Review of STAR WARS: DARTH PLAGUEIS: Luceno's latest well worth seven year wait!

"Did you ever hear the Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise? It's a Sith legend. Darth Plagueis was a Dark Lord of the Sith, so powerful and so wise that he could use the Force to influence the midi-chlorians to create life. He had such a knowledge of the dark side that he could even stop the ones he cared about from dying."

-- Supreme Chancellor Palpatine,
talking to Anakin Skywalker
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

If you are a fan of Star Wars to whatsoever degree at all, leave your chair right now and IMMEDIATELY go to your nearest bookstore and buy a copy of James Luceno's Star Wars: Darth Plagueis. Or go to Amazon.com and order a copy from there. However the heck you must, well... you must! Because Star Wars: Darth Plagueis wildly exceeded my ridiculously high expectations for this novel: a tome that many of us have been waiting nigh on seven years for!

There are two massive reasons why I've been stoked about Darth Plagueis. That it's about the eponymous Dark Lord of the Sith who - if you read between the lines - you already know was the mentor of Darth Sidious, AKA Palpatine: the future Emperor and master of Darth Vader. All we've solidly understood about Plagueis until now is from that "ghost story" which Palpatine shares with Anakin in Revenge of the Sith: how Plagueis discovered a path to physical immortality. It becomes the most tantalizing lure that soon brings Anakin to embrace the dark side. But between that and how eventually he was murdered by his disciple, Darth Plagueis has been a massively black question mark: one that legions of fans of the saga have wanted to be addressed for most of the past decade.

The other big reason why I've been looking forward to Star Wars: Darth Plagueis is that it's author is James Luceno: easily among the top tier of Star Wars writers today. And this is a novel that he's been on record as wanting to write since 2005, just before Revenge of the Sith came out. At the time Luceno wanted to pen a tale about how Darth Plagueis and Qui-Gon Jinn in their own unique ways pursued immortality, but how Jinn found the "right" path to it. And for a time it looked like we were going to get that book, along with the backstory of Darth Plagueis.

Then about five years ago the word came down from on high at Lucasfilm that Luceno's Darth Plagueis book had been cancelled. The official rationale given was that it was "decided that this was not the right time to delve into Palpatine's back story and Plagueis's beginnings..." I figured that Plagueis and Palpatine was a subject that was going to forever be a gray area ripe for fan speculation. But then about a year and a half ago it was announced that Darth Plagueis WOULD be published after all.

So here we are in January 2012. Getting my copy of Darth Plagueis was the first thing that I did when I had time on Tuesday morning. I took my own sweet time reading this book and finished it yesterday afternoon.

So was it worth waiting seven years for? Do we finally get definitive answers about the shadowy history of the future Emperor Palpatine and his own Sith Master?

Ohhhhhhh yeah bay-bee!

Heck, I was authentically shocked at how much previously-hidden lore gets exposed in Star Wars: Darth Plagueis. This might be the most revelation-packed Star Wars novel in the history of anything. Luceno went for broke with this and apparently he had loads of input from George Lucas himself about Plagueis and Palpatine, and in my mind there is no question that this might be the most canonical piece of Star Wars literature in many a great moon. And in the hands of accomplished saga storyteller James Luceno - who previously delved into the history of that galaxy far, far away with Millennium Falcon and Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader - Darth Plagueis is a masterful work of personal drama, political intrigue and philosophical treatise... all at once!

Darth Plagueis begins 67 years before the events of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope and the entire book is essentially a "trilogy", with each third covering a two-year span of time. It's a lot of chronological ground to cover in what amounts to 368 pages of narrative, but Luceno's tactic is extremely effective. When the story begins we find that Plagueis, a Muun, has been apprenticed for many decades to Darth Tenebrous: a Bith Sith (who'da thought a race of jazz artists could produce such a dastardly Dark Lord?). Being of the line of Darth Bane, Plagueis soon dispatches Tenebrous in true Sith fashion. He then makes his way back home to Muunlinst where he enjoys public power and authority as Hego Damask, Magister of the InterGalactic Banking Clan. Among other things, Damask runs his own Bohemian Grove-style yearly retreat for the galaxy's top businessbeings and politicians, complete with drunken debauchery and ultra-violent mayhem. But his real passion is for his secret lab: a place where Plagueis is doing all sorts of nasty experiments on living organisms and the midi-chlorians residing within their cells. You see, Plagueis is hellbent on stopping the Rule of Two for all time... by finding a way to be the very last Sith Master: one who will never die. His quest to accrue and consolidate his power behind the scenes soon brings him to Naboo, where Plagueis intercedes in a planetary political crisis. It is on Naboo that Plageuis comes to notice the son of a nobleman: a young man seething with ambition... and possibly something more.

