Echo Station - Darth Maul Shadow Hunter review

Darth Maul: Saboteur E-Book

Q: Is it worth $1.79?

A: Only if you are desperately hooked on James Luceno's long-winded exposition.

review by Toryn Farr

I admit I am totally new to the E-book phenomenon. And I wasn't all that impressed with Shadow Hunter. Nevertheless, I could not permit myself to miss this offering of an additional chapter to the Star Wars continuity, no matter how little I anticipated actually reading it.

With such low expectations, I believed I could not fail to enjoy Saboteur. I downloaded Microsoft Reader, went through the steps to purchase the E-Book (which only took about 5 minutes from start to finish), and followed the email instructions to download the 268KB file.

The first page did not capture me. It was some long expository passage about an ore mine on a planet called Dorvalla. Finally when a character appeared on page 5, it was somebody I didn't know and couldn't care less about. I got to know a lot about the politics and economics and mining of Lommite, etc. [yawn]

On page 10, Hath Monchar ( the missing Neimoidian from Shadow Hunter) showed up, and my interest was piqued very slightly. On page 12 Sidious and Maul appeared. But it wasn't until page 18, when Maul entered a cantina, that I began to get interested in the story. From there I got caught up in a tale of backstabbing and intrigue.

At the end of 43 pages, I sat back from my computer screen and pondered. I have to admit I did get caught up in the story. However, in the end I can't really recommend this book. First, the story itself makes absolutely no impact on the greater Star Wars story arc. It's imminently forgettable. Second, it adds nothing to the characterization of Darth Maul -- or anyone else we care about. Third, having to read a book from a computer screen and not being able to print it out just ... sucks.

If you are an E-Book fan who is also a Star Wars addict with a penchant for pointless Darth Maul vignettes, by all means, get this book. For the rest of you, don't bother.

The Neimoidians have a traitor, Hath Monchar, missing and presumed to be seeking a buyer for information concerning the imminent blockade of Naboo and the Sith involvement in it. Nute Gunray & Co. are doing their best to conceal this from Darth Sidious (while they do their own damage control), but Sidious is not easily fooled. Enter Darth Maul, charged with apprehending Monchar and sealing the security breach he represents.

Lorn Pavan is having a bad day. A dealer in "sensitive information," he's just lost everything in a transaction gone sour. No charges for him, not yet, but he does have a Hutt expecting a holocron from him he doesn't have. When a nervous Neimoidian contacts him with a proposition, the solution to his problems seems to have arrived.

Darsha Assant, Jedi Padawan, is facing her knighthood trial. The Jedi Council have charged her with retrieving Oolth, formerly a high-ranking member of Black Sun, and the only survivor of the massacre of its leadership (as chronicled in the Dark Horse Comics limited series, Darth Maul), from his hiding place, and bringing him to safety in the Jedi Temple.

Even before the chase begins, we know how it must end. Nothing must happen to Darth Maul; he and Darth Sidious must remain undetected; the blockade and subsequent invasion of Naboo must not be affected, and must come off as planned; the Jedi can learn nothing of the situation in advance, least of all that the Sith have instigated it. Nothing significant can happen, because Episode I cannot be contradicted.

With the broad strokes of the conclusion known, then, the story, in order to retain our interest, must rely upon the quality and details of plot, character, and prose.

Therein lies the problem. The plot is predictable, not to mention hokey. The characters are awful, both those devised by Reaves and those borrowed by him from the larger Star Wars milieu, ill-conceived and poorly executed, Darth Maul not least.

With Darth Maul the title-character of this novel, it would seem a fair enough assumption that he is the novel's focus; as poorly as he's treated, it's probably just as well he isn't.

Reaves's Darth Maul begins by being hackneyed, and goes downhill from there. We first see him thrashing "training droids," in a scene straight from the first issue of the Darth Maul comic book. There's nothing new added to the character or his repertoire for some forty pages. He pilots, rides a speeder bike, bad-asses about. Then, something peculiar happens. Large words start popping up in text written from Maul's point of view; and, about the same time, the phrasing becomes more elaborate, roundabout, stilted, almost euphemistic, particularly for a Dark Lord of the Sith. Particularly for this Dark Lord of the Sith.

Maul observes the clients in a tavern. The phrase "cornucopia of species" appears: "A cornucopia of species, all drinking or otherwise imbibing various substances capable of altering their brain chemistry." (In another "inn" he notes the "chemically besotted" customers.) After this, Maul's speech sounds as if he's been mainlining Verbal Advantage tapes, and some chemicals of his own. It's marked not only by a stiltedness but by a verbosity which seems ridiculous associated with the laconic martial -- pardon me, Jedi -- arts master and assassin Maul is otherwise depicted as being. He refers to the traitorous Hath Monchar as . . . a "tergiversator." Another character is classified as . . . "a dim-witted fellow"! Worst of all, Maul takes the time to consider his mission, and to consider it "dreary." That word dreary is used more than once, in fact.

