Tarkin

I read James Luceno's Tarkin right after reading Aftermath, by Chuck Wendig. That was good for Tarkin. I probably would have enjoyed it no matter when I read it, but coming right after what must surely be one of the worst Star Wars books, it shines even brighter. My expectations were low, but I was pleasantly surprised: this is a good Star Wars story.

Luceno's writing style has an easygoing, natural feel to it. He knows the Star Wars universe, but his trivial knowledge doesn't come across as fan-

I read James Luceno's Tarkin right after reading Aftermath, by Chuck Wendig. That was good for Tarkin. I probably would have enjoyed it no matter when I read it, but coming right after what must surely be one of the worst Star Wars books, it shines even brighter. My expectations were low, but I was pleasantly surprised: this is a good Star Wars story.

Luceno's writing style has an easygoing, natural feel to it. He knows the Star Wars universe, but his trivial knowledge doesn't come across as fan-boy, nor does it draw attention to itself in any way that takes me out of the story. There's a great flow in his prose, and a number of times I was impressed by Luceno's use of a word that isn't quite the easiest choice; again, it doesn't feel like he's just using a thesaurus, but rather that he is fully immersed in this world.

Tarkin is everything that I think a Star Wars book should be: intriguing story, interesting deepening of familiar characters, new characters who fit into the world, and no reliance on action scenes (lightsaber duels and space battles). There are a couple of space battle scenes in Tarkin, but they are far from the focus of the story. Luceno understands the politics of the Empire at a more nuanced level than some other Star Wars authors (or even George Lucas in the Prequel trilogy), so even his many references to the Clone Wars actually rekindled that imagination that I loved thinking about when I was a kid (years before the Prequels were created, transgressing nearly every imagination I'd had about what the Clone Wars were). I think there are a lot of references to episodes of the Clone Wars TV series, which I didn't get because I didn't watch very much of that show; but the story still works--possibly even better, because of the backstory that is just hinted at in this book.

This is not a book that follows many major characters, and I thought that was just perfect. In fact, I so enjoyed the first part of the book, about Tarkin and his team on the remote station, that I was actually a little disappointed when Vader started tagging along in the story. I didn't think the story needed an injection of Major-Character Presence. As it turns out, what Luceno is exploring through this story is the confusing relationship and authority hierarchy between Vader and Tarkin. In the film, it always seems odd that Vader is in most ways the top authority of the Empire, yet Tarkin has the power to order him around when necessary. This novel looks into that question, as the working relationship of Vader and Tarkin is just beginning. The story follows mostly a single plot, which sees Vader and Tarkin sent to unravel a mystery. There are times when the book hovers just on the edge of becoming too Holmes/Watson, if not Oscar/Felix. But generally it's okay. Luceno has a difficult task in writing extended scenes of dialogue involving Vader or the Emperor--it's just hard to imagine them having a long conversation. Vader in normal conversation is just odd, and the Emperor is mostly seen in the films cackling and spooky-talking. Luceno does as well as anyone can with that challenge, and I liked seeing the inner workings of how the Emperor is building his Empire. Also, Luceno begins to reveal the motivations behind the Sith's conquest--not only to create a universe in submission to the Sith, but to be able to use the dark side to re-create or re-fashion the universe to his liking. In this novel, the dark side is shown not simply as a personification of fear or anger, which is how it seems in the films, but as a literal presence, which can communicate with adherents. This is an intriguing idea that, to me, fits into the series, and I would like to read more about this era of Star Wars.

I'd expected that this book would be a full "biography," so to speak, of Tarkin, starting from the early days and ending with the destruction of the Death Star. Instead, it is one episode in his life, set closer to the beginning of the Empire than to the completed Death Star. Within that story, we see glimpses of his childhood, through flashbacks. None of this is intended to justify his villainy or make him a sympathetic character. But I found the details of his early life interesting. Luceno has made a mostly side-character into a compelling main character for this book.

Luceno is a little bit weaker when he writes about the revolutionaries who are Tarkin's foes in the story. It strikes me that it's a little harder to write new good guys in Star Wars. They have to be just the right balance of plucky, intelligent, rough-around-the-edges charming, and driven. That's hard to pull off. It would have been hard, for example, to write a good Han Solo without Harrison Ford's portrayal. With any new character, it's hard not to connect him or her to an existing character (this was certainly the case with Dash Rendar and Kyle Katarn, being basically Han Solo proxies), or to feel that he or she doesn't really fit into the world of Star Wars at all. Luceno creates a small band of revolutionaries (not called "rebels" yet, as there is not yet an organized alliance), and they're okay, but it's not the best part of the book. I also felt that perhaps the story didn't even need to show what was happening from their perspective, as Tarkin is the one we're most interested in following. By the middle of the book, Luceno is weaving together the same story as seen from Tarkin and Vader on their ship, Palpatine from Coruscant, and the revolutionaries on their ship, and that does make for a nice, quick pace, as each chapter shifts from one point of view to another.

I recommend this book to Star Wars fans who don't feel that every story needs a climactic lightsaber duel, and who are comfortable in the in-between time, after the Clone Wars but before the Rebel Alliance. I hope Luceno continues to write for the new canon. I look forward to his next Star Wars novel.