Yes ladies and gentlemen, it is Palpatine. And we learn more about the future Emperor in Darth Plagueis than we have ever learned before. We come to find out about Palpatine's family, his formal education and the beginnings of his political career. We discover how Palpatine came to be a Sith Lord under Darth Plagueis (just as Plagueis also reflects upon how he became a Sith under Tenebrous). We are shown Palpatine taking his first Force-ful steps down the path of the dark side, and we are there as he is given a new name by his tutor: "Sidious".

Palpatine's rise to power and secret Sith education comprise much of the second part of Darth Plageuis, as Plagueis continues his dark experiments in midi-chlorian alchemy. One notable event which happens during this period is when Palpatine is given a Zabrak infant: the future Darth Maul (bigtime props to Luceno for tying The Clone Wars series on Cartoon Network in and how it gets reconciled with previous Maul-y material!). And gradually we begin to see other pieces of the larger game come onto the board: Jedi Master Dooku's growing dissatisfaction with the Jedi and the Republic they are sworn to serve, the cloners of Kamino, the corruption in the Senate, and the rise to prominence of gangsters like Jabba the Hutt and factions such as the Trade Federation.

And behind all of these disparate threads are the fingers of Darth Plagueis, who is secretly weaving them into the culmination of a thousand years of the Sith's plan to take control of the galaxy for the greater good. But things begin to go awry just as Plagueis learns that the Jedi have discovered a young boy on Tatooine with the highest midi-chlorian count ever recorded: something that leads Plagueis to wonder...

This is a dense book. I think even the font size might be smaller than normal for a Star Wars novel. And Luceno has packed it with lore gathered from the length and breadth of the Star Wars mythos. Expect lots of pleasurable nuggets to be found if you're a serious Star Wars enthusiast, but even if you aren't this is a rollickin' dark, violent, fun and at times even a funny read. In short: everything that a Star Wars story should be... and with Darth Plagueis, James Luceno has not only raised the bar but also put it on top of the whole heapin' mountain.

Star Wars: Darth Plagueis gets my absolutely highest recommendation. It may not have turned into what James Luceno had originally envisioned, but in my opinion what it has become at last is something far more accessible and enjoyable. And if the Flanneled One is wise, he will now let Luceno be turned loose on that tale about Qui-Gon Jinn and the Whills that we know is also out there somewhere.

In the meantime, go get Star Wars: Darth Plagueis. Do it now. Or, perish in flame. It's your choice, but not really.

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Cover for STAR WARS: DARTH PLAGUEIS is dark, evil and BEAUTIFUL!

It was all the way back in 2005, when Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith was hitting theaters, that James Luceno first mentioned he was interested in writing a novel about Darth Plagueis. Plagueis, as we know, was the Sith Master of Darth Sidious: AKA Palpatine. And that's darn nearly all that we've ever come to know about the mentor of one of fiction's most infamous villains.

Well the novel has been on-again and off-again, but Star Wars: Darth Plagueis is hitting shelves this coming December 27th. And today we finally get to see what the cover looks like!

Behold the Dark Side in its glory...

That cover is... stunning. Just as much as I have been dying to read this book I have wondered how the cover art would be handled and it wildly exceeded anything that I was expecting. Just look at that: young Palpatine, and he is kneeling before his master Darth Plagueis just as decades later Darth Vader would kneel before Palpatine.

I am soooo lusting to have a print of that art to hang on my wall. Or at least to have a much more high-res version to use as my desktop wallpaper. Hey LucasFilm: I bet a bunch of fans would plunk down some reasonable coin to have this as a poster for their collection. Get to it! :-)

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Darth Plagueis novel WILL be published after all!

