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blancwene 's review for:
Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter
by Michael Reaves
3.5 stars
For 2022, I decided to go back in time and reread all the Prequels Era novels published between 1999 and 2005, plus a smidgen of other novels (like [b:Survivor's Quest|46623|Star Wars Survivor's Quest|Timothy Zahn|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1330605305l/46623._SY75_.jpg|1197542] and the Dark Nest trilogy) released during that time frame. This shakes out to 21 novels, four eBook novellas, and at least thirteen short stories.
This week’s focus: a novel from 2001 set immediately prior to The Phantom Menace: Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter by Michael Reaves.
SOME HISTORY:
Michael Reaves wrote or co-wrote nine Star Wars books between 2001 and 2013, but he is perhaps better known as a screenwriter of animated series—he served as the head writer for Batman: The Animated Series, Gargoyles, and Spider-Man Unlimited (to name a few). Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter made it to number nine on the New York Times bestseller list for two separate weeks: the week of February 18 and the week of March 4, 2001--and was on the NYT list for four weeks.
MY RECOLLECTION OF THE BOOK:
I’m fairly certain that I read Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter when it was released, but I didn’t have any memories of it—Maul isn’t one of my favorite characters, he always felt like a menacing cipher to me.
A BRIEF SUMMARY:
After years of waiting in the shadows, Darth Sidious meets secretly with the Trade Federation to plan the blockade of the planet Naboo. But one member of the Nemoidian delegation is missing, and Sidious orders his apprentice, Darth Maul, to hunt the traitor down. The future of the Republic depends on Lorn Pavan, an information broker, and Jedi Padawan Darsha Assant. But how can an untried Jedi and an ordinary man hope to triumph over one of the deadliest killers in the galaxy?
THE CHARACTERS:
If you go into Shadow Hunter expecting more information about Maul (his backstory, etc.), you will be disappointed. I don’t blame Reaves—I suspect Lucasfilm put an embargo on the history of Maul, Sidious, and the Sith since Lucas hadn’t finished the prequel trilogy yet—so while we learn that Sidious has trained Maul his entire life, we don’t get much more than that. Maul is still a shadowy figure: he’s unquestionably loyal to Sidious, he will do anything his Master asks, and he believes in the supremacy of the Sith. We also know that Sidious has been shaping events for decades, that his final game plan is the destruction of the Jedi Order, but a lot of his goals are still nebulous at this point. Maul isn’t a particularly complex character; he’s very good at what he does, but what he does is evil and violent. There’s not any conflict within Maul—he merely wants to see this job through to its conclusion, and it ends up being a little more difficult than he first imagined.
Maul’s job is to track down a missing Neimoidian, Hath Monchar, and make sure that he hasn’t leaked information about the upcoming blockade of Naboo to anyone. Of course, there wouldn’t be a story unless some people did uncover that knowledge, so the main trio we follow are Lorn Pavan, an information broker, his protocol droid partner I-5YQ, and Jedi Padawan Darsha Assant.
Lorn has a complicated history with the Jedi—as the story progresses, we learn that he worked for the Jedi, that his Force-sensitive child was taken by the Jedi and that they fired him from his position. He hasn’t seen his son in five years, and he has a lot of grief and anger bottled up inside over the situation. Lorn’s definitely a scoundrel type, he does some morally questionable things in an effort to make money, but when push comes to shove he also does the right thing. He thinks about weaseling his way out of this situation multiple times, but in the end he does try to get this information to the Jedi.
I like I-Five, but I am predisposed to like droids who have developed their own personality! I-Five is a hoot. Lorn views him as an equal business partner, and they don’t have that typical master-servant relationship; he relies heavily on I-Five’s ideas, and while I-Five is also not the most lawful individual (he hacked into the banking system!), he’s absolutely loyal to Lorn.
Darsha was also an interesting character. She’s around the same age as Obi-Wan Kenobi, and she’s excited to face her Jedi Trial and become an actual Knight. But she’s also unsure of herself. A lot of that devolves from her failed mission for her Trial; she second guesses herself, she doesn’t think she’s strong enough or learned enough, and she struggles at times to fully immerse herself in the Force.
Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi also appear briefly. Obi-Wan is assigned to find out what happened to Darsha after she didn’t return from her mission, and spends the book about ten steps behind Darsha and Lorn. He knows that something bad happened to Darsha and her Master, but he’s never able to uncover what precisely happened because Qui-Gon and he are sent to Naboo. No one finds out what Darsha and Lorn learned, and it’s sad—they tried to accomplish something immense, and no one will ever know. Like [b:Outbound Flight|192523|Outbound Flight (Star Wars)|Timothy Zahn|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1405546347l/192523._SY75_.jpg|556530], they make a huge sacrifice that goes unacknowledged.
