Rule of Two (Star Wars: Darth Bane, Book 2) by Drew Karpyshyn
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Book Reviews of Rule of Two (Star Wars: Darth Bane, Book 2)
Book Review: Half a Book
Summary: 3 Stars
This book continues the Bane saga, which is great; however, it does not stand alone well and at the end I felt that the second half of the book was missing.Book Review: Darth Bane and the Holocron of Futility
Summary: 2 Stars
This sequel to STAR WARS: DARTH BANE: PATH OF DESTRUCTION continues where its predecessor left off. In the earlier novel, Darth Bane came to the conclusion that the true nature of the Sith required them to kill each other off, making it impossible for them to triumph through numbers. Instead, for the Sith to rule, there must be no more than two at a time -- a master and an apprentice -- hence, the "rule of two". (Thus, if you want to learn about the "rule of two", you want to read PATH OF DESTRUCTION, not RULE OF TWO!) At the conclusion of PATH OF DESTRUCTION, Darth Bane began fulfilling his vision by arranging for the rest of the Sith to destroy themselves, leaving him as the sole surviving master. He also picked up an apprentice in the form of a young girl, Zannah, whose talents and aversion to the Jedi made her a natural choice.
The strength of PATH OF DESTRUCTION was the focus on Bane as a young man struggling to create a better life for himself. He was like a mirror Harry Potter, an orphan discovering his power and a place where he belonged. His ascent through the ranks of the Sith made sense given his dark history, his powerful talents, and his enormous ambition. The fit between who Bane was, what he experienced, and what he became is what made the novel work. (On the other hand, the novel didn't take many characters other than Bane seriously and many of the plot details, particularly those involving the Jedi-Sith war, seemed contrived and arbitrary.)
In RULE OF TWO, not even Bane gets serious treatment as a character. He just is who he is: a powerful, irritable, paranoid guy who is fixated for some inexplicable reason on learning how to make a holocron. (A holocron is a Sith device used for passing down arcane knowledge.) He is the same angry guy at the end as he was at the outset. Young Zannah, while she matures physically and acquires new skills, has virtually no personality and while she does exhibit some doubt about the way of the Sith, she shows virtually no personal growth.
Not only is RULE OF TWO not character-driven, it's not plot-driven either. Things do happen; e.g., Bane gets haunted by his old, dead Sith masters, and Jedi Johun leads a raid against Bane in an ancient fortress, and Bane tries multiple times to make a holocron, but there is no sense that this is leading anywhere. Things just happen. We might forgive both of those flaws if RULE OF TWO revealed some juicy facts about the origins of the Sith and/or the Jedi ... but what it adds to our knowledge is pretty meager.
While RULE OF TWO is about average for a STAR WARS novel, it is a disappointing follow-up to PATH OF DESTRUCTION. Unless you can't get enough of Darth Bane or you're sure you want to read all three novels in the Darth Bane arc (the third, DYNASTY OF EVIL, isn't out until December 2009), you might want to skip it.
Book Review: Only so-so Star Wars
Summary: 2 Stars
Rule of Two is a continuation of the Darth Bane series, picking up right at the end of the first book. Bane, having found Zannah, takes the girl on as his apprentice in the ways of the Sith. The timeline moves forward swiftly, with Bane establishing a network in the background to start the rise of the Sith to power.
For every step forward this book took, it took another two backward. The chracters were entertaing and well fleshed out, but at the same time they made decisions without apparent rhyme or reason, and sometimes blundered through a formulaic progression. Zannah is frequently tempted to turn away from the dark side, and while on a few instances she has cause to return to Bane, in a handful, the evidence would indicate that she should leave, but doesn't, and the question as to how she convinced herself hangs like an albatross.
Combat simiarly was inventive and tried to be well detailed, but at times they regressed into uber-fan speak. I didn't know what Form I-VI were, and still don't care. If a style has a name fine, but don't rattle off a classification and expect a general audience to understand.
The overall plot was formulaic and boring, with no real climax and a rather lame resolution. The twist at the end was entertaining, and had a touch of dark side premeditation how ever piece snapped together, but otherwise, it wasn't anything I hadn't already read in the Darth Maul books, though with two X chromosomes and a healthy dollop of female emotional drama. Zannah is the high school musical equivalent of a Sith. She wasn't bloodspitting warmonger like Maul, or a puppeteer like Palpatine, or even a Sithian philosopher like Darth Bane. She was just a little girl playing with force lightning. A few quotable phrases and some nice usage of atmosphere are the only things that prevented this form being 1 star. In comic book format, this may have done better, but it was hard to see Zannah as a Sith when all I thought of was a whiny brat.
Book Review: Mostly Boring
Summary: 2 Stars
This book centers more around Bane's new apprentice and the Jedi who is unaware that he's on Bane's trail. Not really about Bane so much. Bane basically spends the book researching and whining about various problems. I'd like my main character back please, and I want to care about him like I did in the first book.
His apprentice Zannah has interesting qualities, but for the most part, I didn't give a crap about her character. Likewise with the Jedi Johun, minus the interesting qualities. The book's jacket tells you that Johun discovers Darth Bane's existence, but unfortunately this doesn't happen until about 75% through the book, so you're just waiting for this idiot to figure it out.
Then and only then does the story really start to advance, and the book becomes more enjoyable. I heard that the author had to crank this book out quickly because of the popularity of the first one. If that is true, then it makes sense why this book seemed flat.
Having said that, it leaves off at a place that makes me feel hopeful about the 3rd book, but I'm now skeptical.
Book Review: A big delusion.
Summary: 1 Stars
I loved the first book of the series, Path of destruction, and was expecting another 300+ pages of enertainment at the same level. No high narrative, but a well written and imaginative Star Wars novel.
What I got was an unimaginatve and very linear story that adds very little to the first chapter of the saga. Bane is just a shadow of what he was, is not a charismatic character anymore, but becomes a secondary figure compared to Zannah, his apprentice. The dialogues are sometimes cheesy and embarassing and unbelievable. The tantra of the Sith is repeated ad nauseam to the point that it becomes ridiculous.
The only positive note is the introduction of the orbalisks parasites that adds something exotic and alien to the events, but this element alone, of course, can't keep together a story that was clearly composed in a rush, without ideas and enthusiasm from the author.
I can't really recommend it. I also fear the third book, given this silly experience.