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Joe Schreiber

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Lockdown: Star Wars Legends (Maul) (Star Wars - Legends) Kindle Edition

by Joe Schreiber (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.6 1,444 ratings

Part of: Star Wars - Legends (44 books)

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Set before the events of Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace, this new novel is a thrilling follow-up to Star Wars: Darth Plagueis.

It's kill or be killed in the space penitentiary that houses the galaxy’s worst criminals, where convicts face off in gladiatorial combat while an underworld gambling empire reaps the profits of the illicit blood sport. But the newest contender in this savage arena, as demonic to behold as he is deadly to challenge, is fighting for more than just survival. His do-or-die mission, for the dark masters he serves, is to capture the ultimate weapon: an object that will enable the Sith to conquer the galaxy.

Sith lords Darth Plagueis and Darth Sidious are determined to possess the prize. And one of the power-hungry duo has his own treacherous plans for it. But first, their fearsome apprentice must take on a bloodthirsty prison warden, a cannibal gang, cutthroat crime lord Jabba the Hutt, and an unspeakable alien horror. No one else could brave such a gauntlet of death and live. But no one else is the dreaded dark-side disciple known as Darth Maul.

Praise for Lockdown

“Schreiber . . . was a great choice for this novel, imbuing the story with a dark, foreboding tone while never quite stepping into the horror territories that Death Troopers and Red Harvest took us.”—Jedi News

“Fans of the dark side should rejoice. Lockdown delivers a can’t-put-this-down tale of scum and villainy.”—Club Jade

“[Lockdown is] an action-packed ride that spins one entertaining chapter after another. The multiple layers of story keeps readers guessing what will happen next and just who will live and who will die. . . . It certainly adds to the character of Darth Maul while matching [Darth] Plagueis’s complexity with sheer fun. . . . Five out of five metal bikinis.”—Roqoo Depot

“Somehow, Schreiber is able to skate the line between hard-hitting prison story and the adventure and excitement I love from Star Wars in a way that doesn’t betray either genre. It’s really quite masterful.”—Big Shiny Robot

“Lockdown is an exciting, engaging read. . . . It actually lines up beautifully for a sequel, which I, for one, would love to read.”—Coffee with Kenobi

“The novel makes The Clone Wars better. It also illuminates The Phantom Menace. I think it’s the hallmark of the best tie-in fiction to resonate throughout other parts of the expanded universe in that way.”—Knights’ Archive

“By the fiftieth page, I was hooked. . . . Lockdown is a wonderful ‘antihero’ novel, where it’s just fine to root for the villain, because there are even worse things out there. This book was so fun and entertaining. I’ll have to keep an eye out for more Star Wars books from Schreiber.”—Seattle Geekly

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Schreiber . . . was a great choice for this novel, imbuing the story with a dark, foreboding tone while never quite stepping into the horror territories that Death Troopers and Red Harvest took us.”—Jedi News

“Fans of the dark side should rejoice. Lockdown delivers a can’t-put-this-down tale of scum and villainy.”—Club Jade

“[Lockdown is] an action-packed ride that spins one entertaining chapter after another. The multiple layers of story keeps readers guessing what will happen next and just who will live and who will die. . . . It certainly adds to the character of Darth Maul while matching [Darth] Plagueis’s complexity with sheer fun. . . . Five out of five metal bikinis.”—Roqoo Depot

“Somehow, Schreiber is able to skate the line between hard-hitting prison story and the adventure and excitement I love from Star Wars in a way that doesn’t betray either genre. It’s really quite masterful.”—Big Shiny Robot

“Lockdown is an exciting, engaging read. . . . It actually lines up beautifully for a sequel, which I, for one, would love to read.”—Coffee with Kenobi

“The novel makes The Clone Wars better. It also illuminates The Phantom Menace. I think it’s the hallmark of the best tie-in fiction to resonate throughout other parts of the expanded universe in that way.”—Knights’ Archive

