Rule of Two (Star Wars: Darth Bane, #2) in The Expanded Universe

Feb 28, 2023 Scott Rhee rated it it was amazing

Shelves: star-wars, the-old-republic, old-canon-legends

If the Star Wars movies had been directed by Sam Peckinpah or Quentin Tarantino, the resulting films would resemble Drew Karpyshyn’s Darth Bane trilogy.

Book Two, “Rule of Two”, would be a hard “R” rating not only for graphic violence but also for tone and atmosphere. These are dark fucking novels, and children should definitely not read them.

Within the pages of this novel, an entire family is murdered (small children included), one by one, their bodies stuffed in a cargo hold. A gang of maraudin If the Star Wars movies had been directed by Sam Peckinpah or Quentin Tarantino, the resulting films would resemble Drew Karpyshyn’s Darth Bane trilogy.

Book Two, “Rule of Two”, would be a hard “R” rating not only for graphic violence but also for tone and atmosphere. These are dark fucking novels, and children should definitely not read them.

Within the pages of this novel, an entire family is murdered (small children included), one by one, their bodies stuffed in a cargo hold. A gang of marauding bandits are slaughtered. An entire shipload of Jedi Knights are assassinated. A person is literally chopped into human sushi by a lightsaber, alive. Then there is the planet of flesh-eating human-droid cyborg zombies. I won’t even mention the Force-eating parasitic creatures that dig under the skin.

I note these strictly to warn potential readers: this is not your average Star Wars novel. This is a late-‘70s Grindhouse sci-fi-horror slasher that is not afraid to spill gallons of blood within a beloved familiar context.

I loved it.

It’s not often one reads a book where the momentum is completely sustained by an anti-hero as unlikable and vicious as Darth Bane. Indeed, Karpyshyn succeeds in not only maintaining my interest but actually making me want more.

Maybe it’s because it is so antithetical to what Star Wars stands for and what fans expect. It literally overturns every expectation on every page. The closest thing I can compare it to is the movie “Logan”, a brilliant film that flips the script of every “X-Men” movie before it—-hell, every superhero film—-by making the bad guys win. Nobody is safe in that movie, especially the heroes.

Darth Bane is an incredibly fascinating character, not necessarily because he is so evil. He fascinates because he has a fully-developed and logical rationale and philosophy for why he embraces the Dark Side. It is both exhilarating and horrifying to behold.

I look forward to—-but am also girding my loins for—-the third and final book in this series.
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