Cloak of Deception

Written by: James Luceno

Word of warning. If you didn’t like the political aspect of The Phantom Menace, you most likely will not much like this novel. As I am not one of those people, I find myself enjoying it quite a bit. Set in the days of Chancellor Valorum, the novel concentrates on some of the first steps of Darth Sidious to overthrow the Republic.

One of the first things I noticed is how the novel subtly puts the Jedi in a very bad light. It’s not overt in the least, but in truth the Jedi are set up as complacent and even blinded to a fault in a way that perhaps Qui-Gon Jinn was the only one of them to truly see the universe and perhaps the Force as it truly is.

Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan track down a smuggler named Captain Cohl who has been working with the Nebula Front to strike out against the greedy Trade Federation.

All of the sides of the conflict – the Front, the Federation, and the Republic Senate along with the Jedi are played like a violin by Darth Sidious into doing exactly what he wants. The endgame is simple. The Front is destroyed, the possible resistors to Sidious’ deals with the Federation are killed, Chancellor Valorum is weakened by base accusations of corruption, and the Jedi sit idly by whle it happens for the most part.

In many Star Wars books, the drama leads to the all important action which is the focus of the story. In Cloak of Deception Luceno wields a story that has the action be the catalyst to the real story underneath and at the end you can’t help but be in awe at how deft Sidious truly is.

The story may be too slow for some people, in fact it is quite slow to begin with. And the characters are sometimes given the short stick as far as development go. Cohl is someone in fact I wish we had more time to discover. The Jedi are merely pawns and we only get glimpses into their relationships and Palpatine and Sidious are treated as separate beings. I know if that was done simply as to not spoil people as to their relationship, but I thought it was a weak even if mandated choice. As the story really hinges on and showcases his brilliance, it seems that having Palatpine and Sidious act as one would highlight even more his brilliance.

Overall though, it’s hard to fault much else. Once you surrender yourself to the story, it becomes a real page turner and in the end one of the better Expanded Universe Star Wars stories.

B+