Is this done deliberately, as an attempt to make Maul seem more intelligent? If so, it backfires, making Maul seem like a half-witted Dark Lord of the Sesquipedalian. Instead, why not simply show Maul using his brain for something other than keeping his ears from rubbing together and succeeding?

Lorn Pavan is reheated Han Solo. From his Corellian origins, to his mysterious fall from grace, to his underworld connections -- not least to a local Hutt -- and oddball sidekick, in the person of I-Five, he's boldly going where Solo has gone before, becoming more noble with each chapter as he struggles forward against physical danger and psychological demons. In fact, virtually all Pavan lacks to make the Solo comparison complete is a scruffy freighter to get about in.

And who, or more precisely, what, is I-Five (in full, I-FiveYQ)? He's what you get when you cross C-3PO with Chewbacca: Lorn Pavan's annoying robotic associate, as heavily modified by Pavan as the Millennium Falcon has been by Solo, but more reliable.

"Though she knew it was foolish, Darsha felt a little thrill at being called a Jedi, even by a droid." Could anyone take Darsha Assant seriously as a Padawan, let alone one about to be knighted? That she is a Padawan in good standing, that she is trusted by the Council, let alone that she is about to be knighted by them, is absurd. Her actions and reactions are more like those of a cheerleader than a Padawan. She is silly, immature, undisciplined, careless, awash in emotions inimical to the Jedi way as it has been depicted in all other sources. She feels giddy when called before the Council: "Darsha felt more than a little giddy just being in the presence of this August company." She is perpetually drawing upon the Force for calm; forever giving herself little pep talks, trying to convince herself she can do things which, even for a Jedi Padawan, shouldn't be particularly challenging. When faced with danger, she reacts with varying degrees of tension, revulsion, and dramatic cardiac activity: "And then her heart, already pounding from nervous tension, suddenly tried to batter its way up her throat."

The portrayal of her apprenticeship flies in the face of everything we've been shown about the Jedi Order prior to this. It clashes especially with the Jedi Apprentice novels, in which a much younger Obi-Wan Kenobi performs much better as a Padawan than Darsha Assant does in this novel.

Compounding the absurdity, Obi-Wan Kenobi himself appears in the novel. He takes up three chapters, essentially retracing the steps of other characters without advancing the story one iota -- but he does manage to suggest that Darsha and he are roughly equal, and that she is perhaps the more powerful of the two, a proposition undermined not only by what we know of his Episode I exploits, but also by what he does here, even though he's described by Master Yoda in this novel as "potentially strong in the Force."

Other characters from The Phantom Menace Reaves uses fare little better -- Mace Windu, Qui-Gon Jinn, Yoda. Their presence often seems little more than name-dropping. They parade onto the page briefly, do something irrelevant or easily handled by some other character, then depart.

"An even longer time ago, in a galaxy far, far away . . . ." These are the first words in the book beyond the title page and legalese, and, already, we see the major problems that will recur more seriously throughout the book. There's an unnecessary word added. The line is almost a clich�, and Mr. Reaves is fond of clich�s. He's also fond of messing with them, as he does here, though his other efforts aren't nearly so innocuous. One after another, he trots them out, usually altered in such a way as to refer to something in the Star Wars milieu, no doubt intending to create or bolster a sense of verisimilitude, but achieving precisely the opposite effect: "In which case we will be in bantha excrement up to our eyeballs and photoreceptors respectively." "[H]e trusted them about as far as he could throw a ronto."

Also, using -- re-using -- the familiar from the films seems to be a passion for Reaves; he is forever referring to Tatooine and its flora, fauna and other features besides. Banthas frequently appear in figures of speech. We also hear about rancors and the sarlacc. There doesn't seem to be a character in the novel who doesn't know something about Tatooine, or make some reference to it: Coruscanti underworld figures, Trade Federation officers (Nute Gunray refers to the Krayt Dragon), Jedi Knights, Maul. Coruscant's underworld, for instance, could have been cribbed from Jabba's palace in Return of the Jedi, or even the Mos Eisley cantina: it's full of Hutts, Gamorreans, Rodians, assorted bounty hunters -- there's even a bar that doesn't allow droids. (Reaves includes a Toydarian, to give it that Episode I feel, one assumes.)

He does break new linguistic ground at least once, however, being, so far as this reviewer knows, the first to pen a four-letter synonym for urination in a Star Wars novel, but that hardly seems praise-worthy. (Perhaps we should be grateful he hasn't included a reference to breaking wind, as well. There are reasons to be grateful LFL reserves some things solely for the use of Mr. Lucas.)

Reaves is also given to neologisms. Neologisms are dangerous in fiction. To succeed with them is difficult; to fail with them is deadly, reminding the reader of the writing, rather than enhancing it. When we read that a character uses a "nanowave" cooking device, we become aware, with jarring certainty, that the author is trying to create the illusion of reality, and thus the illusion is lost.

