Book Review: Star Wars: Red Harvest SPOILERS!

Okay, so it's not exactly a part of The Old Republic MMO tie-ins, but Red Harvest is set within that era. Horror author Joe Schrieber made his second debut in the Star Wars galaxy in 2010. This is a book about zombies, just like he did in Death Troopers. Yeah, A zombie novel. How pathetic and boring and unoriginal. This is the nth version of a zombie-like incident happening within this galaxy. Schrieber could've done better. Synopsis: The era of the Old Republic is a dark and dangerous time, as Jedi Knights valiantly battle the Sith Lords and their ruthless armies. But the Sith have disturbing plans—and none more so than the fulfillment of Darth Scabrous’s fanatical dream, which is about to become nightmarish reality. Unlike those other Jedi sidelined to the Agricultural Corps—young Jedi whose abilities have not proved up to snuff—Hestizo Trace possesses one extraordinary Force talent: a gift with plants. Suddenly her quiet existence among greenhouse and garden specimens is violently destroyed by the arrival of an emissary from Darth Scabrous. For the rare black orchid that she has nurtured and bonded with is the final ingredient in an ancient Sith formula that promises to grant Darth Scabrous his greatest desire. But at the heart of the formula is a never-before-seen virus that’s worse than fatal—it doesn’t just kill, it transforms. Now the rotting, ravenous dead are rising, driven by a bloodthirsty hunger for all things living—and commanded by a Sith Master with an insatiable lust for power and the ultimate prize: immortality . . . no matter the cost.

The novel opens 3,645 years before the Battle of Yavin (Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope) with one-dimensional zombie movie characters training in the ways of the Sith on a planet called Odacer-Faustin. One of the students, Nickter, gets wounded and goes missing. Apparently, he's the fourth to go missing this year. It's also apparent that the Sith temple's Sith Lord, Darth Scabrous, has kidnapped Nickter and uses him to experiment on, seeking a way to live forever. On Marfa, Hestizo Trace and the black Murakami orchid she's watching over are kidnapped and taken to Odacer-Faustin. Returning from Geonosis, Jedi Knight Rojo Trace arrives on Marfa to find his sister has been kidnapped and Joe Schrieber copies Liam Neeson's line from the movie Taken as he threatens the people who stole her and the orchid. Jura sneaks into Scabrous' lab and finds Nickter being pumped with liquid and die. Nickter's body then sits up and chases Jura and bites him. Lussk beats a fellow student and tosses him in a pit with Nickter and Jura's dead body and leaves the student to die. The student, Na'at, survived and heads to the infirmary. Meanwhile, another student, Scopique, sees the animated body of Jura charge and bite him. Thirty students arrive and both Jura and Scopique's bodies attack them.

Lussk traps more students in the dining hall and the zombies attack in a raving horde and Lussk becomes one of them. Scabrous learns of his error and has his ship prepped to leave after he kills Hestizo. Rojo has infiltrated the Sith academy and sees the Sith-zombies eat the trainers. Scabrous kills the academy's librarian to draw Hestizo and the Whipid bounty hunter to him. Ra'at becomes a zombie and Maggs puts him down with Force Lightning. Tulkh, the bounty hunter, finds Scabrous' HK assassin droid and together, they hold off the zombies and make their way to Tulkh's ship. Kindra betrays Maggs to the zombie-forms of the Sith trainer and Hartwig. Scabrous wants to kill Hestizo and eat her heart, performing the last bit of a ritual the ancient Sith Lord Darth Drear has discovered only too late to remain immortal. The zombies use Kindra to destroy a ship that had landed days ago and feast on her. Tulkh gets spittle from a zombie-tauntuan in his eye. Scabrous kills Rojo and Hestizo kills Scabrous. Tulkh, HK, and Frode rescue Hestizo and become trapped inside Tullkh's ship as the zombies activate the academy's defenses. HK sacrifices itself to destroy the defenses, taking all the zombies with it. Frode takes the ship out and Hestizo finds Tulkh beginning to transform. He orders her to space him and she does when Lussk jumps out of the shadows. Both Lussk and Tulkh are sucked into space. Frode and Hestizo head back to Mafra so she can say she's leaving to finish her Jedi training. The two of them leave for the Jedi Temple.

