I can't help but share something really cool that happened today. One of the coolest things about the growth of the internet and social media, is that it brings fans in much closer contact with those who produce the entertainment products that we consume.
Running a Star Wars fansite, I have had the privilege to interview via email to authors, Paul S. Kemp and John Jackson Miller. I have also been able to interact over Facebook or Twitter with others in Star Wars officialdom.
One of the things those of us who are lucky enough to be involved in the Star Wars Expanded Universe fan community should never forget. We are incredibly lucky to have an entertainment source such as Star Wars, that has not only provided us with so many hours of entertainment, but has done so for over 3 decades. The enduring power of the franchise has allowed it to be shared with friends and even children at this point.
Another thing that we should never forget is that whether it be Sue Rostoni on the Starwars.com message boards, Editors like Erich Shoeneweiss on the Star Wars Books Facebook page, or authors like Miller, Kemp, Karpyshyn, etc on twitter or their personal blogs, these folks are under no responsibility to interact with us fans.
The really crazy thing is that if you told 10 year old me, as I was reading Heir to the Empire that I would have the chance to talk to Timothy Zahn, my head would have exploded.
I just happened to see this tweet from Mr. Kemp this morning:
It's nice to read a review by a reader whose reading experience aligned with authorial intent. http://bit.ly/g0ATZr
It was a big surprise and really made my day when I read what that link contained. Not only did Mr. Kemp read my review of his latest book, Star Wars: The Old Republic: Deceived, but he liked it enough to link to it and write blog post about it.
You’ve heard often enough that a book, once it’s published, belongs to the readers, to love, hate, or feel indifferent about. I subscribe to that view fully. Still, when you write a story, you intend for readers to be struck in a certain way, to take certain things away from the reading experience. And if you’re lucky, every now and again you’ll read a review where your intent and the reviewer’s reading experience align. It’s a nice feeling. And so it was with Pete Morrison’s review of Deceived on Lightsaberrattling.
I have had some really cool moments as a Star Wars fan, going to a book signing Karen Traviss held in San Diego and getting my copy of Sacrifice autographed, shaking Dave Filoni's hand at the LA Savage Opress Premier, and now this. I was a bit taken aback for a moment, and I couldn't think about anything but just how darn cool it was. As a Star Wars Fanboy, the thought that my opinion could have an impact on an author is incredible.
Thanks to George Lucas and everyone involved with Star Wars for continuing that magical journey that started in 1977 and provided so much happiness and entertainment to us fans. May the franchise continue weaving new tales of heroics and adventure for many years to come.
StarWars.com has provided us with an update regarding the release date of Star Wars on Blu-Ray. The official confirmation is that the street date for the three different Blu-Ray sets will be Tuesday September 16th.
UPDATE: The most anticipated Blu-ray release ever -- the Star Wars Saga -- emerges from light speed on September 16, 2011!
For the first time, all six of George Lucas' epic films (Episodes I-VI) are united in one complete set. Fans worldwide are able to pre-order now with online retailers.
Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment will release Star Wars in three distinct sets to meet the needs of every Star Wars fan:
Star Wars: The Complete Saga on Blu-ray (9-disc Set includes all six films)
Star Wars: Prequel Blu-ray Trilogy (3-disc set includes Episodes I-III)
Star Wars: Original Blu-ray Trilogy (3-disc set includes Episodes IV-VI)
Star Wars: The Complete Saga on Blu-ray will feature all six live-action Star Wars feature films utilizing the highest possible picture and audio presentation, along with three additional discs and more than 30 hours of extensive special features including never-before-seen deleted and alternate scenes, an exploration of the exclusive Star Wars archives, and much more.
Time to take a week of vacation starting September 16th and stock up on provisions for some serious Star Wars Blu-Ray marathoning....
On March 14th, Lightsaber Rattling passed 50,000 page views. I am really excited about this, as I started the this little blog as a way to channel my passion for Star Wars.
I never really thought anyone other then myself would visit the blog regularly but I am pleased to see that people are giving Lightsaber Rattling a chance. As a way to say thank you to my fellow Star Wars fans I am going to hold a give away.
We are going to have 2 winners: One Winner will receive Star Wars: The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance by Sean Williams in Hardcover. The other Winner will receive Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Outcast by Aaron Allston in Paperback.
Fatal Alliance is the first of the TOR Tie in novels and is a massive book.
Outcast is the first book in the current FotJ series and is a great jumping off point in the modern EU.
3 Easy Steps To ENTER:
Email me at: Lightsaberrattling@gmail.com
Subject Line: "Star Wars Giveaway"
Message Body: Fatal Alliance or Outcast and your First name.
(Choose which book to enter for, only 1 entry per person please.)
