Okay, I finished the second Darth Bane book and, as I usually do after reading a Star Wars novel, I write a review.

Before presenting it to you, let me just say that I'm a member of Fan Force Portugal and recently we were honoured to interview Drew Karpyshyn. Read the interview right here.

Oh, and please, be free to comment my review

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Star Wars Darth Bane: Rule of Two

Rule of Two is the sequel to Path of Destruction, the first in the Darth Bane series, written by Drew Karpyshyn. This series have one particular thing that's different from all the other Star Wars stories: in this series the protagonists are not the good guys. I mean, from the whole Star Wars universe, the Sith are the bad guys, but when we read the these two books we begin to wonder who the good guys really are. When we read these works from Drew Karpyshyn we get to know the Dark Side a lot better and that's why we begin to understand who the Sith really are and why they do all that "evil".

This second book begins right after where the first ends - after the explosion of the Thought Bomb and the meeting of Bane with Zannah (Rain). In the beginning of the book we read the events from the final scenes of the comic book Jedi vs. Sith and from the short-story Bane of the Sith. Darth Bane goes alone to Dxun, to investigate Freedon Nadd's tomb. It's in this tomb that Bane gets Nadd's holocron and his orbalisk armour. Well, this orbalisk armour it's one of the most important issues in the book. The orbalisks are living creatures, they are parasites that connect to the "victim's" skin and poison him/her. In Darth Bane's case, he allowed the creatures to feed on the Dark Side energy he emanated. In change, these creatures improved the Sith Lord's strength and power in the Force. They also had the ability to heal any wound that might appear in the host's body. In the book we read how Darth Bane used and felt about this armour and learn about its advantages and disadvantages.

As the title says, this book is also about the other Sith, the apprentice, which is Darth Zannah. We understand how Darth Bane "educated" Zannah in the ways of the Sith, how he showed Zannah how to use the Dark Side, and then we get to learn that Zannah has a great potential to overpass her Master's power. But understand this, we only read the first ten years of her education and we see a lot of demonstrations of Dark Side power, because Zannah is a master of Sith Alchemy, so imagine what a Sith Lord she is. But, as the book explores a lot of Sith matters, it also lacks something that was in Path of Destruction. You see, in Path of Destruction we were Dessel, that grew to Darth Bane, Dark Lord of the Sith. Drew Karpyshyn was able to take the reader inside Bane's head and thoughts and, even better, inside Bane's feelings, dark feelings! We felt the Dark Side, it was as if we were the ones who used it, it was as if we fed on the fear and pain from the world and used it to increase our rage and power, just like Darth Bane. In Rule of Two there's very little of this. Yes, we read Bane and Zannah's feelings, but in a more superficial way. I don't believe this book is darker than Path of Destruction, because they simply stand on the same level. This happens because in Rule of Two, well, there are some violent scenes, violent on both the physical and the psychological level. But if you could add this violence to the Dark Side feeling from Path of Destruction this book would be perfect, because the way this sequel was written, we just didn't dive into the Dark Side was we did in the first book.

To compensate this lack of one side of the Force, Drew explored the other side - the Light Side. In Rule of Two Drew Karpyshyn showed us new characters that weren't that "important" in Path of Destruction. The Jedi play a big role in this book, as we follow the life of Jedi Knight Johun, that during the New Sith Wars was padawan to General Hoth, leader of the Army of Light (the Jedi faction). After the explosion of the Thought Bomb, Johun was one of the few who believed that there were some Sith Lords left and, as we know, he was right, so this is one the ideas described in the book. We also read a lot about Jedi Master Valenthyne Farfalla and that leads to the Ruusan Reformation. So, there are a lot of important things going on in Rule of Two, which makes this book a lot more important in the EU, besides being a Darth Bane novel. We also meet a Chancellor Valorum and see the beginning of the construction of a memorial monument to honour the Army of Light, which may be the future Valley of the Jedi. Besides this, there's also a lot of historical references about the Old Republic, the Sith and the beginning of the Jedi Order.

With all this information, one could assume that it is a very slow story, but Karpyshyn wrote this sequel in a way that it has a great line of action and a lot of additional information, which could say that it might become confusing at a literary level, but it's not that. Drew wrote it very simple, so it's also a very nice book to read.

So, should you read it? Absolutely! Be careful if you're too sensible, though, because it's still a book focusing on a Dark Lord of the Sith, so it has some violence. But that's what makes this book great, because no other author was able to write as well as Drew did about the Dark Side and the Sith. And keep in mind that it's still Star Wars, I say this remembering an amazing duel between some Sith and some Jedi at the end of the book. Maybe it's time for George Lucas to go to the nearer library...
As the author likes to say: "Embrace the Dark Side!"

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