Michael Reaves

In the prequel to Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Darth Sidious discovers that one of his Neimoidian allies has betrayed him and sends his apprentice, Darth Maul, to kill him, and the fate of the Republic lies in the hands of Darsha Assant, a young Jedi Padawan, and Lorn Pavan, an opportunistic information broker. Reprint.

Shadow Hunter

Darth Maul

Dimitris Papastergiou

Set in 32BBY

This was, what can I say, I'm a sucker for a Maul story, and this one was ok. Sure, had its moments, good and bad and some moments dragging too much, and some others which made me not care that much, especially for the main Padawan Jedi here, and I have to say at first the main "Solo" character here was interesting, but halfway through, this same motif kept pushing for the guy's agenda and he was constantly chit-chatting with his droid, which after awhile became tedious. 

Wouldn't be as much a problem if it wasn't for the Padawan in this one, Darsha? Sharla? Darla? I don't remember and I don't want to remember. She was boring and everything she said or thought was cringe-worthy at best. 

Maul was good. That's the good part, he wasn't out of character that much, besides some cringe-worthy stuff again, which made him look more of.. like.. Maul has empathy or respect for his enemies?! And I really really didn't like that. Especially if when I'm reading, the book is trying to make the good Padawan seem like she's so good that even Maul respects her and/or feels whatever that resembles feelings of respect. We're talking about a guy who was raised to hate, hunt and kill Jedis, not think about wow this jedi is a padawan but she's really tough, wow, respect, *smile* wow, she can fight, she has a plan, woah, good for her. Nope. That's not Maul. Dunno who that guy was those moments, but it wasn't Maul. And in the battle thinking all of that even though he's not going to lose (because duh, he's in the movie right after the book) and all these things felt pushed and thrown to the reader's face just so we can say how worthy of an opponent this nobody was. BAH!

Other than that; what can I say, nice plot overall, good story, great fight scenes and depictions of places and whatnot, whenever Maul was on the scene, or Palpatine, or Obi-Wan, it was solid. That's what I liked, and also Lorn was fun to read half the time, and especially at the end. 

There's a twist which I really loved and you will definitely too, a couple wow moments too. I'd give this 2 stars for being an ok read, but right towards the end with the whole 3rd arc with Maul and Lorn, it kept getting better and much more fun to read.

“You can at least meet your fate without groveling.” - Darth Maul

TL;DR: You like Maul? Read it! Is it a must Star Wars read? I'd say no.

Michael Cowell

Not long before the events of THE PHANTOM MENACE, the Sith Lord, Darth Sidious, is meeting via hologram with the Neimoidian Viceroy, Nute Gunray, and his seconds in command. But something is wrong: Where there are three Neimoidians, there should be a fourth. Where is he? No one knows. Angry and suspicious, sure that the fourth Neimoidian, Hath Monchar, is out there blabbing Darth Sidious' secrets, Sidious sends his apprentice, Darth Maul, out to investigate. His mission: Find and kill Hath Monchar. Then figure out whom Monchar might have spoken with, and kill them, too. Lorn Pavan is an information broker, who makes his living finding information and selling it to the highest bidder. When the Neimoidian, Hath Monchar, shows up with a very interesting holocron with information about an actual, living - and evil-plotting - Sith Lord, Lorn knows he's got something really hot. So when Monchar is murdered, Lorn manages to get his hands on the holocron anyway. His motives are anything but noble. Darsha Assant is a Jedi Padawan. She and Lorn find themselves thrown together unexpectedly, and when they realize that it is a Sith Lord on their trail, they realize that they must somehow get the holocron to the Jedi Council. But Darth Maul is too good a tracker. What's more, he's never failed his Master, Darth Sidious, and he doesn't intend to this time, either...

Darth Maul Shadow Hunter

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