Well, I finally finished the book yesterday and thought it was a pretty good read. I could tell that had Drew been given more time the book would have been better though given his timeframe it was more enjoyable to me than some other books I've read. Like my previous entries revolving around books I'm going to try to not put spoilers in but just do a broad overview.

After finishing and thinking back through what all I had read the first thing that jumped out to me was that the flow of the book (no matter which storyline was being discussed) was based primarily on the emotions of Zannah and her commitment to the Dark Side. As she had doubts the book slowed down, when she was focused & determined the action was intense and storylines started and finished with some excitement. Much like Path of Destruction was nearly all rapid paced with Bane gaining more & more confidence this book was a nice change of pace being centered more around Zannah and her emotions.

There were some nice surprises scattered throughout the story, some which I thought were coming and more than a few that caught me by surprise. Besides enjoying some of the twists that (to me) weren't expected I also enjoyed how Drew wasn't afraid to be graphic/descriptive when it came to the action and fighting. Seeing as how this is a Dark Side story it would've been a bit boring and not 'dark' enough had details such as mutilated corpses, beheadings, etc. been more G-rated.

One of the things this book made me want to do was to finish reading through the Tales of the Jedi comic series to help piece together what Darth Bane was learning and how the history of the Sith lead to the events that occur in the two Bane novels. I'm not a huge fan of comics, as I've previously mentioned, but in the interest of filling in storylines it comes as a necessity here.

When I put the dust cover back on after finishing reading there was something else that grabbed my attention and maybe it's just me being picky...but I found the cover art to be rather sub-par on this compared to what was on the cover of Path of Destruction. Bane looked like a white glob and Zannah was more like an 80-year old witch than a young 20-something. I'm no artist myself so I really have no room to criticize...but I would've preferred to see John Jude Palencar make another cover, though the tight publishing deadline may have had something to do with the final outcome of the artwork.

Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Can't wait for the next book in this series (hopefully) and perhaps get lucky if one is to arise have it penned by Drew as well

There was a bit more to discuss on this, but in the interest of not spoiling any info. I will save that for a rainy day.