PACE: THE BAD AND THE GOOD:
Going into Shadow Hunter, I found the beginning a little slow. There's a lot of setup to wade through: Darsha and Master Bondara and the failed extraction of the Black Sun informant, and well as Lorn and I-Five being double-crossed by a Toydarian, desperately needing money, meeting with Monchar and then stealing huge sums of money AND the all-important holocron. But once Lorn encounters Maul for the first time and encounters Darsha, the story really took off from there.
You know they’re not going to be able to share this information with anyone, because then the events of [b:The Phantom Menace|34941|The Phantom Menace (Star Wars Novelizations, #1)|Terry Brooks|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1349115978l/34941._SY75_.jpg|3304766] would have never occurred. So in Shadow Hunter it’s less about “will they get to the Jedi in time?” and more “oh no, how will this go wrong?” Sometimes I don’t enjoy reading something where the conclusion is known from the beginning (it feels pointless, like the characters accomplished nothing), but the pace was so good and I was so interested in Lorn and Darsha’s stories that I never felt frustrated with their obvious ending.
Darsha ultimately sacrifices herself to save Lorn and I-Five; Lorn, in turn, is able to reach someone with this vital information. But it’s a gut-wrenching moment—he thinks he’s gotten to safety, but you as the reader know that he has turned to the absolute worst person in this situation. And poor I-Five never makes it to the Jedi Council, but is instead memory wiped and sold by one of Lorn’s underworld acquaintances.
THE SETTING:
I really liked the setting here—it gave me a film noir feeling, because we spend so much time in the underworld of Coruscant. This is not the glittering spires we see in The Phantom Menace: there's gangs, there's violence, and I think that's partially how Maul is able to go on a killing spree that no one really notices. Because it's the underworld, you just expect disastrous events like that to happen.
ISSUES:
I did wonder why no one picked up on Maul’s murder spree, especially when Lorn walked into the room where Monchar the Neimoidian was killed, instantly picked up on the fact that he was decapitated with a lightsaber, and realized that they had either a rogue Jedi or a Sith running around. Maul kills a bunch of Black Sun people, he fights with Master Bondara, yet somehow news of a Sith never trickles out until Maul’s appearance on Tatooine. It felt a little bit like Maul was behaving too obviously for a book called Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter.
Sometimes Maul seemed too easily foiled by Lorn and I-Five and Darsha. He’s supposedly one of the greatest swordsmen of all time, who’s been training for years—when we first encounter him in the book, he destroys four combat droids in less than a minute—but I suppose that Maul is so rigid in his thinking, so convinced that he’s better than everyone else, that he tends to underestimate those he encounters. When he duels Darsha towards the end, he doesn’t realize she has a plan until almost the last moment. I think that more than anything, Shadow Hunter shows that despite Maul’s training, the real world has the ability to flummox him. People don’t always behave how he expects them to, and that’s his greatest weakness: he thinks he knows everything, but he’s been almost sheltered and hasn’t encountered the ingenuity of others.
And perhaps in keeping with the film noir tone, there’s an unrequited romantic element here. While initially Lorn hated the Jedi, he reaches a point where he finds Darsha very attractive—and the feeling seems to be reciprocal. Nothing ever comes of it; Darsha sacrifices herself, and then Lorn dies at the end, but I felt like it was an unnecessary addition to the story. I could see the attraction on Lorn’s end, but not so much why Darsha would be interested as well. I guess I’m not sure that a two-sided attraction would have occurred, and it felt like one aspect of the story that could have been excised pretty easily. I think it’s enough for Lorn to spend time with Darsha, realize that some Jedi are good and kind, without adding a doomed romance in there as well.
IN CONCLUSION:
Shadow Hunter was a fun prequel-era noir story. Lorn and Darsha's fates are a foregone conclusion, so the interesting bits are how things go wrong, how they outsmart Darth Maul, and how they eventually fail in their mission. I wasn't crazy about the romantic elements, and the initial pace was a bit too slow, but this was still an enjoyable read despite my initial disinterest in Maul's character.
Next up: James Luceno’s prequel novel to The Phantom Menace, [b:Cloak of Deception|387506|Cloak of Deception (Star Wars)|James Luceno|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1349122895l/387506._SY75_.jpg|1016812].
