Star Wars - Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter

Michael Reaves

This is a Star Wars universe novel set immediately before the events of Episode 1 The Phantom Menace.

One of the high up trade federation members has decided that if he were to sell the information regarding the upcoming blockade of Naboo he could become very well off, so he downloads the information onto a Holocron and makes his was to Corasant to find a buyer for the information.

The other high positioned members of the trade federation hire a bounty hunter to track down their missing counterpart before Darth Sidious (Palpatine) discovers what has happened, of course he has already figured out what has happened and has dispatched his apprentice (Darth Maul) to recover the information and dispose of anyone that has found out about the planned blockade.

While the story is meant to be primarily about Darth Maul it does have many other characters that get caught up in the whole mess.

There is the information broker, his partner (who is a highly modified protacol droid), a Jedi Padawn on her solo mission, her teacher that gets involved after she fails her mission due to unforeseen circumstances, even Obi-Wan Kenobi makes and appearance to investigate the missing padawan.

Darth Maul eventually plugs all the information leaks and Obi-Wan who didn't come into direct contact with Darth Maul gets back to the Jedi temple in one piece just in time to ship out to Naboo with Qui-Gon Jinn to negotiate a resolution to the blockade.

There is an interesting part in the novel about the crystals in lightsabres how Jedi use natural crystals but the Sith use crystals that they manufacture themselves with a forge and the force.

Overall I would say this is a good read, and serves as a very good lead in to the phantom menace story however it probably does not expand the Darth Maul character quite as much as I would have hoped.