description, wonder if this ambitious engineer will appear in the next Reign of the Empire novel.

Well, it took me long enough time to finish this book, partially because I deliberately read in a slower pace to to extend the delight.

Spoiler

Soujen is the coolest new SW character in a while and the most nuanced Separatist in NU Canon, being resourceful, introspective and brutally truthful to others. All the pieces of CIS lore around him (post-war contingency plans, shadow faction in Separatist Parliament, Techno Union shenanigans) are very interesting and worth of a separate book just about them.

Mon's storyline is just as brilliant as it is depressive, especially the last part where she rejects the possibility of stepping aside. Her relationship with Perrin there is quite heartwarming, he was a legitimately good man before years of compromising with Imperials. Would be tragic in case of his death in Andor season 2 because of Mon's actions. But regarding comparisons with the series - book Mothma seems to be much more resolute, almost to the point of not aligning with herself 15 years later. Although maybe Leida (whose conception was seemingly hinted at the end) affected her determination, and that is when Luthen resurfaced as critically important player in the rebellion.

The twist about Imperials initially planning to make Saw a governor of Onderon (if only he followed their orders) adds more layers to his charcter arc than most of his appearances after RO. Bail's final scene was amazing, but in general in this novel he was too impulsive for the sake of plot.

Wish there was more about Haki and Chemish, they had a lot of potential, being a mentor and a student serving the Empire and dealing with the consequences of it, like Soran and Yrica, but without the baggage of war crimes. Was great to finally have Imperial Intelligence back story-wise, even though it is mostly thanks to ISB not being fully formed because of chronology.

Was a little strange for almost all of Senators being new characters. Can understand Chuchi being still under embargo because of her role in animation (even though TBB already ended), but that is hardly an excuse for others from films and TCW, especially for Separatist ones.

 

I finished this last week and was thinking of a good review, but this is a difficult one to pull together concisely. So I will first get what’s bothering me out of my system:

Saw Gerrara on p. 441: “…but the Separatists never wanted a treaty.”

OH EXCUSE ME?



In the words of the sacred Lucasian legend known as Attack of the Clones: “The Banking Clan will sign your treaty!”

I dunno if you though it was a joke, Saw, but I don’t think it was a joke to poor San Hill. I think he was really hyped to sign that ****ing treaty.

Anyway, now that that’s out of my system, let me commence with the review.

For two reasons, this is a difficult book to review (and one of these two is a real elephant in the corner), but I will explain those further along. There might be some minor spoilers, but I won’t get into details.

THE GOOD:

Alexander Freed or whatever his real name is continues to demonstrate that he is one of the more multi-faceted authors in the SW Disney era, and he’s able to juggle multiple different characters without conflating personalities and motives. He usually writes his own characters in other books, so here is a rare instance we see him primarily focusing on characters that are not his own. Mon, Bail, Saw, and the others – even secondary folks like Mon’s husband Perrin – behave and interact in such a way that they perfectly fit their established personalities, to the point I can hear Saw and Bail’s voices when they speak. The characters also don’t always fit clean-cut stereotypes. Saw occasionally is willing to listen to someone who isn’t an all-out crazy rebel. Perrin lacks enthusiasm in life but is not a dead-beat; he actually acts like real person, and you can see why Mon and him stick together despite their differences. Mon really shines on occasion as a character brought ever more to the brink of risking all. Her passion for history helps explain why she is willing to take risks, since she knows of cases in the past when people didn’t do enough to stop a calamity and paid the price.

It was very interesting seeing Imperial Intelligence at the forefront again. We haven’t had that in a while… I was reminded of the days of Ysanne and Kirtan from the old X-Wing books. I do think they were a bit too polarized in this book, but there were occasions where it seemed very real (like the older near-retired officer telling Chemish to take a hike and stop causing trouble, because the new officers were not going to be nearly as forgiving). It was also interesting to see the younger imperials as somewhat self-conscious and uncertain, as if they were just learning the ropes. The indoctrination process is starting, and Palpatine is clearly trying to clean house of all the older officers who don’t immediately bow to him so he can establish a new bootlicking generation.

The other detail that was often very good was the dialogue. I am not always a fan of the dialogue in some Star Wars books because everyone sounds stilted like robots. Freed’s characters actually talk like real people. And as I said above, they don’t all sound the same – you can hear the voices coming through the page sometimes. (Quiet, Saw!)

THE… LESS GOOD?

This brings us to the first of the two reasons this book is difficult to review. There is too much happening. The book was cluttered, and I’m not convinced all the scenes were necessary. There were a LOT of different story plots, and some were far more engaging than others. More often, a character would drag for a while (both Mon and Bail did at various points), then suddenly shine for a chapter or two as they did something interesting or had a particularly significant conversation with another person. Sometimes there were characters that fell out of the plot for a while and suddenly returned later at a point that seemed… off. Both Chemish and Haki come to mind there.

Related to this, sometimes characters knew more than they should have. This began to increase about halfway through the book (p. 180 onward or so). Bail, Haki, and others would be faced with a quandary where they didn’t have all the knowledge of a situation. Rather than deliberate it, they suddenly seemed to know what the author did and moved forward. That certainly saved time (and this book was in need of that), but it seemed artificial, like the characters were unreasonably good at deducing the truth.