“By the fiftieth page, I was hooked. . . . Lockdown is a wonderful ‘antihero’ novel, where it’s just fine to root for the villain, because there are even worse things out there. This book was so fun and entertaining. I’ll have to keep an eye out for more Star Wars books from Schreiber.”—Seattle Geekly

About the Author

Joe Schreiber is the author of several novels, including Star Wars: Red Harvest, Star Wars: Death Troopers, Chasing the Dead, and Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick. He was born in Michigan but spent his formative years in Alaska, Wyoming, and Northern California. He lives in central Pennsylvania with his wife and two children.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

1

Cog Hive Seven

Wham!

The first punch came at Maul sideways, spinning his upper body around with the sheer force of the impact and driving him back a half step before he fully recovered his equilibrium. Somewhere under his feet, the alloy plates of the cell’s floor seemed to shiver and quake, threatening to give way.

He spat out a tooth and wiped away the blood.

The creature in front of him was a walking trophy case of previous kills. Two and a half meters high, its massive shoulders and upper torso encased in jagged plates of primitive armor that clearly had once served as the jawbone and carapace of a much larger predator, it seemed to occupy an entire corner of the prison cell.

Maul stared at the thing. The gray slope of its face was a surgeon’s nightmare of ritualistic scars, metal rings and studs, wire loops, and hooks, with bluish sacks pulsating beneath its eyes, all of it siphoning down and inward toward a gaping, razor-toothed mouth. Even its arms seemed to have been plucked from two different organisms. The right hand was a blunt-knuckled fist, the left an elongated spider-fingered claw. Together they formed a mallet and blade, one made for pounding, the other for slashing. It was the right that had come careening out of nowhere just seconds before, slamming Maul backward and knocking out one of his teeth.

The thing reached down and picked up Maul’s incisor from the floor of the cell. Straightening up, it shoved the tooth into an empty space in its own mouth, twisting it until it lodged in place. Then it grinned at Maul as if asking how he liked the sight of one of his teeth in its mouth—another trophy for its collection.

Maul gazed back at it.

And then the rage came.

And the rage was good.

The uniform they’d given him was a standard orange jumpsuit whose heavy fabric cut off movement in most directions. Maul heard its seams ripping as he sprang at his opponent, closing the half-meter gap between them in less than a second. The thing responded exactly as he’d hoped, lunging up eagerly to meet his advance. Its mismatched arms pinwheeled wildly before it, swinging and clawing through the stale gray air of the cell, its voice screeching at him in a guttural, choking language he’d never heard before.

Let those be your dying words, Maul thought. Right here. Today.

Close enough now that he could smell the corpse-stink pouring off it like rotten meat, he fell into a reflexive series of moves. Both hands shot out and grabbed the creature by its throat, hoisting it up over his head and squeezing until he felt the deep tendons of its neck beginning to give and weaken in his grip. There was a wet, muffled click from somewhere inside the thing’s chest and a sudden glut of warm, thick, sticky fluid began spurting up from its throat.

Blood.

Jet black.

The sight of it gave Maul no satisfaction, only the vaguely annoying realization that it never should have taken him this long to turn the battle to his advantage. Still, ending his opponent’s life quickly would restore a certain necessary balance to the encounter—if not honor, at least vindication. He tightened his grip, and the screaming sound got louder, becoming a broken, birdlike squawk. More blood leapt up, inky black and viscous, and started pouring from its mouth and eye sockets.

Enough.

Executing a perfectly balanced spin, Maul swung the creature around and slammed it to the floor with a sharp clang, connecting hard enough that he felt the steel plates reverberate under his feet. The thing’s head drooped on its broken neck, lolling sideways to expose the throbbing vessels beneath its gray flesh.

