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Customer Review
Reviewed in the United States on September 9, 2021
With chapters like a Dan Brown novel, Joe Schreiber keeps this relatively large novel moving at a fast pace with small chapters and plenty of action. Darth Maul, perhaps one of the coolest characters born from the hellscape trilogy that is Episodes I, II, and III in the Star Wars universe, is sent to one of the most awful penitentiaries in the galaxy: Cog Hive Seven. This small snippet of Maul's background focuses on him serving Darth Sidious while Darth Plagueis is still alive. Although Sidious intends to send Maul secretively to secure a weapon, intending him also not to use the Force or any of his abilities while in the prison, we know that things will go awry at any moment.
Cog Hive Seven is a penitentiary built upon the idea that nobody will ever survive or escape its environs. Each inmate is implanted with a small themonuclear detonator inside of their hearts upon arrival which can be detonated from any one of the guards by inputting the prisoner's ID number. Additionally, every so often (and it is fairly often), two prisoners are paired up to fight one another to the death which is linked into a galaxy-wide gaming and gambling community, shuffling credits into the banks of the prison and Warden. This makes the novel fairly action-packed since Maul is immediately seen as a worthy adversary for just about anything he can be pitted against and despite being put into almost impossible situations he manages to survive each time.
Unfortunately, the book is a tad repetitious (so much head butting), and it takes away from the story itself. With multiple players diddling with Maul's story and altering his trajectory, we are thankfully hand-held through most of it to make sure we understand who is who and what is what. Fight Club in space is what it boils down to while Maul single-handedly tries to fulfill his task without being pegged as a Force user.
Entertaining, to say the least, but it hasn't stuck with me like other Maul or other Star Wars novels, canon or not.
Cog Hive Seven is a penitentiary built upon the idea that nobody will ever survive or escape its environs. Each inmate is implanted with a small themonuclear detonator inside of their hearts upon arrival which can be detonated from any one of the guards by inputting the prisoner's ID number. Additionally, every so often (and it is fairly often), two prisoners are paired up to fight one another to the death which is linked into a galaxy-wide gaming and gambling community, shuffling credits into the banks of the prison and Warden. This makes the novel fairly action-packed since Maul is immediately seen as a worthy adversary for just about anything he can be pitted against and despite being put into almost impossible situations he manages to survive each time.
Unfortunately, the book is a tad repetitious (so much head butting), and it takes away from the story itself. With multiple players diddling with Maul's story and altering his trajectory, we are thankfully hand-held through most of it to make sure we understand who is who and what is what. Fight Club in space is what it boils down to while Maul single-handedly tries to fulfill his task without being pegged as a Force user.
Entertaining, to say the least, but it hasn't stuck with me like other Maul or other Star Wars novels, canon or not.