Reaves's choice of words is frequently mystifying, even beyond his clich�s and neologisms. I have already alluded to this with regard to Maul. To cite another instance, for Reaves to write of Maul as Darth Sidious's myrmidon is an enormity -- and hardly isolated -- because it can do only one of two things, puzzle the reader who doesn't understand it, or drag from that galaxy a long time ago and far, far away the reader who does -- all the way back to Achilles in the Iliad.

But Mr. Reaves isn't always so unkind to the reader, for he makes sure there is plenty of description and exposition, and nothing, no matter how obvious, goes unexplained. For example:

"The force of the strike bisected Chain from its crotch right through the top of its head. There was a hard metallic screech as the droid came apart in two halves."

This royal throne of Siths, this scept'red isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise . . .
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this Coruscant . . . .

Forgive me: I couldn't resist: The comparison is natural; all but unavoidable; the parody inevitable -- especially for anyone who's seen Steve Martin use the same lines from King Richard II in L. A. Story. My apologies to Mr. Martin and Mr. "Shakespeare," though I shall have to stand in line behind Mr. Reaves, who offended first.

And so it continues for another two-thirds of a page. All this high-flying, endless description and exposition has nothing to do with the rest of the story. CO₂ and "atmospheric degeneration" do not feature in the plot action; and if Ric Oli�'s "the entire planet is one big city" line from The Phantom Menace lacks elegance, it is at least succinct.

And the old adage about short words being better than long words goes totally unheeded by Reaves, as when he takes a paragraph elaborately making the point that a group of assailants, "All of them appeared to be in the late adolescent stages of their species, all were dressed in colorful and motley styles, and all looked extremely dangerous," are, in fact, a youth gang. This is needlessly elaborate, and also belabors the obvious.

The plot, which must bamboozle the reader into thinking something important is happening, is doomed from the start, no less from its own defects than from the aforementioned fact that, with Episode I athwart the dramatic development, it can do nothing that matters to anyone who matters.

The main thrust should be plugging the security breach represented by Hath Monchar, but we can easily infer that the breach will be plugged from the fact that there is no apparent effect from it in The Phantom Menace. So, we are given the stories of Lorn and Darsha, and their adventures in the underworld, Maul, ultimately, in pursuit. Big whoop. They're boring. But there are problems even beyond that.

Why some elements are present is a mystery. Obi-Wan Kenobi, as noted, takes up space and adds nothing; by the specious equation of Kenobi and Assant, his presence further damages her character's credibility. Establishing a considerable and immediate Jedi knowledge of the Sith -- Darsha and her master both recognize Maul as a Sith immediately -- while it might give some urgency to the two Jedi's actions, runs full speed into the opposite state of affairs we see in the films, where the Sith are a dusty old matter taken serious by none of the Council when brought to their attention, and a matter on which another Jedi Master and his apprentice are far less certain, though they see as much evidence as do Darsha and Master Anoon Bondara.

Why some elements aren't present, or simply disappear, is also a mystery. The Neimoidians, most prominently, disappear mid-novel (almost exactly, appearing last on page 148 of a novel 305 pages long), with their problem unresolved, for no apparent reason. That's rather a major loose end.

The Crimson Corridor makes no sense. It's so dangerous that it presents a Jedi Padawan sufficient challenge to qualify as a Knighthood trial, yet ordinary beings without Force powers seem to manage just fine there. And, without revealing too much of the plot, throwing good Padawans after bad into the place makes no sense.

For a member of a secret order, relying on stealth and cunning, Darth Maul certainly seems to be high-profile on this mission for Lord Sidious. He is ever mindful of his master's admonitions not to draw attention to himself, while fighting with local law enforcement, conducting rather publicly quarrels with the Jedi, and causing long lines at data terminals. Surely, a dark-robed figure swinging a double-bladed lightsaber would have come to the attention of the Council; surely it would have informed their behavior when judging Qui-Gon's claim that his Tatooine assailant was a Sith Lord. Especially when Obi-Wan Kenobi has been out to the "crime scene" and has information to report on battles that took place, and if, as we are told in this novel, the Jedi and the Sith are the only two Force-using groups the galaxy has ever known.

There are too many gimmicks to blunt Maul's edge, to put him in tight situations, including the introduction of yet another species that blanks out the Force.

Conclusion: So, we have a bad novel -- bad characters, bad ideas, bad prose -- shoe-horned into a gap in continuity so constrained by the events of Episode I, that the outcome is never in doubt. It's impossible to become involved in the characters, or to care about the outcome. Even Maul himself is completely overshadowed by the other characters crowding the narrative, and the maladroit writing, in what, judging by the title, should be "his" novel.

If you're determined to read it, wait for the paperback. If not, rest assured, you're not missing much.

(Dexter's passion for Star Wars, still undiminished nearly a quarter-century later, began in May 1977, when a late-night showing of A New Hope set his young imagination ablaze. An avid action figure collector, he has been known to lurk about local toy shops at ungodly hours, in hopes of beating the competition to the latest wave of Hasbro goodies. When not tracking down the latest resculpt of Darth Maul or Qui-Gon Jinn, he devotes his free time to pondering the most efficient use of his dwindling free storage space. His other passions include his library, and writing.)