Only now did Maul allow himself to exhale. As anticipated, he hadn’t needed his lightsaber staff or the Force to dispatch this waste of flesh—not that either was really an option. Staring down into the thing’s face, he raised his foot and planted his heel in the exposed throat, ready to pulverize the trachea, or whatever the thing used for an airway, with one decisive stomp. For an instant he met its sagging, inarticulate eyes.

Now, he instructed the thing, which seemed to be realizing that it was destined to finish out the final pathetic seconds of its life here in nameless obscurity. Die.

All at once, with blinding speed, the creature yanked loose and burst upright, reaching behind its back to produce what appeared to be a long bow staff. As the staff blurred toward him, Maul realized that the weapon, which he’d first taken to be a piece of wood or some kind of biomechanical hybrid, was actually a living organism—a serpent whose head lashed out at lightning velocity, latching onto his face, slashing at his eyes.

Maul recoiled, but it was too late. With a jolt, his vision was gone, burying him in instant darkness. This was the second time in as many seconds that the thing had caught him off guard, and now he knew why: the creature was somehow cut off from the Force, utterly detached from the deep field of heightened sensitivity from which he was constantly drawing information about his surroundings. The intuitive sensory abilities that he took for granted in any normal battle were simply not there.

An acidic heaviness took hold of his optic nerves like a slow drip, seeping in, sinking deep, and he realized that he could already feel the poison taking control, spreading out in concentric layers of numbness through the muscle and tissue of his face.

Now the thing’s shrieking laughter was everywhere. Willful. Triumphant.

You must end this now.

Maul straightened. The voice in his head was his own, an austere evocation of his own training. But the cadence was unmistakably his Master’s—an echo of pitiless instruction, hours, days, years of unyielding pain and discipline. Sidious was never far from him. The evocation of the Sith Lord’s presence here snapped him back instantly into the moment with total clarity.

Reaching up through blindness, Maul took hold of the serpent, grappling with its fully extended length. Somewhere in the void he could feel the rippling leathery sinew of the staff looping around his neck, felt the hundreds of small muscles twisting and constricting over his windpipe, pinching off his airway like a living noose. The next few seconds would be crucial.

He flexed, bent his head, and jerked it forward, but the thing would not release. It kept encircling him, looping round and round, defying every attempt to take hold of it.

Maul willed himself to be absolutely still, a study in perfect rigidity, allowing the serpent, in its moment of fatal overconfidence, to draw tighter still, stretching itself until he sensed its head coming back around in front of him once more. Still he waited. Above it all he could smell his opponent’s fetid stench, could feel the claws of his opponent raking his skin, twisting into his face, gouging for purchase. It shrieked at him, and this time the cry was pure victory, what might even have been laughter. Starved, insane. A warrior with nothing to lose.

You are no warrior, Maul thought. You know nothing of the dark side.

The moment had come. He grasped the head of the amphistaff, seizing its blunt nose and fanged mouth. His fingers took hold of its distended upper part, twisting, wrenching, until he tore the serpent’s head off its body with a moist and meaty pop.

The results were instantaneous. With a twitching galvanic shudder, the snake loosened and fell slack, the coils already beginning to slide from his neck, and Maul allowed himself a single, unobstructed breath before finishing his work here.

Somewhere in front of him, the attacker had already responded to the death of his weapon with a howl of cheated rage. Maul no longer heard it. Primal as it was, it was still only emotion, a cry of weakness no more instructive or relevant than the pain he’d willed away moments earlier. He had no more use for it now than he ever did.

He did, however, take advantage of his opponent’s scream just long enough to reach into its open mouth, feeling the moist warmth of its breath on his hand as he retrieved his tooth, plucking it from the thing’s gums. Holding the mouth agape, Maul crammed the serpent’s severed head inside, then clamped the gray lips tight to keep the snake’s head from falling out. He ripped three of the larger piercings from the thing’s right arm and jammed them upward through the lips, bending them back into barbed hooks and fastening the mouth shut with the serpent’s head still trapped inside. With his hands flattened against those lips, Maul could feel the head twitching around inside the mouth, sinking its fangs in reflexively, squirting out venom while his attacker jerked and spasmed and tried in vain to scream.