WINNERS will be announced via the website on Thursday March 31st. Winners will then be contacted via email for shipping address and as soon as I can get to the post office, the books will be in the mail.
In the interest of not spoiling the season 3 finale for any readers, this review like my last Rapid Review of Episode 3.21 Padawan Lost, will be spoiler free. Once the episodes air on April 1st I will be posting my usual Battle Meditation in depth review of the episodes.
This episode picks up where Padawan Lost left off and continues what is really an interesting story and continues the great character development we have seen in the second half of season 3 for Ahsoka Tano.
It is hardly a secret that we see Chewie in this episode, but boy is he in almost every scene once he is introduced.
Ashley Eckstein will no doubt draw tons of praise for her work as Ahsoka, which was spot on.
The visuals were terrifically done and I can't wait to sit down with the Season 3 Blu Ray.
There are some really interesting scenes in here, particularly the ending which ties some of the stuff we have seen in the movies together.
Wookiee Hunt is full of action and is a really fun bit of Star Wars, plus I think I saw Jar Jar's head mounted on a wall.
Check back next weekend for my Spoiler full review of Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Season 3 Finale Event, Padawan Lost and Wookiee Hunt.
Don't forget to check out our Star Wars Novel Giveaway featuring Fatal Alliance and Outcast: http://bit.ly/ehzumw
Deceived is set before the events of the previously released novel The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance. The book is set approximately in 3653 BBY in the events of the sacking of Coruscant and its immediate aftermath, while the negotiations for what will become the treaty of Coruscant occur in the background. The Epilogue does occur in the future after the events of the novel proper, but just how far in the future is unclear.
Dramatis Personae
Adraas; Sith Lord (human male) Angral; Sith Lord (human male) Arra Yooms; child (human female) Aryn Leneer; Jedi Knight (human female) Eleena; servant (Twi'lek female) Malgus; Sith Lord (human male) Ven Zallow; Jedi Master (male, species unknown) Vrath Xizor; mercenary (human male) Zeerid Korr; smuggler (human male)
The book revolves around the stories of three main characters, Aryn Leneer, Darth Malgus, and Zeerid Korr.
Author Paul S. Kemp described the Point of View (POV) characters thus in an interview I conducted;
I like to think that Malgus is a complicated character. He embodies much of what we think of when we think of the Sith – he’s violent, values strength and power, and in general regards peace/passivity as weakness. At the same time, he’s possessed of a keen sense of honor, and has a powerful attachment to Eleena. These somewhat contrary impulses give him his internal conflict and drive his character arc.
The other two main POV character are Aryn Leneer, a Jedi Knight and Force empath, who has very personal reasons for confronting Malgus, and Zeerid Korr, a former Havoc Squad commando who is in deep to a criminal syndicate known as The Exchange.
One of the strengths that Kemp has as an author is crafting very interesting and complex characters. The strength of Deceived isn't its plot (while good) or its action (while great), the real strength is the development of its characters and their interaction. One flaw that many authors fall into is that there characters are not internally consistent. They set up the character with certain traits, philosophies and motivations, and then for the sake of the plot they have the character do something that doesn't make any sense given what we know about that character. Kemp constructs some really interesting characters that while they evolve through the course of the novel, the maintain that internal consistency that makes there actions and decisions make sense and makes the novel feel like a very satisfying journey.
Deceived is all about relationships. The relationship of Aryn Leneer to her Jedi Master Ven Zallow, the relationship between Zeerid Korr to his family, the relationship of Aryn to Zeerid, the relationship between Malgus and Eleena, the relationship between Malgus and the other Sith in the power structure, and ultimately the relationship between Aryn and Malgus. It is almost like the characters are asteroids stuck in orbit around each other, they cannot stop crashing into each other, and then spinning off in strange new directions.
I am a sucker for a good villain and for the flawed hero. In this novel we had heroes stepping into the dark and villains stepping into the light, it was a great story and a tremendous introduction to a character I hope we see more of in the future in Malgus.
Deceived gets a 9.5 out of 10 lightsabers.
There be Spoilers Below....
Continue reading for a discussion of the novel in-depth with lots of spoilers. I will be breaking the discussion down by character for the sake of organization.
I. Aryn Leneer
Aryn is a fascinating character. She is a Jedi, but her specialization is as a Force Empath. As far as I can tell from my reading of the Expanded Universe, this is a bit of a first in terms of Jedi specialization. It also seems like a very dangerous ability for a Jedi strong in the force to possess. The ability not only to feel your own emotions but to experience the emotions of others strongly through the Force would take a Jedi with the most strict discipline and durasteel willpower in order to handle the emotional trauma that could potentially affect you. As we see with Aryn, her emotions can get the better of her. Not only do we see the fact that she has more then the traditional Jedi emotional attachment to her Master (Ven Zallow), but we also have hints that when she was comforting Zeerid over the grief of his wife's death and daughters maiming there was some kind of romantic relationship formed.
