The Cestus Deception is Steven Barnes first Star Wars novel. It takes place a year after Episode II, on planet Cestus, where Cestus Cybernetics has developed a cyborg droid with a live component that is able to easily defeat any clone trooper, even a Jedi Knight. Our good friend, Chancellor Palpatine accepts to send Obi-Wan Kenobi and Kit Fisto to stop production. If they fail, the only choice may be to destroy the whole facility.

Obi Wan arrives to the planet as the appointed Republic representative to negotiate a halt to the production. He's rapidly involved in a series of corruption, legal and political conflicts, including the exploitation of the native species, the X'Ting, and above all, Asajj Ventress pulling the strings to make all his efforts fail. When his original plan goes awry, he resorts to use Kit Fisto, in charge of a clone team, to establish, train and direct a paramilitar group and engage in guerrilla war against Cestus Cybernetics puppet government. When everything fails, it becomes critical to stop the Republic from bombing the planet and destroy the whole population's income source.

Even though the ending is terrific and well done, the rest of the novel is pretty boring and dull. I couldn't even point to a single inspiring quote. It took me months to finish this novel, unlike others from the same time period like Shatterpoint or Yoda's Dark Rendezvous, those I devoured!

My main issues with the book include Kit Fisto's character which is sorely underused, the novel doesn't bring anything new about his personality or his background. Some other details are not well developed, like the fact that the main ARC Trooper becomes sentimentally involved with a Jango Fett's former lover. This trooper sees his whole life changed by an incident and in the end he decides to sacrifice himself in order to defend his new ideals. Interesting idea, but somehow it's not crafted well enough to sustain the plot.

For short, I would recommend you to stay away from this book, unless of course you simply HAVE to read absolutely everything Star Wars. You can find it as an ebook from Fictionwise for about $7 dollars.

The Hive

The Cestus Deception e-book includes also the previously released e-book novella The Hive, from the same author. This book came out months before the full novel as somekind of a sneak preview, I find amusing that The Hive is a lot more interesting and exciting that the novel itself. You can get just the novella from Fictionwise, at US $3.50. The novella follows Obi-Wan in a mission not explored in The Cestus Deception, but that ultimately becomes important to the X'Ting. It's about the relationship between Obi-Wan and an X'Ting soldier who has serious doubts about the Jedi and about the legend of a great Jedi Master who once saved X'Ting from extinction. During the mission they become friends and manage to reveal the secret of the Jedi Master. It's a short read, but quite interesting.


You can read this review in Spanish in my other blog.