Bail’s plot was one of the weaker points of this story. It could have been fascinating, given that he went off Coruscant for an adventure. I am confused as to whether the author intended for Bail to journey to a bunch of planets and link the resolution of a mystery together, or if Bail was merely seeing links that did not exist. The former was too coincidental, like Bail goes to random planet X that Haki wanted him to go to and suddenly determining how the fake Jedi holograms were made. Other times it seemed like he was running in circles and his whole trip was a farce, with him seeing answers where there were none. Given that the hologram part of Bail’s journey didn’t amount to anything in the end and was sort of dropped in favor of the Soujen terrorist plot, I’m guessing it didn’t matter. But it was very confusing and seemed to be missing something to hold it together.

Ultimately, the first reason this book is difficult to review is due to its complexity. It has a lot of plots. Some don’t really go anywhere. Interesting characters are introduced and barely used. I suppose this might be setting up other books, but as this book was over 450 pages in length, it seemed that some of the extraneous stuff could have been cut and the main plots and characters streamlined better.

THE… OTHER THING

The second reason this book is difficult to review is because it reads very close to real life in the USA right now, to the point that some stuff happening in real life seems even more ridiculous than this book. I don’t even live in the US, but it feels like the direction the world is taking. It’s hard to do anything these days without feeling like we’re in 1984-distopianland. Authoritarian governments are on the rise. Everyone is on pins and needles, looking over their shoulder, afraid to speak what they feel. But folks seem to want this stuff too, like they’re actively voting the autocrats in because they think it’s the more secure course for the future. Mon and Bail and the others aren’t being publicly executed in the street, but Palpatine and his Empire are setting up a slow game and testing the waters. The threats are minor but legitimate in the early Empire. We know that after 20 years the stakes will be much higher, that Tarkin with have had enough of Bail’s bluster and make a more decisive move. Eerily, Palpatine is smart enough not to go there yet. His promise for security has won folks over, and even Bail is playing along to some extent, even is willing to announce to the Senate that he looks forward to promoting the new Empire.

At least three times in this novel, Mon makes a dorky political joke about what one will do to win votes. Nobody laughs. But it seems very… on point.

In sum: While not my favorite Alexander Freed novel, this was one of the better political thrillers in Star Wars. That goes for both the old EU and Disneyverse. I appreciate Freed’s attention to detail to characters and their motives, and the care taken writing dialogue. The multiple plots were a bit too distracting and could have been cleaner. But it was a good book overall.

 

Spoiler: Andor season 2 first arc

Great to have these narrative connections, like Perrin's more sympathetic portrayal and Mon's complicated relationship with her mother, works better on synergy than just lore references.

 

Strangely, outside of the Saw and Mon portions of the book, I found myself intrigued by seeing Perrin given some limelight in the book despite his rather shaky reputation later on in Andor. While he is a bit of a boorish snob in the show, Perrin in the book here is rather different and sort of a just shadow of his current self. There are cracks of compassion and care in his sleazy shell that gives some ponderance towards his "awful arranged marriage" to Mon Mothma.

Is it weird that I enjoy this character background presentation more than Bails sidestory?

 

Not weird at all. I'm doing a rewatch of Andor S1 right now, and we just got to Mon Mothma's introduction, along with Perrin. I felt new outrage with Mon at Perrin wanting to talk to 'fun' people like Sly Moore- those people engineered the attack on your house, sir!

 

I really wonder where Perrin became so extremely hedonistic or overly-social with the corrupt elite, this reeks of him compensating for the fact he's not as dedicated as his wife and trying to outdo her in other matters. Although in terms of outrage, I found myself hating the Mothmas daughter more than Perrin (He's less evil and more of a annoyance that bothers his rebel wife once in a while).

 

Or perhaps, since we don't have Perrin's POV, he is actually working from within on behalf of Luthen or another rebel?

 

Spoiler

With the implication at the end of novel, that Leida's birth was a result of Mon and Perrin being spontaneous after very stressful events, it is no wonder that they turned out to be bad parents.

 

Spoiler

Pity that Jobin is not being mentioned. I wonder if a son that ran away to join an active rebel cell would also add to the dimension.

 

Spoiler

Seems like more of a limitation from the side of Andor's plot, Mon probably would've not been that detached from more radical rebel activities if her son would've already been a fighter.

 

Spoiler

I think her son is off at "university"

 

Does this book make delete scenes from revenge of the sith ?

 

Yes, Palpatine deletes several Jedi Temple scenes from ROTS and Bail is upset about it for half the novel.

(the ROTS deleted scenes are not in directly in the book, but they refer to the Delegation of 2000 a LOT)

 

Spring 2026. No specific date yet (nor a title for that matter).

 

Spoiler

Regarding possible variants - CIS' attack on Chandrilla could've been a start for his radicalization.

Although it seems less possible now that Lok Durd's attack on Chandrila from Clone Wars Gambit: Siege will be recanonized.