Aryn comes very close to falling to the Dark Side in this novel, and about 2/3 of the way through the book I thought one of the two possible outcomes of the novel would be Aryn falling and apprenticing herself to Malgus.
II. Zeerid Korr (Z-Man)
From the excerpts we were provided prior to the books release, I was most skeptical of Zeerid's character. For some reason the whole "Z-Man" nickname drives me nuts and instantly makes me want to dislike the character for giving himself such a silly nickname. But once I read the book and really understood Zeerid, it makes sense, it helps that he is also aware of how silly the name sounds. But Zeerid is someone trying to compartmentalize his life, for his work for the The Exchange he is in effect creating a new persona in the person of Z-Man. Creating false character traits such as his gambling problem, and zealously guarding the secrets of his daughter Arra.
While I am not yet a parent, the defining character trait of Zeerid is the parental instinct. Everything he does in this book is for his daughter. He may not be making the proper choices, but he is doing what he thinks he must do to provide for his daughter. We see the extreme of this at the end of the book with him consciously deciding to commit murder to protect the secret of the existence and condition of his daughter from even potentially reaching The Exchange.
Zeerid in his previously life was a member of the Republic's Havoc Squad and fought alongside of Aryn Leneer. The interesting and ambiguous question of the book, is when did the romantic relationship between Aryn and Zeerid begins. I may be wrong in my reading of it, but the inference that I got was that something was going on between the two of them before the death of Zeerid's wife. This certainly would lend a certain moral ambiguity to both characters, but would seem realistic given the conditions of warfare and long separation from family back home.
III. Darth Malgus (Veradun)
Malgus may be my favorite EU Sith. I will be re-reading Deceived, and I want to think about it some more, but the depth that the character possesses is fascinating. His relationship with Eleena is so conflicted and tragic. I do believe that some part of Malgus truly loved her. But I think the key to understanding the relationship is in the Sith philosophy itself, the exultation of self above all else. The Sith look inward, at the end of the day the most important person to Malgus will always be Malgus. His love of Eleena is less important to him then the fate of the Sith Empire and his knowledge and understanding of the Force.
A very interesting aspect to Malgus is that while he didn't like playing politics as seen by his relationships with Angral and Adraas, he has a very nimble and powerful intellect. He uses logic to reach his conclusions and is very philosophical for what on the surface appears to be the epitome of a Sith warrior. I really enjoyed his conflict/warfare as a whetstone concept. The fact that he believed peace would make the Sith and the Empire weak and that they needed conflict to exist, in effect war could never end.
There are some interesting parallels to be drawn between the fall of Jacen Solo and his becoming of Darth Caedus and Darth Malgus. The idea of sacrificing something/someone you love to attain Dark Side power in the Force is an interesting concept. For Jacen it ended up murdering his aunt Mara Jade, for Malgus it was murdering his lover.
There is also a certain code of honor to Malgus. While it hardly makes him a hero, it makes him more layered of a character. Is it just an extension of excessive pride? I really like the contract of how he let Aryn live because she spared Eleena, and then he sought ought and killed Adraas and used the fact that Adraas had called Eleena names a way to increase his connection to the Dark Side and kill Adraas. Its odd that he both grants mercy and exacts revenge because of the way his Eleena was treated, yet he is the one who murdered her. There is a certain thought process, similar to what we saw with Jacen, among Sith that is circular and insane.
There is so much more to say, but lets face it, Malgus is just a bad, bad, Sith Lord.
IV. Supporting Characters
Some interesting supporting character tidbits. The unnamed female Mandalorian bounty hunter is apparently Shae Vizla, could it be an ancestor of the future Death Watch leader Pre Vizsla? I know the spelling is slightly different but it would be an interesting connection.
The mercenary Vrath Xizor, shares a surname with the Falleen Prince Xizor, of course these two are of different species but its interesting to see the name Xizor in the Star Wars Expanded Universe again.
Eleena is a rather tragic character in the novel. I am not sure what to think about her. Is it a case of the Stockholm Syndrome? Or is this the case of genuine affection by Eleena towards her Veradun who rescued her and she willingly killed and waged war against his enemies to help and protect him. Putting up with the Imperial anti-alien bias to remain with her lover and Master. I wonder just how much she thought she understood about Malgus' character and that he would ever be able to choose her over his drive for power.
I can't help but share something really cool that happened today. One of the coolest things about the growth of the internet and social media, is that it brings fans in much closer contact with those who produce the entertainment products that we consume.
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