In the Old Republic, the war between the Sith and the Jedi rages on. When the Sith deceives the Jedi and conquers Coruscant while in the middle of peace talks, the effects are not only on a large scale; the blowback ripples out to impact the lives of a young Jedi, a gray-market trader, and even one of the Sith conquerers. How do three such disparate characters deal with the upheaval? Will the actions of these characters echo back and amplify the chaos that was thrown into their lives?
I picked up this book as a mass-market paperback using a Christmas gift card. I read it as a continuation of my goal to read through the Star Wars Legends canon.
Deceived was written by Paul S. Kemp (author’s Amazon profile with his other books) who wrote Crosscurrent and Riptide. It was released on March 22, 2011. The paperback comes in at 352 pages long, a pretty typical length for a Star Wars novel.
Read on for a detailed breakdown, or click here to jump to the conclusion.
The Jedi understand the Force only partially. Some of them are even powerful in its use. But they fail to comprehend the fundamental nature of the Force, that it is conflict. That a light side and a dark side exist is proof of this.
Plot
The plot of Deceived is very character-driven. Though large-scale, galactic events are happening (like the Sith takeover of Coruscant), the plotlines and tensions are all built around the characters and their small-scale inner conflicts.
Unlike some of the other Star Wars books I have reviewed recently, Deceived does not take long to set its main plot points in place. The book starts with big events right at the beginning and sets the characters on the paths they will follow through the book. The plot does slow down a little in the middle, but that slowness is offset by some decent character development.
The plot does get wrapped up at the end in a fairly satisfying manner, but I felt that some of the conflict escalations were a little forced. They did not come out of nowhere; earlier parts of the book did establish some promises of these escalations. However, I felt that the escalations went so far at times that they went outside of the characters’ established personalities and forced moral conflicts where they did not feel right.
Overall, the plot is decent, but I did get a little bored with it at times. With a character-driven plot, the plot will fall flat if the reader does not connect with any of the characters. Personally, I only found one character that I liked enough to be interested in their navigation of the plot points (to be discussed further in the character section).
Worldbuilding/Series Connection
The worldbuilding is probably the weakest section of this book. With the books in this Old Republic mini-series, I constantly feel like I am missing the implications for the broader series–likely because I have never played The Old Republic MMO. I did play Knights of the Old Republic so the references in Revan made sense to me, but the events in this book feel completely disconnected from the broader universe.
The various worlds that the characters visit feel completely generic, and we do not even get to see any uniqueness to Coruscant. That world/city feels almost identical to the Coruscant shown in the movies. Did it not change at all in 3000 years? I would really like to have seen this book provide at least some slightly different angle just so readers would have a different lens through which to view familiar worlds.
Characters
In a character-driven plot like this one, a reader should expect to find characters with whom they can connect and care strongly about. In Deceived, however, the characters all generally follow common archetypes which makes it difficult to be fully invested in them; they feel like dozens of other characters that have appeared in Star Wars (and literature more broadly) without enough uniqueness to make them stand out.
Despite his characters being nothing but generic archetypes, Kemp does handle the character development adequately well with each character growing and changing through the book. His only misstep with the character development comes near the end when some of the changes are pushed too fast in an attempt to fit his plot designs. The changes felt so abrupt that I was momentarily confused about what was happening and why the characters were making the choices they were.
To get specific, the three main characters are the ex-Republic soldier and gray-market trader Zeerid, the Jedi Aryn, and the Sith Darth Malgus. Aryn is so much a generic Jedi that she is hardly worth mentioning. Malgus, for the most part, is just the average of all Sith characters. However, he gets some distinctiveness from his love connection with a Twi’lek which drives some of his development. Zeerid is the only character that I felt was interesting. He mostly fills the “jaded ex-soldier” stereotypes, but he does at least have some unique motivations that make the reader root for him.
Prose
The writing in this book, at least in technicalities, is a step up from some of the other Star Wars books out there. The fight scenes are described well; the opening fight scene in the book drew me in and made me want to read more than the other Star Wars books I have read on this readthrough of the pre-Disney canon. Also, Zeerid is a humorous character, and that humor is conveyed well. Sometimes, books try humor and fall flat. This one is no Hitchhiker’s Guide, but it is at least reasonable.
Conclusion
This book was a bit of a step up from Revan, which was overall disappointing (see my review on it). Deceived is not going to win any literary awards, but it does make for a decent Star Wars story if you are looking for a straightforward good/evil showdown. I just wish it had more uniqueness to the characters and a stronger relationship with the broader Star Wars universe so I could have connected with the story more.
You should read this if …
- You like a good ole’ Jedi vs. Sith showdown
- You like the slightly gruff, jaded soldier stereotype
