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Awix (3310 KP) rated Darth Plagueis in Books

Oct 22, 2019 (Updated Oct 23, 2019)

Darth Plagueis

James Luceno | 2012 | Science Fiction/Fantasy

8.3

(4 Ratings)

Book Rating

Decent Star Wars tie-in is likely to satisfy devotees even if the book you get is possibly not the one you're expecting. Are you expecting the facts of the life of Darth Plagueis the Wise, legendary Sith Lord? Well, brace yourselves, for Luceno cheerfully disregards almost everything suggested about Plagueis in Episode III (where he is briefly mentioned) in favour of telling what is basically the story of Palpatine and his master (the future Emperor shows up about a third of the way through).

Relatively little action for what is, after all, a Star Wars novel, but lots and lots of political scheming and back-story, much of it (I gather) painstakingly honed to fit in with other books in the same continuity. Quite well-written and readable, though the tendency of Sith Lords to have vaguely absurd names continues. Concludes with the events of Episode I: doesn't fix every problem with that movie, but if you're wondering just why there was all that fuss about debates over taxation the book does a good job of filling in the detail. Is that a backhanded compliment? Well, if you're genuinely interested in that stuff, you'll probably enjoy this book; if not, I would look elsewhere.

Kudos

Phil Leader (619 KP) rated Tongues of Serpents (Temeraire #6) in Books

Nov 27, 2019

Tongues of Serpents (Temeraire #6)

Naomi Novik | 2010 | Science Fiction/Fantasy

7.0

(2 Ratings)

Book Rating

On paper this book ticks all the boxes for one that I should like: Alternate history, historical setting and dragons.

Unfortunately the reality for me fell well short fo what I felt could be acheived. This is the first book by Novik I have read and perhaps starting at number 6 means I am missing something, but this just failed to gel.

The concept of the dragons being a reality and influencing history was one that was easy to grasp but so very little was done with it. The dragons themselves are quite dull - far from the spectacular beast of legend they have little interesting to do and virtually no personality. There is also not a great deal of plot strung out very thinly involving a chase across Australia, but it takes so long to get going and the chase is repettitive and didn't capture my imagination.

There are some sparks of good ideas here - the smuggling, the political issues in Sydney (caused by the governer - a certain Captain Bligh) - but they end up undeveloped and drowned by the plodding narrative which doesn't seem to want to examine anything that doesn't involve the dragons.

The central idea may have promise in other books of the series, just not this one. Sorry Naomi