#TheOldRepublic #Deceived - mini review

Deceived is another entry from The Old Republic Era of the Star Wars universe based around the events of The Old Republic massively multiplayer online game. At the time of writing, I've not played the MMO so plead ignorance of how the stories relate. Written by Paul S Kemp, I know I enjoyed the novel in spite of this. 

We begin by being parly to the fall and destruction of the revered Jedi Temple on the massive planet sized city of Coruscant. The army of the Sith are led by the brutal and unrelenting Darth Malgus, who ultimately impales Jedi Master Zallow on his crimson saber.

Much to Malgus' disgust, the Empire enter into negotiations with the Galactic Republic, rather than reducing the world to ashes as originally intended. Peace negotations continue off world and Malgus' resentment to the situation spirals, almost as much as that of a Jedi named Aryn. 

Having her Master killed during the attack, Aryn submits to the very un-Jedi mindset of wishing to exact her her revenge upon those responsible. In her attempt to return to Coruscant and shunning the direct commands of the order, she crosses paths with an old friend named Zeerid. Zeerid's background is as complicated as his profession of smuggler, company not suited to a Jedi, yet they join forces for their own reasons and make their ways to Coruscant, navigating through an imperial blockade.  This is is where the real fun begins...

After a slow start, the book becomes suddenly very exciting very quickly and pushes you on through it's long chapters at a surprising pace. In particular I found the combat throughout battle scenes to be extremely well described described yet somehow realistic. Well, as realistic as battles involving laser swords and mystical telekinetic powers can be. 

The story's conclusion feels resolved, with enough left open to the possibility of a sequel. An enjoyable journey through The Old Republic with interesting characters and a lot of action and emotion as long as you're persistent. 

#StarWars #TheOldRepublic: Revan Mini Review

This novel from The Old Republic era of Star Wars fiction occurs chonrilogically between the events that happen during the mini tales in the Lost Tribes Of The Sith and directly after story within the critically acclaimed Knights Of The Old Republic role playing videogame produced by Bioware for PC and XBOX. 

I'm always drawn to existing reviews from the world wide web when invesitgating a potential read, and perused some found that this entry to divide fans quite evenly into groups that love or hated it.  Personally I sit proudly in the former camp and enjoyed the follow tale of Darth Revan a lot.

I found myself gripped and entertained by the story which goes into detail about how the events within Knights Of The Old Republic came to be, building on the backstory and peronsality of a few of the game's cast. Whilst I had played the RPG before reading the novel, I don't think my enjoyment of the book would've been hampered having not. 

Revan's is an unusual jedi with a mysterious history that he often struggles to recall. His story runs in parallel to the rather appaulingly named evil Sith, Darth Scourge, which helped keep my interest throughout the book, eager to unfold events for each of the charactrers. 

I felt the writing was left non descriptive enough to allow for much to be decided as the reader, adding your own detail to scenes, characcters and locations. Sometimes commented on as poor story telling, I felt that because of the follow up nature of this novel to the videogame this allowed me to have my own idea and preconceptions of some of the more familiar characters and locations, something I was quite happy with. When we come to the more action centred battle scenes, the descriptions are of such detail that the excitement really piques. 

The reason I got into reading Star Wars novels was to expand on the backstory leading up to the events of the films, and the Revan story doesn't dissapoint. Next up us is Deceived and hopefuly time will allow me to give KOTOR2 a decent go.

Thanks for reading. 

Updated 17th May 2016