End it.

Still sightless, now holding his opponent at arm’s length, Maul inclined his own head down. He thrust forward, driving his horns into the thing’s sagging eyes, feeling them crushed to jelly against his scalp.

The spasms stopped, and Maul stepped back, releasing the body, allowing it to collapse at his feet.

He blinked and narrowed his own still-burning eyes, clutching his tooth in his hand. His vision was already starting to come back in murky shades of gunmetal gray and metallic blue. The process was infuriatingly slow, but it was happening. There was no reason not to assume that within a few hours, he would be fully recovered, and when—

The floor began to shake.

Maul whipped around, scanning the depths of his cell for the vibration’s source. From all around him, a ratcheting cacophony had taken hold of the cell, the sound of massive chains being dragged through the sprockets and pulleys of some vast piece of clockwork. It filled the entire chamber, rising to a deafening roar. Everything around him had begun to shift and tilt. Maul reached out, fingertips confirming what he’d already begun to suspect.

The walls were closing in.

This was no illusion, no side effect of crippled vision. The cell itself was literally changing shape—the individual steel plates that formed the walls and floors and ceiling all overlapping and sliding together like great mechanical scales, curving inward as the slant of its floor became steeper, transforming into a kind of bowl, opening in the middle to create a funnel.

Reaching backward, Maul grabbed the handhold bolted into the bench behind him, clutching it for balance and holding on tight. All around him, the grating howl and shriek of metal got louder as a hole opened in the middle of the floor.

He furrowed his brow, squinting down into it. His vision had become clear enough now that he could make out the lifeless corpse of his former attacker, the thing in its broken and now utterly useless organic armor sliding downward toward the center of the cell. It sagged forward on a streaking smear of its own black blood, a slave to simple physics, its passage into oblivion followed in short order by the limp, decapitated body of the snake-staff.

Maul watched as warrior and staff both slipped through the hole and out of sight into a bath of darkness almost as deep as the one from which he himself had just emerged. For an instant—was it real?—he thought he saw something pale and eyeless reaching up to suck the bodies down.

The hole closed again and the floor shifted itself, smoothing out and becoming flat once more. The clanking and shaking stopped. The cell around him had resumed its previous rectilinear shape.

Somewhere in front of him, a panel of red lights blinked and went green.

He waited as the cell began to carry him upward.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00E735G9G
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Random House Worlds (January 28, 2014)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ January 28, 2014
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 5112 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 418 pages
Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 0345509048

Best Sellers Rank: #157,402 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #98 in Star Wars Series
- #1,779 in Space Opera Science Fiction (Kindle Store)
- #2,191 in Science Fiction Adventure

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4.6 1,444 ratings

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Joe Schreiber

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I was born in Michigan in 1969 and lived all over: Alaska, California, Wyoming, all before age 10. The restlessness sank in -- after graduating from the University of Michigan, I just kept moving. I've lived in LA, New York, Philadelphia, Portland, Oregon, and Martha's Vineyard. Constant relocation forced me to be creative in my employment: I've been a pet-sitter, an office boy in a DC law office, waited tables and worked at something like six different Borders Bookstores...which has to be a record. These days I work as an MRI tech at Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, PA.

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linil

A MUST for Darth Maul fans!!

Reviewed in the United States on March 7, 2014

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Please bear in mind that I review this book as a Maul fan first, and Star Wars fan second. I may come off as a little biased because of that, but it is what it is. I'm a Darth Maul fan and I look for him to be presented to me in a believable way. I haven't read any Star Wars Canon before this one (and Shadow Hunter), so I can't begin to comment on continuity issues or other such aspects. That being said...

