If one has seen Star Wars: The Phantom Menace and realizes where Darth Maul: Shadowhunter lies in the timeline, one might assume one knows how it ends. If Darth Maul gets halved by Obi-Wan there, he clearly doesn’t die here. But sometimes the journey is more important than the destination. Sometimes, things don’t turn out as one would expect. Even the Sith are not infallible.
One of the Trade Federation Neimodians has bolted, taking information that could reveal the Sith’s plans to have them blockade Naboo. Darth Maul is tasked with finding him and destroying all who have that information.
Darth Maul Shadowhunter is shockingly good. The characters pulledme into their lives and made me root for their victories. With the double bladed lightsaber bearing Sith Apprentice breathing down their necks, its hard to put down. I cringed every time one of them made a wrong choice, knowing it could be their last.
Darsha Assant is a a Jedi padawan facing what she thinks are the trials to grant her Knighthood. But the trials laid out by the Jedi Council are not the worst of the trial she faces. What she ends up with is a journey through the worst of Coruscant, with a Corellian who bears a grudge against a Jedi, his droid partner, and a Sith on there trail.
Lorn Pavan, Corellian information broker, lives on the shady side of the street. But this is only because of a very personal falling out with the Jedi Order. But now he has to deal with one or die and that means he gets to know the person, not just the Order. Lorn’s fate will impact future stories. His reasons for disliking Jedi are revealed slowly through the book. But now that Darth Maul is on his trail, he’ll have to take what help he can get.
IFive, independent partner and droid, proves to be very far removed in abilities and attitude from C3PO, though they both started life as protocol droids. IFive has had a rough existence, bringing up the question of just what is ‘life’ and what rights do droids have, or should they have. Loyal partner that he is, he thinks for himself. He has an important future.
Darth Maul remembers his earliest Sith training under Darth Sidious and is forced to use stealth and cunning to deal with many of his targets. Kill them however he likes, but he cannot reveal the existence of the Sith. In Darth Maul Shadowhunter, there must be no witnesses because the Sith plot is just getting started.
The destination is less important than the journey in this book making this an amazing story of forgiveness, redemption and growth for the hero characters.
Affect on Continuity:
Introduced Characters in Darth Maul Shadowhunter
- IFive will go on to star in the Medstar Duology followed by the Coruscant Nights series.
- Tuden Sal, Pavan’s shady contact, will also appear in Coruscant Nights.
- Anoon Bondara, Darsha’s Jedi Master, is mentioned again in Cloak of Deception, set right before this in the timeline.
Notable Continuity Mentions:
Black Sun, introduced in Shadows of the Empire (which is set during the Empire) is thriving. Their circumstances tie into the Darth Maul comic book storyline set before this.
Cthons, the mutants of the underworld of Coruscant are first named here, after being indirectly mentioned in Jedi Search. You can also see these in the Star Wars the Old Republic Video Game.
Darsha thinks of other Jedi Padawans, notably those from the Jedi Apprentice series by Jude Watson.
The Teräs Käsi fighting style used by Darth Maul and Anoon Bondara first appeared in the Shadows of the Empire novel. There is also a video game by that name.
I5-YQ had an action figure in 2009 Legacy exclusive Walmart set, packaged with Darth Maul. According to this site, the data is just a bit off in that Lorn Pavan was not his owner. He was manumitted, a free droid, and Lorn was his friend and partner who freed him.
The Clone Wars Contradictions:
Darth Maul is mentioned as being the other half of the Sith, in the later published story Darth Plagueis claims the muun Master was alive at this time. However, future stories suggest Maul did not know there were any others besides he and his Sidious.
Darth Maul is mentioned as Iridonian Zabrak and this is based on earlier stories like Episode 1 Journal: Darth Maul by Jude Watson. The Clone Wars stories later change his history to a Dathomiri Zabrak Nightbrother (which didn’t exist previously). There was no time for this to be explained in continuity due to the Disney buyout and cancellation of both The Clone Wars and the Expanded Universe immediately after. I don’t consider The Clone Wars truly part of the Expanded Universe for reasons given here, but it did affect the last published Expanded Universe prequel era books.