A rather overhyped novel (at the time) that readers quickly see has no plot (just like every zombie-related thing out there) and no character development. I know the majority of the cast is Sith, but come on. None of the rest of the Sith Lords act completely alike. A less than mediocre novel that has tied its bloody hands with the current MMO for Star Wars.

Book Review: Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Wild Space SPOILERS!

Karen Miller's first Star Wars novel has generally been accepted by Star Wars fans as weak, insisting that too much time was spent on character development and little to nothing on the action scenes that take place. She borrows heavily from the droid duology of the first season, and it shows, like with the shows creators, how little imagination and respect for previous continuity she has. Synopsis: The Clone Wars have exploded across the galaxy as Republic forces and Separatists struggle to gain the upper hand. But while the Jedi generals work tirelessly to defeat Count Dooku and his rebels, Supreme Chancellor Palpatine is hatching his own dark plans. The Separatists have launched a sneak attack on Coruscant. Obi-Wan Kenobi, wounded in battle, insists that Anakin Skywalker and his rookie Padawan Ahsoka leave on a risky mission against General Grievous. But when Senator Bail Organa reveals explosive intelligence that could turn the tide of war in the Republic's favor, the Jedi Master agrees to accompany him to an obscure planet in the Outer Rim to verify the facts. What Obi-Wan and Bail don't realize is that they're walking into a deadly trap concocted by Palpatine... and escape may not be an option. Inspired by the full-length animated feature film Star Wars: The Clone Wars and brand new TV series, this thrilling adventure is filled with provocative, never-before-revealed insights into the characters of Obi-Wan, Anakin, Padmé, Yoda, Count Dooku and many other Star Wars favorites.

The novel immediately sets out to rewrite Star Wars canon. Anakin is knighted directly after the (first) Battle of Geonosis instead of in the wildly popular Star Wars novel, Jedi Trial (six months before Revenge of the Sith). Later, after the events of the movie, Anakin and Obi-Wan show Ahsoka how to duel. After several talking pages, Obi-Wan receives information from Dexter about Grievous's plans to invade Bothawui, the homeworld of the Bothans. After some botched character building with Anakin, he learns from Obi-Wan, wounded in a crash, about the attack on Bothawui. Anakin tells Yoda and the Jedi Council. A botched attempt to turn Palpatine into a good guy by the author fails and that's 12 pages wasted. The Jedi Council assigns Anakin and Ahsoka to oversee the Battle of Bothawui. Palpatine, as Darth Sidious, contacts Dooku, as Darth Tyrannus, to leak information to get Bail and Obi-Wan lured into a trap. Bail asks Padme if she's heard of the Sith and she lies. She asks Obi-Wan to come to her place to talk to Bail. They meet and agree, and so does the Jedi Council, to go looking for this Sith threat on a planet called Zigoola. Bail and Obi-Wan leave Coruscant and traverse a stunted path to Zigoola, which takes them past Bothawui during Greivous' attack and some bit of the aftermath. Then, after several chapters of stunted character development, they finally arrive at Zigoola and attempt to guide themselves to the Sith temple only to crash on the planet. The Siths lingering power is affecting Obi-Wan, making him nearly kill Organa on a couple of occasions. With no ship and a minimal chance of survival inside, and after days of travel through Zigoola's terrain, enter the Sith temple and find a Sith Holocron. The holocron has been raging at Obi-Wan to kill. Instincts kick in and Bail destroys the Sith artifacts inside the Sith temple. On Obi-Wan's orders, Bail wounds the Jedi Master and Obi-Wan uses a crystal to summon Yoda for help. Yoda asks Padme to go because he can't risk another Jedi being influenced by Zigoola's Sith remnants. Padme and a group of clone troopers arrive and retrieve them. Obi-Wan and Bail recover on Coruscant while Palpatine, seething inside at all the destroyed artifacts and Obi-Wan and Bail's survival and the setbacks this costs him, continues on with managing the war.

All in all, a slightly-worse than mediocre novel. Too much time was spent on character development at the sake of the plot. IN a way, cramming in parts of the droid episodes wasted enough time to eventually get Obi-Wan and Bail to Zigoola, which seems to have been the author's intent. Karen Miller wasted enough time when she could've just jumped them straight to Zigoola and done what only two other authors have done: explore the Sith. So much potential on Zigoola and none of it used. How... disappointing.

