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Death Star by Michael Reaves and Steve Perry
Del Rey/Oct 07/$25.95
I imagine my lifetime gaming stats look something like this:
Princesses saved: 213
Bombs disabled just before detonation: 412
Enemy bases obliterated: 111
Nazis killed: 6.0221415 × 1023
Death Stars blown up: 910
There’s something cool about blowing up a Death Star. Not only does it capture an iconic movie moment, but it’s also a fitting death for the ultimate end boss.
Anyway, as a someone who has sent many a Death Star to their fiery end, I was interested in seeing what this book had to add.
This book begins with a character named Villian Dance piloting a TIE fighter near the Death Star in orbit over the planet Despayre. Yeah, right of the bat it reads like emo fanfic. Of course, Reaves and Perry were handed the names “Death Star” and “Despayre,” but I’m pretty sure they created “Villian Dance” on their own. I hope, at some point, they considered the name Sinistre Waltz.
Yes, the tone of this review will be snarky.
Death Star has two fundamental problems. One, we know how the story ends. Two, the authors can’t resist winking at the reader.
The authors actually handle the first problem pretty well. On a certain level, Death Star works like Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead. New characters provide us with alternate points of view and extended takes on events from the Star Wars Canon. Dr. Kornell “Uli” Divini (from the writing duo’s MedStar series) treats Princess Leia after her encounter with the mind probe. Sgt. Nova Stihl is present in the Death Star conference room during a few key scenes. Other characters flesh out life aboard the Death Star. Teela Kaarz is an architect who notes an irregularity in the Death Star’s construction plans. Atour Riten is the Death Star’s Chief Librarian. Memah Roothes runs one of the battlestation’s cantinas.
The early section of the book follows these disparate characters (a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal), but until their paths meet up, there’s a lot of repetition. Everyone has to comment on how big the battlestation is. Two different characters both say the Death Star could “pop a Star Destroyer like a soap bubble.” And it dawns on them that destroying planets is probably a bad thing.
The story dovetails nicely into the events of A New Hope, but not soon enough to spare us from Grand Moff Tarkin’s booty calls or a Darth Vader who’s preoccupied by the sound of his own breathing. Poor Darth. Steve Perry handled him so poignantly in 1996’s Shadows of the Empire. Here he’s still moping about Padme. When he battles Kenobi, he’s thrown off guard by the geriatric attacks and angered when Obi-Wan mockingly calls him “Darth.”
There are no great surprises in Death Star, but if you pretend that any of this could have possibly been happening during the Death Star’s construction, then the book would be a good read — if the authors didn’t keep reminding you that you were reading a book.
Here are some gems: there’s a character called Teh Roxxor, someone practices Teräs Käsi (wonder if they know Thok), people regularly read Beings Holozine, pyrowalls protect the Death Star from hackers, there’s a ship with the call sign NGC-1710 (a little too close to NCC-1701), and there’s a company called Dybersyne. A little of this would be okay, but the book is practically self-aware.
This is definitely one for the die-hards.
Now, something everyone can enjoy is this steampunk take on the Death Star from Eric Poulton. Poulton has an awesome series of Steampunk Star Wars on his site and similar looking artwork, completely unrelated to Star Wars can be found at his DeviantArt store.