James Luceno is a happy man: word came out a few days ago that his long-simmering Star Wars novel about Darth Plagueis is going to be published at last! Release date at the moment: February 28th, 2012.

That's a year and a half from now, but given what we've gone through already to see this book happen, it ain't so bad. Around the same time that Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith was premiering in theaters five years ago, Luceno was talking in interviews about how he wanted to write a novel about Darth Plagueis: the Sith Master of Palpatine AKA Darth Sidious. Specifically, Luceno said at the time that he wanted to explore at length Plagueis' search for the means to immortality (and how what Plagueis wanted differed from the immortality that Qui-Gon Jinn discovered). A year later it was announced that Luceno was writing his Darth Plagueis book with a publishing date in 2008.

Less than a year after that however, the Darth Plagueis book was cancelled by Lucasfilm! The official reason given was that it was "decided that this was not the right time to delve into Palpatine's back story and Plagueis's beginnings..."

Four years later and the time is apparently ripe to at last reveal the history of this enigmatic Sith Lord. I shall certainly be looking forward to it :-)

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Review of INDIANA JONES: THE ULTIMATE GUIDE

Yesterday I bought a copy of Indiana Jones: The Ultimate Guide. I've long been a fan of DK Publishing's Star Wars books, which have been in the format of visual dictionaries and beautifully illustrated cutaways of locations and vehicles in the Star Wars saga.

Indiana Jones: The Ultimate Guide continues DK's tradition in providing lush eye candy and detailed information, this time about a certain globe-trotting archaeologist. Written by James Luceno (who has been praised on this blog numerous times for his Star Wars work), the book covers most of the span of what we know about the life and times of Dr. Henry "Indiana" Jones Jr, beginning with the birth of his father in Scotland in 1872. Indy himself is born in 1899 and considerable space is devoted to his early exploits (which were documented in The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles television series). The book pics up the pace with the events of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in 1935, on through Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, while also covering material that was introduced in various novels, comics and video games. And being that this is the season of (finally!) a new Indiana Jones movie, it's only fitting that there is sumptuous information regarding Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, including more about Mac, Mutt, and Spalko. The book concludes with a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the Indiana Jones movies, and some of the merchandise and marketing that has been done for the franchise over the years.

This book is going to be one that I will certainly appreciate having on my shelf for many years to come. However, it's not absolutely complete in my opinion. There is nothing at all about "Older Indy", the 93-year old version played by George Hall in the bookends for ABC's original run of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. In addition to how those aren't in the DVD sets and haven't been shown in the occasional reruns on television for some time, it's enough to make me wonder if George Lucas now considers those not "canon". Which would be a darn tragedy 'cuz the bookends with George Hall as Indy were awesome! And strangely, the events of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, considered by many to be the finest Indiana Jones video game ever and one of the best of the entire graphic adventure genre, are not mentioned at all (although Sophia Hapgood is referenced, as is the Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine game).

But in light of what else is in this book, Indiana Jones: The Ultimate Guide is still a must-have for fans of Indy. I particularly enjoy the cut-away illustrations for the buried city of Tanis, Pankot Palace and the Thuggee mines, and the Grail Temple (along with the catacombs beneath Venice: it turns out that St. Mark is buried down there too).

I was expecting nothing but goodness to come from Luceno and DK with their treatment of the Indiana Jones saga, and they have certainly delivered fortune and glory with Indiana Jones: The Ultimate Guide. Heartily recommended!

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CANCELLED: The Darth Plagueis novel by James Luceno

Bad news from the Star Wars realm: the novel that James Luceno was writing about Darth Plagueis has been cancelled. The word given is that Lucasfilm "decided that this was not the right time to delve into Palpatine's back story and Plagueis's beginnings..."

Bummer. This was the one forthcoming Star Wars novel that I was seriously looking forward to. I was really intrigued by what little we learned about Darth Plagueis in Revenge of the Sith and have been dying to know more about him. Looks like it's gonna be a long time before we find out anything more definitive about him. There is a positive side to this though, I'm thinking: if the book has been cancelled, then Plagueis may not necessarily have been a Muun, as he's said to have been since the novel was announced. I think Plagueis should be human, and maybe there's a chance he will be after all.

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