My YouTube review: https://youtu.be/upZs6hoohHg
For 2022, I decided to go back in time and reread all the Prequels Era novels published between 1999 and 2005, plus a smidgen of other novels (like [b:Survivor's Quest|46623|Star Wars Survivor's Quest|Timothy Zahn|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1330605305l/46623._SY75_.jpg|1197542] and the Dark Nest trilogy) released during that time frame. This shakes out to 21 novels, four eBook novellas, and at least thirteen short stories.
This week’s focus: a novel from 2001 set immediately prior to The Phantom Menace: Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter by Michael Reaves.
SOME HISTORY:
Michael Reaves wrote or co-wrote nine Star Wars books between 2001 and 2013, but he is perhaps better known as a screenwriter of animated series—he served as the head writer for Batman: The Animated Series, Gargoyles, and Spider-Man Unlimited (to name a few). Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter made it to number nine on the New York Times bestseller list for two separate weeks: the week of February 18 and the week of March 4, 2001--and was on the NYT list for four weeks.
MY RECOLLECTION OF THE BOOK:
I’m fairly certain that I read Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter when it was released, but I didn’t have any memories of it—Maul isn’t one of my favorite characters, he always felt like a menacing cipher to me.
A BRIEF SUMMARY:
After years of waiting in the shadows, Darth Sidious meets secretly with the Trade Federation to plan the blockade of the planet Naboo. But one member of the Nemoidian delegation is missing, and Sidious orders his apprentice, Darth Maul, to hunt the traitor down. The future of the Republic depends on Lorn Pavan, an information broker, and Jedi Padawan Darsha Assant. But how can an untried Jedi and an ordinary man hope to triumph over one of the deadliest killers in the galaxy?
THE CHARACTERS:
If you go into Shadow Hunter expecting more information about Maul (his backstory, etc.), you will be disappointed. I don’t blame Reaves—I suspect Lucasfilm put an embargo on the history of Maul, Sidious, and the Sith since Lucas hadn’t finished the prequel trilogy yet—so while we learn that Sidious has trained Maul his entire life, we don’t get much more than that. Maul is still a shadowy figure: he’s unquestionably loyal to Sidious, he will do anything his Master asks, and he believes in the supremacy of the Sith. We also know that Sidious has been shaping events for decades, that his final game plan is the destruction of the Jedi Order, but a lot of his goals are still nebulous at this point. Maul isn’t a particularly complex character; he’s very good at what he does, but what he does is evil and violent. There’s not any conflict within Maul—he merely wants to see this job through to its conclusion, and it ends up being a little more difficult than he first imagined.
Maul’s job is to track down a missing Neimoidian, Hath Monchar, and make sure that he hasn’t leaked information about the upcoming blockade of Naboo to anyone. Of course, there wouldn’t be a story unless some people did uncover that knowledge, so the main trio we follow are Lorn Pavan, an information broker, his protocol droid partner I-5YQ, and Jedi Padawan Darsha Assant.
Lorn has a complicated history with the Jedi—as the story progresses, we learn that he worked for the Jedi, that his Force-sensitive child was taken by the Jedi and that they fired him from his position. He hasn’t seen his son in five years, and he has a lot of grief and anger bottled up inside over the situation. Lorn’s definitely a scoundrel type, he does some morally questionable things in an effort to make money, but when push comes to shove he also does the right thing. He thinks about weaseling his way out of this situation multiple times, but in the end he does try to get this information to the Jedi.
I like I-Five, but I am predisposed to like droids who have developed their own personality! I-Five is a hoot. Lorn views him as an equal business partner, and they don’t have that typical master-servant relationship; he relies heavily on I-Five’s ideas, and while I-Five is also not the most lawful individual (he hacked into the banking system!), he’s absolutely loyal to Lorn.
Darsha was also an interesting character. She’s around the same age as Obi-Wan Kenobi, and she’s excited to face her Jedi Trial and become an actual Knight. But she’s also unsure of herself. A lot of that devolves from her failed mission for her Trial; she second guesses herself, she doesn’t think she’s strong enough or learned enough, and she struggles at times to fully immerse herself in the Force.
Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi also appear briefly. Obi-Wan is assigned to find out what happened to Darsha after she didn’t return from her mission, and spends the book about ten steps behind Darsha and Lorn. He knows that something bad happened to Darsha and her Master, but he’s never able to uncover what precisely happened because Qui-Gon and he are sent to Naboo. No one finds out what Darsha and Lorn learned, and it’s sad—they tried to accomplish something immense, and no one will ever know. Like [b:Outbound Flight|192523|Outbound Flight (Star Wars)|Timothy Zahn|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1405546347l/192523._SY75_.jpg|556530], they make a huge sacrifice that goes unacknowledged.