Book Review: Star Wars: The Old Republic: Deceived SPOILERS!

Paul S. Kemp's second published Star Wars novel, published in 2011, was a huge success in exploring the psyche of Darth Malgus, the new badass Sith Lord of the Old Republic era. Synopsis: The second novel set in the Old Republic era and based on the massively multiplayer online role playing game Star Wars: The Old Republic™ ramps up the action and brings readers face-to-face for the first time with a Sith warrior rival to the most sinister of the Order's Dark Lords—Darth Malgus, the mysterious, masked Sith of the wildly popular "Deceived" and "Hope" game trailers. Malgus brought down the Jedi Temple on Coruscant in a brutal assault that shocked the galaxy. But if war crowned him the darkest of the Sith heroes, peace would transform him into something far more heinous—something Malgus would never want to be, but cannot stop, any more than he can stop the rogue Jedi fast approaching. Her name is Aryn Leneer—and the lone Knight that Malgus cut down in the fierce battle for the Jedi Temple was her Master. And now she's going to find out what happened to him, even if it means breaking every rule in the book.

The novel starts out with Zeerid Korr delivering cargo on Ord Mantell for The Exchange when he's ambushed and flees the planet on his ship, the Fatman. On Coruscant, Darth Malgus and his Twi'lek lover, Eleena Daru, stride up to the Jedi Temple. On Alderaan, Jedi Knight Aryn Leneer attends the peace talks set up between the Sith Empire and the Galactic Republic. On Coruscant, the infamous "Deceived" trailer is fleshed out as Darth Malgus leads the attack on the Jedi Temple with Eleena, an unknown female Mandalorian warrior, and rival Sith Lord, Darth Adraas, as they slaughter the Jedi, including Jedi Master Ven Zallow. During this, Zeerid lets his Exchange handler know about the botched drop and the handler suggests that Zeerid make up for it by performing a spicerun. Aryn feels the conflict brewing on Coruscant and the eventual death of Zallow as Malgus kills him. After the battle, Malgus finds Eleena wounded and demands that she be taken care of, despite the xenophobic ways of the Imperial Medical Corps. Despite the other Jedi on Alderaan, Aryn feels the need to avenge Zallow and disobeys orders and flees to find Zeerid. Zeerid is on Vulta, visiting his daughter and sister when his handler calls and tells him to deliver engspice to Coruscant. Aryn meets up with Zeerid and they go racing off to Coruscant, trailed by an mercenary named Vrath Xizor who alerts the Imperial Fleet above the planet, now commanded by Darth Malgus and gets them shot down. Zeerid and Aryn sneak into the Temple and find T7-O1 and find out from the droid that Malgus killed Zallow. Aryn tells Zeerid to take T7 and get out while she hunts down Malgus' weakness: Eleena. She finds her and uses her as bait to lure Malgus to her. He arrives and they duel, but break off when Aryn threatens to kill Eleena unless Malgus lets Zeerid go free. He does and she keeps her promise and lets Eleena live. Malgus, in a rare move for a Sith Lord, lets Aryn live since Eleena is unharmed. Zeerid is cornered by Xizor who drops the fact that he knows about Zeerid's daughter, but that the Exchange doesn't know. Unable to accept that Xizor won't tell anyone, Zeerid spaces Xizor. Malgus kills Eleena so that no one will ever use her against him again and proceeds to spend a year tracking down Darth Adraas and kills him, proclaiming that Malgus' vision of the Sith Empire will live, even if he has to kill the Emperor Darth Vitiate himself. On Dantooine, Aryn reunites with Zeerid and helps him raise his daughter.

All in all, a fast-paced, action-packed novel that sets the stage for The Old Republic MMORPG game. Sure, Malgus seems like your typical tank--a person who just charges the crap out of things and beats them to death--but, in fact, with his relationship to Eleena, brings him to a more understandable level. Unlike Anakin Skywalker and his screwed up love life, Darth Malgus proves that a Sith Lord can, in fact, have his cake and eat it too.