We take a look at Star Wars: The Old Republic: Deceived, the first novelisation of BioWare's upcoming MMORPG set within the famous Star Wars universe, Star Wars: The Old Republic.
Star Wars: The Old Republic: Deceived is the second book written by Paul S. Kemp and rooted in the Old Republic universe, the first being Crosscurrent. A third title, Riptide, is due for release in July. He has also written nine Forgotten Realms fantasy novels as well as a number of short stories.
Most of the story of Deceived takes place on the planet of Coruscant, a Jedi world that is home to an ancient Jedi temple. While negotiations to bring the Jedi/Sith war are taking place on Alderaan, Coruscant is attacked by Darth Malgus, a Sith lord with a particular hatred of the Jedi. The events of that attack, and its consequences, changes the life of one Jedi knight, Aryn Leneer. Her quest for revenge is one of two main themes in the book. The second deals with another character, Zeerid Korr. Zeerid (or Z-Man) is a smuggler who is breaking the law for a noble cause, and inevitably becomes entwined in Aryn's quest.
The book feels well paced, and is structured very much like a Star Wars film. There are usually two or three main plot lines running, and the book visits each in turn in order to move the story along until the plot comes together. The themes explored here aren't anything particularly new - the good guys struggle with being good for a lot of the time, while the reader is shown the occasional glimpse of hope within the darkest of the Sith.
The broad themes of the book might sound a little too close to Episode IV: A New Hope for comfort. Revenge, good versus evil, a smuggler with a heart of gold, an iconic bad guy all sound very familiar, but in truth, much of this is intrinsic to the Star Wars universe. You can't really have a story of Jedi against Sith without dealing with good versus evil. And while this isn't going to satisfy someone looking for an esoteric analysis of evil and whether anyone can really be completely good or bad, it deals with the struggles of both sides to live up to their calling well enough.
One interesting twist is the book paints the Sith as believing that the Jedi are heretics, rather than being one side of the same coin as the films often suggest. In fact, the psuedo-religious overtones of the Jedi are strong in the early pages of the book, but this isn't explored to any great extent. Needless to say, the Jedi are as pompous and self righteous in this story as you'll probably expect.
The characters are mostly cookie cutter Star Wars fare, though they are well fleshed out and are believable in this setting. Aryn struggles with the demands of being a Jedi and the decisions that she has to make. She is a strong empath, which also helps to shape her character. Zeerid is an interesting man who has been forced to break the law for a loved one, but I found the evil character of Darth Malgus to be more appealing. Perhaps evil characters are just more intrinsically interesting, but Malgus seems like a more complex character, with more layers to his personality.
At 260 pages the book isn't particularly long, and the story is pretty straightforward. It won't take long to read and I was ultimately left feeling that while it is well written and paced, not a lot really happens. The action sequences are described particularly well, and after suffering 3 prequel films it's nice to have the characters and special effects being drawn by my imagination, rather than George Lucas. It's all pretty predictable stuff, but good fan service nonetheless. Probably the biggest compliment I could pay it is that I kept forgetting that it is a book based on The Old Republic, BioWare's upcoming Star Wars MMORPG.
The Star Wars universe is a pretty diverse place, as witnessed by the huge amount of books and eBook novellas that have been written so far - almost 150 of them in fact. So there is plenty of competition for Deceived. If you want a quick dip into the Old Republic Universe then this is well worth a look, though sadly, it's probably as close to the Old Republic game that you'll get to this year.