PACE: THE BAD AND THE GOOD:
Going into Shadow Hunter, I found the beginning a little slow. There's a lot of setup to wade through: Darsha and Master Bondara and the failed extraction of the Black Sun informant, and well as Lorn and I-Five being double-crossed by a Toydarian, desperately needing money, meeting with Monchar and then stealing huge sums of money AND the all-important holocron. But once Lorn encounters Maul for the first time and encounters Darsha, the story really took off from there.
You know they’re not going to be able to share this information with anyone, because then the events of [b:The Phantom Menace|34941|The Phantom Menace (Star Wars Novelizations, #1)|Terry Brooks|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1349115978l/34941._SY75_.jpg|3304766] would have never occurred. So in Shadow Hunter it’s less about “will they get to the Jedi in time?” and more “oh no, how will this go wrong?” Sometimes I don’t enjoy reading something where the conclusion is known from the beginning (it feels pointless, like the characters accomplished nothing), but the pace was so good and I was so interested in Lorn and Darsha’s stories that I never felt frustrated with their obvious ending.
Darsha ultimately sacrifices herself to save Lorn and I-Five; Lorn, in turn, is able to reach someone with this vital information. But it’s a gut-wrenching moment—he thinks he’s gotten to safety, but you as the reader know that he has turned to the absolute worst person in this situation. And poor I-Five never makes it to the Jedi Council, but is instead memory wiped and sold by one of Lorn’s underworld acquaintances.
THE SETTING:
I really liked the setting here—it gave me a film noir feeling, because we spend so much time in the underworld of Coruscant. This is not the glittering spires we see in The Phantom Menace: there's gangs, there's violence, and I think that's partially how Maul is able to go on a killing spree that no one really notices. Because it's the underworld, you just expect disastrous events like that to happen.
ISSUES:
I did wonder why no one picked up on Maul’s murder spree, especially when Lorn walked into the room where Monchar the Neimoidian was killed, instantly picked up on the fact that he was decapitated with a lightsaber, and realized that they had either a rogue Jedi or a Sith running around. Maul kills a bunch of Black Sun people, he fights with Master Bondara, yet somehow news of a Sith never trickles out until Maul’s appearance on Tatooine. It felt a little bit like Maul was behaving too obviously for a book called Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter.
Sometimes Maul seemed too easily foiled by Lorn and I-Five and Darsha. He’s supposedly one of the greatest swordsmen of all time, who’s been training for years—when we first encounter him in the book, he destroys four combat droids in less than a minute—but I suppose that Maul is so rigid in his thinking, so convinced that he’s better than everyone else, that he tends to underestimate those he encounters. When he duels Darsha towards the end, he doesn’t realize she has a plan until almost the last moment. I think that more than anything, Shadow Hunter shows that despite Maul’s training, the real world has the ability to flummox him. People don’t always behave how he expects them to, and that’s his greatest weakness: he thinks he knows everything, but he’s been almost sheltered and hasn’t encountered the ingenuity of others.
And perhaps in keeping with the film noir tone, there’s an unrequited romantic element here. While initially Lorn hated the Jedi, he reaches a point where he finds Darsha very attractive—and the feeling seems to be reciprocal. Nothing ever comes of it; Darsha sacrifices herself, and then Lorn dies at the end, but I felt like it was an unnecessary addition to the story. I could see the attraction on Lorn’s end, but not so much why Darsha would be interested as well. I guess I’m not sure that a two-sided attraction would have occurred, and it felt like one aspect of the story that could have been excised pretty easily. I think it’s enough for Lorn to spend time with Darsha, realize that some Jedi are good and kind, without adding a doomed romance in there as well.
IN CONCLUSION:
Shadow Hunter was a fun prequel-era noir story. Lorn and Darsha's fates are a foregone conclusion, so the interesting bits are how things go wrong, how they outsmart Darth Maul, and how they eventually fail in their mission. I wasn't crazy about the romantic elements, and the initial pace was a bit too slow, but this was still an enjoyable read despite my initial disinterest in Maul's character.
Next up: James Luceno’s prequel novel to The Phantom Menace, [b:Cloak of Deception|387506|Cloak of Deception (Star Wars)|James Luceno|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1349122895l/387506._SY75_.jpg|1016812].
My YouTube review: https://youtu.be/upZs6hoohHg