Just a bit of background, I was born in 81 and never knew of Star Wars existence. I only got into Star Wars when they were re-released as Special Editions in theaters, and even then, I wasn't floored over them. Admittedly, I gravitated towards the prequels, but only because they were newer and thus felt more "familiar" to me (as movies in that time-frame and that technology would). Years have passed and I eventually realized the error of my ways and I can now say I have developed a healthier appreciation for the Original Trilogy. The prequels have their place, of course, but I can finally see what the big fuss was over the Originals.

However!! The one character I desperately cling to as one of the BEST villains in the Star Wars Universe (that I personally have been exposed to) is DARTH MAUL. He was soaked with the Dark Side, causing mayhem for the Jedi. And then of course Vader came along and killed him after an epic battle of Sithly proportions, inevitably taking his place at the side of Darth Sidious, one of best battles in Star Wars history! Oh wait, that didn't happen? Of course not! Because he was reduced to the ranks of the blatantly stupid. Being on higher ground and still letting a Padawan fly up in front of him, land behind him, slice him in half, and all while still holding on to his ACTIVATED lightsaber!! And just to recap, Anakin performed the very same action and got himself dismembered for it two movies later! Needless to say, I was absolutely fumed, outraged, throwing a hissy fit, WHATEVER that he not only was robbed of the ample screen time he deserved, but also because he was killed off in such an insulting way to the type of character he was presented to be. I still can never forgive it. I plain and simply just love Darth Maul.

So you better believe I was ALL OVER what little options there were to experience more of him. First it was with his book Shadow Hunter, which was awesome when I first read it because, well, MORE DARTH MAUL. Fast forward many years later and I discover Lockdown, which was phenomenally and insanely amazing (I read it in 4-5 hours!). Because it left me salivating for more, I rushed back to my Shadow Hunter again for a second read after spending years on my shelf. And well, Lockdown for the win. There's a special place in my heart for Shadow Hunter, always, but Lockdown is my new favorite Maul book.

I won't delve into plot details, as plenty of reviewers have done a fine job of that already. But one detail I will mention--that may or may not be a very minor spoiler--is that throughout this book, Darth Maul is not permitted to use the Force, and thus must force (heh, just caught that pun) himself to resort to other means of getting his mission done. While I thought that would bother me at first, it actually SO WORKED. And here's why: tension. Suffocating, gut-wrenching tension. I gotta applaud this author because he really had me wondering just how in freaking world Maul was going to get through all his deadly situations without resorting to Force usage. Seriously, he'd be just smack dab in the middle of impending doom, and even though I know he'll survive of course, I STILL caught myself more than once thinking, "Omg, what are you going to do NOW? AHHH! *page flip!*" The tension was so THICK in so many places, it had me actually nervous for Maul. Overall, I simply loved how he's presented here; strict warrior with unmatched survivor instincts, killing quickly when he must, hesitating only when it suits his selfish needs. And the way he kills?? WOW. I even caught myself laughing going, "That's SO Maul." And I got so accustomed to him being forced into this situation when he's not using the Force, but only his brute, physical strength and cunning to get his way, that when the time comes for him to be more Sithly, I'm going AHHH THAT'S RIGHT! HECK YEAH! So for me to be so engrossed as to be surprised that, oh yeah, he IS a Sith and he DOES have some masterful abilities at the tips of his fingers, that says something about the writing. I should mention, though, that this isn't JUST a bunch of fighting. The beauty of this book is that there's so much more going on, INCLUDING fights. In fact, the fights/battles are almost a "nuisance" for Maul, who has more important things to be concerned over, but alas, he's gotta do what he's gotta do, and man, he does it so right. Super genius.

