Darth Bane

I finished reading Darth Bane: Path of Destruction by Drew Karpyshyn today. It was a great book and I really enjoyed reading it. I've never read any books by this author before, but I'd definitely read another one of his books.

This book is part of the Star Wars "series". It's probably more appropriate to call it the Star Wars "universe" since the setting for the book is "a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away". I've read other books that take place in the Star Wars universe and have really enjoyed some, while being very disappointed in others. The reason I would not call these books a series is because a series is usually written in some type of order and by the same author. These books are written by a number of different authors. These authors must read each other's books because the stories do not conflict, even though they often use the same characters or are continuations of each other.

I was rather disappointed in the last Star Wars book I read, Betrayal:Legacy of the Force by Aaron Allston. The writing and the storyline were OK. I've read Allston's other books set in the Star Wars universe and thoroughly enjoyed them. He is a great writer and the other books contained a good deal of humor. Betrayal barely held my attention. I can't point out any reason why. The book wasn't poorly written, it just wasn't as good as his other books.

Because of my disappointment from reading Betrayal, I was reluctant to read Darth Bane. First off, it is set in the Sith era, so I would not be familiar with any of the characters. Most of the other books focus on the Jedi or other "good characters". This book showed why the Sith, the "bad characters", are the way they are and made them more human. I'm glad that I read Darth Bane, though. It was a great book that held my attention the whole way through. All though it was not an extremely suspenseful novel, it was definitely a page turner.

I was, however, disappointed by the ending. I felt that Karpyshyn ran out of ideas and felt that the book had to end, so he pulled an ending out of the air. The ending could definitely have been improved.