Labyrinth of Evil

This story is the last of the pre-Revenge of the Sith novels and the plot takes you right up to the opening of Episode III. It starts with Anakin and Obi-Wan on one of the Neimoidian satellite worlds where the pair are leading an assault against the Separatists. The balance of the war seems to have shifted and it now seems inevitable that the Republic will prevail against the various Separatist groups – Trade Federation, Banking Clan, Techno Union, etc.

Nute Gunray and his cronies manage to escape from the Jedi again, but this time they screw up big time and leave behind the chair that they use to communicate with Darth Sidious. Yes, I said a chair. It projects holograms. No, I don’t understand that either.

Anyway, the chair is turned over to MI when it is discovered to be a communication device. The technicians discover who the manufacturer is and this leads to a series of planet hops as Anakin and Obi-Wan try to track the chair back to Darth Sidious. The path leads to a female Twi’lek junkie prostitute (she was ready to do them -- LOL) who built a ship for Count Dooku (unbeknownst to her) and dropped it off in a Coruscant ghetto. Word is sent to Mace who leads a team of select Jedi Council members, knights and capable padawans into the (literal) underworld of Coruscant to find out whom Count Dooku has been meeting with. Actually, they know who he's been meeting with. The question is, who is Darth Sidious? Their search takes them right up to the basement of 500 Republica, an apartment complex that is home to the famous and wealthy – including Supreme Chancellor Palpatine.

Anakin and Obi-Wan are diverted by Palpatine to yet another planet on an ultimately fruitless mission to catch Count Dooku and General Grievous. Over Yoda’s objections, Palpatine sends much of Coruscant’s defense force to various Outer Rim territories, supposedly because the Republic is winning the war. Meanwhile, Palpatine/Sidious becomes aware that the Neimoidians have been lying to him and they’ve lost the chair.

Realizing that the Jedi are almost literally at his front door, Sidious uncorks his master plan. The shields guarding Coruscant’s “airspace” go down and the Separatists launch a full out assault on the homeworld of the Republic. The Chancellor is “kidnapped” by General Grievous, but he gets a message out to Anakin to come “rescue” him.

The plot was okay, but, as is usually the case with the Star Wars books, the character development is non-existent. Why can’t these authors spend two seconds making it seem like Anakin is more than a twenty-something who’s pissed all the time and Obi-Wan is more than just fussy thirty-something with blinders on? Is it that freaking difficult? Or are the authors told from on high not to flesh the characters out? That wouldn’t surprise me.

Another thing I didn’t like about Labyrinth of Evil -- and Jedi Trial -- was that Anakin doesn’t think about Padme at all. In LOE, when he gets frustrated, it’s not because he can’t be with his wife, it’s because he wants to kick ass and he’s not kicking enough ass. In order to make ROTS the tragedy it’s supposed to be, there needs to be more weight to their relationship. It’s coming off like one of those ill-conceived wartime marriages from WWII – meet a stranger at a dance, marry him the next day before he ships out, then get to know him when he comes home years later. Or not.

To be fair, Padme does appear briefly in LOE and she’s not exactly pining either. She’s hanging with Bail Organa and Mon Mothma, futilely trying to get an appointment to see the Chancellor to ask him to stop acting like a dictator. It’s only later when she, Bail and Mon Mothma are fleeing to the shelters during the droid attack that Padme starts to worry that she’s going to die and never see Anakin again. Oh, yeah – apparently she ain’t fooling Mon Mothma and Bail. They don’t say so, but both seem hip to the fact that Padme is pregnant. Bail even hints that if she needs to lay low to cover this pregnancy, she can stay with him and his wife on Alderaan.

The final sequence of events in the novel are depicted in the Clone Wars cartoon, but the cartoon was a bit off. Droids attack Coruscant, Shaak-Ti tries to get Palpatine from 500 Republica to a bunker, there’s a Jedi versus droids fight in a train station, a Talz and an Ithorian Jedi fight Grievous to protect the Chancellor and get cut down and Grievous escapes in a shuttle with Palpatine. The novel ends with Anakin and Obi-Wan flying back to Coruscant to rescue the Chancellor, as does the cartoon.