To be fair, there are plenty of other great aspects to this book...GREAT and believable characters, as well as all their interactions with not just each other, but Darth Maul as well. The writing style is wonderful; it had to be if it sucked me into the tension as I mentioned earlier. The pacing is spot-on to my liking. Short chapters, but so much goodness stuffed inside them made this a fluid read for me. I reiterate, I finished this thing in like 4 or 5 hours. This author certainly has a way of describing horrific scenes--which isn't surprising given that I'm reading that he's got a history in the horror type genre for Star Wars novels. Even a wound is described to such poignant detail; it actually made me writhe in my chair just thinking about them. Like ow, that sounds like it hurts! I love when writing does that to me, makes it seem so real. So I shall chime in with all the other reviewers that this book does have some gore, not for the young readers. Some people may not stomach it. I personally appreciated the gore, and found it just right for the tone of the atmosphere. It was enough to make me cringe, but not gag or anything. As far as this book's relevance to other Star Wars novels, I wouldn't know as I mentioned earlier. I've got some catching up to do!

So, in conclusion, if you're a Darth Maul fan as I am, and are looking to see him have some splendidly villainous moments as a warrior (without the need to have him force-choke everyone a'la Vader), then DO get this book. I am not minimizing the importance of the Force in the Star Wars Universe or anything, not at all. I'm merely highlighting the importance of what can be done WITHOUT the Force and who better to do it than Darth Maul? I highly, HIGHLY doubt Maul fans will regret purchasing this book. I know I sure didn't. In fact, I miss it. May even give it another read soon enough.

P.S. This would make a SPLENDID movie. Oh if only it were possible....

18 people found this helpful

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Razvan

Amazing read. Really amazing

Reviewed in the United States on July 21, 2015

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Amazing read. Really amazing. After reading the new book about Tarkin, this book was a much needed gust of fresh air.
The book is very dark, and very violent, as one would expect when the main character is everyone's favourite sith lord, Darth Maul. Many of the scenes in the book are gastly and very violent, with limbs, eyes, heads flying everyone; it was difficult to read here and there, because of this, since the author goes to great lenghts to make sure than you really UNDERSTAND how someone is gutted or how his bones are ripped from his living body (yes, lovely, I know). The characters of the book are interesting, but some are overrated. The book shows us a different Maul, one who is not all confident and all powerful, but a sith with his own doubts and moments of loss. Though I have read a few rewies which condemn this side of Maul, I actually loved it, since it brings some humanity to the sith. Plus, from the books about Palpatine which I read, even the Emperor had some doubts here and there, thus, it makes only sense than his apprentice would also have some trust and faith issues from place to place. But, this only adds to the character, and only served to make Maul even greater and better. There are a lot of random things happening in the book, which though seem to come out of the blue, they are very well explained, such as the Worm, and actually add something special to the book: the unknown and unforseeable.There are several twists here and there, and a lot of dying. Really, almost everyone dies in very horrific and spectacular ways; i was actually surprised when some of the characters did survive the book.
All in all, a very good read, interesting, fast paced, unpredictable (yes, Maul survives, we know that, but all the other characters are on unsafe ground) and with a somewhat interesting plot.

One person found this helpful

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SpeedReader

A decent Legends story

Reviewed in the United States on October 19, 2022

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Lockdown was one of the last novels written before Disney took over Lucasfilm, and as a result, it is one of the last Legends novels. The story is set about a year before The Phantom Menace when Sidious dispatches Maul to a space prison to pose as an inmate in order to make contact with a weapons dealer who is also in the prison in order to get a nuclear weapon that he has been building in the prison and sell it to a dark side coven called Bando Gora. The novel is kind of a mix of Star Wars and Death Race, because inmates of the prison are forced to partake in gladiator-style combat, and they have explosives in their chests to keep them in line.

Overall, the book is good, but not great. The plot is a bit silly, but there is a lot of action and the story gives more depth to the character of Darth Maul than he had before in the material that is now Legends. Of course, that changed after Disney took over, but up to this point, Maul was not really developed much beyond what we saw of him in Episode I. I would not say that the novel is a must-read, especially since it is not canon, but if you are a fan of the character of Maul, then it is still worth checking out.

