I was pleasantly surprised to see that The Cestus Deception was written by Steven Barnes. While I haven't read any of the books he has written by himself, I have read the books he wrote with Larry Niven (Dream Park, The Barsoom Project, The California Voodoo Game, The Descent of Anansi, and Achilles' Choice) and the books he and Niven co-wrote with Jerry Pournelle (Legacy of Herot and Beowulf's Children). I found all of them to be very enjoyable, so I was eagerly awaiting to see how well Steven Barnes handled the Clone Wars. He does so pretty well.

The setup of the book is as follows: the planet Ord Cestus doesn't have much to recommend to it, but it does have several rich ore deposits and, as a result, had created a very profitable economy, based on droid manufactuing. The planet is also loyal to the Republic. But when the Clone Wars erupt, bringing a Republic embargo on battle droids and a severe decrease in Repulic exports of droids from Ord Cestus, the planet is faced with economic ruin. Desperate to prevent a major economic catastrophe, the Insectoid natives send a sample of a new type of droid to Coruscant. This droid, called a bio-droid is a techno-mechanical construct with combat abilities that seem to rival those of a Jedi. They also send word that the Confederacy of Independent Systems is extremely interested in buying these droids. The majority of the Ord Cestus government doesn't want to join the Sepratists, but, unless Palpatine's government helps bail out their economy, they will have no choice but to join the Sepratists.

To prevent Ord Cestus' secession from the Republic, Palpatine dispatches a squadron of Clone Commandos lead by Obi-Wan Kenobi and Kit Fisto. Their mission is simple: keep Ord Cestus in the Republic fold at any cost. If diplomacy fails, then their orders are to utterly destroy the bio-droid-manufacturing capability, which would probably cause a lot of "collateral damage". Meanwhile, Count Dooku has dispatched Asajj Ventress to Ord Cestus. Her orders are two-fold: first, undermine any diplomatic solution offered by the Republic and second, convince the Ord Cestus government to join the Sepratists.

As mentioned, Steven Barnes does a good job of playing in the Star Wars Universe. His portrayals of both Obi-Wan Kenobi and Asajj Ventress are right on target. Also, The Cestus Deception is the first Star Wars adventure to flesh out fan favorite Jedi Kit Fisto. (All the other Clone Wars adventures that featured him didn't bother to develop him much. The comics give him an extremely close, almost romantic relationship with Aayla Secura and both the comics and the Gendy Tarkovsky-directed Clone Wars tv series make him an amphibian. But until this book came out, those two things were essentially all we knew about Kit Fisto.)

Even more than this, however, while Steven Barnes develops the Clone Commandos in a slightly different way than Karen Traviss does, there still are similarities (see my reviews of the Republic Commando books she has written to date at http://blogs.starwars.com/jedivans-viewpoint/25 and http://blogs.starwars.com/jedivans-viewpoint/55). This is quite an acomplishment when you consider that The Cestus Deception was published only five months before Hard Contact. And, I could be mistaken, but there doesn't appear to be any attempt by the authors - or the editors - to correllate the character development of the Clone Commandos. And the icing on the cake: both Obi-Wan's and Asajj Ventress' missions involve a bit of deception on their part, but, without giving away too much, there is also a bit of deception on the part of the Ord Cestus insectoid natives. So, as far as titles go, The Cestus Deception ranks right up there with the following Star Wars titles: The Phantom Menace, Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, The Last Command, Allegiance, Specter of the Past, Vision of the Future, Betrayal, Bloodlines, Sacrifice, and Inferno as referring to more than one thing during the course of the story. The paperback, as a bonus, includes The Hive also by Steven Barnes. (The Hive seems to have been originally part of The Cestus Deception, but was edited out and published seperately as an ebook.)

The only real drawback to the book is that the plot sags briefly in the middle third before picking back up to the climax. Also, there's one minor discontinuity error: the text states that the book takes place after the Battle of Jabiim, but, in reality, the book actually takes place before. However, on the whole, the book is one of the better adventures in the Star Wars Universe. Final rating: *** 1/2 (on a scale of 0-4 stars).