Star Wars: Darth Plagueis (2012) Book Review

Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing okay. It's a beautiful day outside where I live and I spent much of my afternoon out on the front step, listening and reading the book that I'm about to talk about in this review. There are gonna be some spoilers for this book as there are things that I would like to talk about that I can't without any spoilers. So let's get into it.

 Darth Plagueis is a fascinating Star Wars novel. Despite his name being the title of the book, Darth Plagueis is only the central focus of it for the first third, until he meets Palpatine and takes him on as an apprentice. The rest of the book is Palpatine's story. How he became a Sith Lord, how he became the senator of Naboo, how he met Count Dooku and Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas, and how he engineered the events of The Phantom Menace. In fact, a good chunk of this book takes place during the events of the movie, along with some of the comics and novels that precede the movie in the Star Wars Legends timeline. This was also the last book to be written about a character whose name was spoken in the movies, but we've never seen on screen before.

What's most interesting to me about this book is its publication history. Darth Plagueis was originally supposed to be published in October, 2008, around the time that Star Wars: The Clone Wars started airing. But the book was canceled in 2007, and was replaced by Rule of Two, the second book in the Darth Bane Trilogy. I guess there were concerns about Palpatine's backstory being revealed or something like that, according to the article about the book on Wookieepedia. Anyway, three years later, in July of 2010, it was announced that Darth Plagueis was back on the schedule and due to be released on February 28th, 2012. Though that was eventually moved ahead to January 10th, 2012. If I'm not mistaken, I think this is the only Star Wars novel to be canceled and then resurrected a few years later. Unless there's a more recent one that that's happened to.

The late 2000s and early 2010s was an interesting time for Star Wars publishing. Aside from The Fate of the Jedi, there was a huge focus on the prequel era, now that Revenge of the Sith was out, as well as the Knights of the Old Republic, and the pre-Republic eras of the Star Wars Legends timeline. Which is why books like Darth Plagueis, and Dawn of the Jedi: Into the Void were being published during this period. That's actually a book that I'd love to read sometime. Same with the Darth Bane Trilogy to be honest.

As for this book, I think I enjoyed Palpatine's backstory more, simply because he is a character from the movies and I've always been interested in learning more about the Emperor. Especially in the Legends continuity. I mean, Plagueis is a fine enough character, but I don't think he's as interesting as Palpatine is. I think that's because up until this book came out there was no hint that Plagueis had any role in the events of The Phantom Menace and that Darth Sidious had killed his master years before the events of the movie. Indeed it seems that way in the Canon timeline as well, interestingly enough. But in this book, Sidious kills Plagueis during the Battle of Naboo at the end of the movie, which also coincides with the end of the book. In fact Sidious senses the death of Darth Maul on Naboo at the same time of Darth Plagueis's death on Coruscant. Which is interesting.

I have the first paperback edition as I prefer paperbacks over hardcovers, and I got the book probably in 2013, not too long after the paperback had been published, so long before the Legends banner paperback edition had been published. It's a nice paperback, which includes previews for Shadow Games by Michael Reaves and Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff, and The Old Republic: Annihilation by Drew Karpyshyn, with Shadow Games having come out in November 2011, and Annihilation coming out in November 2012.

I think I've actually read all of James Luceno's Star Wars Legends novels over the years. In fact he and Michael A. Stackpole are the only Legends authors I can actually say that about as Stackpole only wrote 8 novels across the Bantam and second Del Rey lines, and Luceno wrote nine of them. I just really like Luceno's work in the Star Wars Universe.

Overall, Darth Plagueis is an excellent novel. It might be a bit confusing as the book does reference previously published comics and novels, but you don't really need to have read them to understand what's going on in this book. There's also still alot of gaps in Palpatine's life since there's a time jump of about thirty years across the entire. Plenty of room to potentially tell more stories about Plagueis and Sidious in the future, in either Legends or Canon. I definitely recommend reading this book.

Alright my friends, I think that's gonna be it for me for today. I'll be back soon though for lots more reviews and other posts. So until then have a great rest of your weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.