5 people found this helpful

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Matt

Great dark story

Reviewed in the United States on December 13, 2023

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This story is as Darth maul a story as you'll find. Very good.

Reviewed in the United States on November 9, 2023

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The entire book was fantastic! It really captured my attention and kept me on the edge of my seat! Darth Maul is always entertaining!

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Pablo Cafiso

Awesome book!

Reviewed in Canada on September 17, 2023

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Another awesome Star Wars universe story. May the Force be with You!

Mr. T. G. Short

Scum meets star wars!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 12, 2024

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I bought this thinking it was a graphic novel. My initial annoyance gave way to surprise then amazement and awe. I love the character of maul and Joe Schreiber has brought him to life in a dark break neck adventure that careens from high stakes encounter to visceral violence ratcheting up the intrigue continuously. This is an absolute page turner that will have you wondering who will survive the black hole of Mauls rage!

Daniel Moritz

Ein sehr gutes Buch

Reviewed in Germany on April 3, 2014

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... nicht zwingend ein Star Wars Buch, allerdings. Mit anderen Namen würde dies auch tadellos in andere Settings passen, gerade weil Darth Maul gezwungen ist seine Sith-Fähigkeiten zu verbergen.
Dennoch (oder vielleicht gerade deshalb) ein sehr unterhaltsames Buch.

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valklotz

it got me locked down

Reviewed in Germany on May 2, 2015

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I did buy it because I want to have all book ever written on SW. I did read it in a rush. It did not match entirely the stories before but hey, everybody tales the story as he recalls it...
only 4 stars because it doesn't go too deep under.

K. G. A. Alavi

Should have kept it simple

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 5, 2014

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Joe Schreiber specialises in writing horror (personally I hate horror stories), Star Wars is rich of species right out of horror stories and you have them locked in in a fight club you cannot get more of a personification of a horror than Darth Maul. Horns, red skin covered in tattoos, yellow eyed, ferocious, and completely devoid of compassion. All that and he is Sith. Could you possible get a better character for a story like this? However I think Joe went a bit out of his comfort zone and add more mystery and complicate the plot more then it needed to be.

Maul goes undercover into a prison called Hive 7, the prison is famous for 2 things and infamous for another. It is famous for hosting death matches between the inmates which are broadcast throughout the galaxy, and no one ever escaping. It is infamous for a legendary arms dealer using it as their base of operations. A mauls mission is to find this arms dealer and purchase a nuclear device from him. There are 2 catches one going into prison he will be unarmed so no lightsaber staff. Also he is not allowed to use the force in anyway as it might compromise his identity as Sith. There is a bit of manoeuvring between Darth Plagueis and Darth Sidious in the background. The usual of the apprentice preparing to become the master.

If I was judging the book by the first chapter it would have been brilliant. Maul’s first fight is with the prison’s current champion. A captured but unidentified species (Yuuzhan Vong). The fight is short, gory and most of all brutal. This is the theme for 80% of the book. If he left out the overly complications in plot the book would have been perfect. I fully appreciate Maul using all of his skillset, especially things he learned in the assassin’s academy, but I don’t think this was right book for some of them.

The violence of this is as stated brutal. There is a lot of neck snapping, stabbing, biting, clawing, deboning and even cannibalism. The fights themselves are technically incorrect (if you are martial arts fan or practitioner you will notice many of these), but I think they were hoping to hide this by under the brutality of it. The other let down for me was the ending the final fight was a bit confusing, but the ending just seem out of Maul’s character and conditioning. I am not going to give it away here.

The book is in short chapters of varying length, in some case they a chapter will just be 2 pages at most 10 pages. I quite like this format as it fed information in easy chunks. I think the book would have been better with less twists, and more fights but that is just me as that is what I was expecting from the book as soon as I saw it. I would have given the book 3 1/2 stars but I thought it deserved a round up then a round down.

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Lockdown: Star Wars Legends (Maul) (Star Wars - Legends) Kindle Edition

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