As Darth Sidious prepares to unfold his plans that will lead, eventually, to galactic domination, a treacherous Neimoidian threatens to derail those plans before they can get started. So Sidious unleashes his apprentice, Darth Maul, onto the traitor's trail with orders to obliterate both the Neimoidian and anyone with whom he comes into contact. This includes Lorn Pavan, a downlevel Coruscant hustler who used to work for the Jedi, his droid colleague, and Jedi Padawan Darsha Assant. The three team up in an effort to evade Darth Maul and get the information about Sidious's plans to the Jedi.

Given that this book leads into the events of The Phantom Menace, the final outcome is assured. The story is pretty entertaining, though, amounting essentially to one long chase scene with plenty of action and a couple of side stories thrown in (Pavan's animosity toward the Jedi; Obi-Wan Kenobi skirting around the edges and nearly learning of Darth Maul's existence). Darth Maul in the film had a lot of promise as a villain that obviously wasn't realized, but ample evidence of his badassery can be found here.

Now, all that being said...this was my second reading of this novel, and I found as I went through it that I had only the vaguest recollection of reading it the first time around. As entertaining as it is, it's eminently forgettable, with no particularly memorable characters or events. I felt like Pavan and Assant were a hollow attempt at recreating the dynamic between Han and Leia in the original trilogy and some of the better novels. But I suppose the real point of this book is for Darth Maul to chop off some heads, and I can't give it any less than an A+ in that regard. ( )

A better read than some Star Wars novels, but not anything I'd call a must read. I was interested in reading on just to figure out how the book's central conflict could be resolved without conflicting with what we know from the movies. The plot was well-done and it moved quickly without too much sacrifice of character development. ( )

305/305
The story proceeds the first movie, The Phantom Menace where Darth Sidious plans to overtake the Jedi Order. But the plans for the blockade of Naboo have been stolen and Darth Sidious suspects a traitor. Now Darth Sidious' apprentice Darth Maul is sent to track and kill Lorn Pavan who is in possession of the plans. My favorite character is Darsha Assant who gets caught in between the chase with Darth Maul and Lorn Pavan. She is a jedi apprentice who fails her mission and finds herself being chased by Darth Maul. On her journey she encounters many enemies she must face and her skills improve drastically from her first battle to her last. As she encounters different situations she becomes more in touch with the force. I didn't like how the plot was just straightforward. It was just an ordinary plot, but the ending was a little suprising even though I've seen the movie. I'd recommend this book to Star Wars fans and people who want to know the story proceeding the Phantom Menace.