This coming February will see the release of Lucasfilm Publishing’s highly anticipated new novel Star Wars: Reign of the Empire – The Mask of Fear from Random House Worlds. Laughing Place was provided with an early digital copy of this book, and below are my mostly spoiler-free thoughts.
One of the major complaints from fans coming out of the Star Wars prequel era a couple decades ago was that the movies tended to focus a bit too much on the political side of A Galaxy Far, Far Away. But recent material in the franchise (especially Lucasfilm’s acclaimed live-action Disney+ series Star Wars: Andor) has proven that the political sphere is actually a fertile– and largely untapped, outside of Episodes I through III– area for exploration in the George Lucas-created Star Wars universe. Enter a new trilogy of novels from Lucasfilm Publishing and Penguin Random House with the overarching title Reign of the Empire, the first entry of which is called The Mask of Fear and isn’t due out for a couple months. But being a big fan of author Alexander Freed’s recent Star Wars: Alphabet Squadron trilogy, I couldn’t help but dive into the advance review copy early and share my opinion.
Let’s face it– those who choose to consume the ever-expanding Star Wars saga in chronological story order are going to experience a massive shift in tone from the prequels through The Bad Batch, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Solo, and on to Andor, the latter of which is arguably the first time the franchise has really taken itself super-seriously in matters of galactic politics and revolutionary-minded warfare. As a longtime fan I would guess that the intent of Reign of the Empire is to make that transition feel a bit smoother, dramatically zooming in on the Galactic Senate in the period immediately following the events of Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith. This novel features five major point-of-view characters (not just three, as the marketing would have you believe), the first and possibly most important being Senator Mon Mothma, who plays a key role in Andor later on in the timeline. We experience Mothma’s attempt to curtail and contain the newly crowned Emperor Palpatine’s rise to power via diplomatic means, introducing a new bill called the Imperial Rebirth Act that would turn old Sheev into nothing more than a figurehead.
Meanwhile, Senator Bail Organa (adoptive father to Princess Leia, who shows up in infant form) takes a different tack in trying to halt the transformation of the Republic into the Galactic Empire– he seeks to prove that Palpatine fabricated his case against the Jedi that led to the execution of Order 66. This quest takes him on a planet-hopping journey with an elderly-but-adept new bodyguard named Haki, one of the other point-of-view characters, who’s really a spy working for the Imperial Security Bureau. The fourth character we focus on is Soujen Vak-Nhalis, also newly introduced here, a cybernetic (literal) sleeper agent of the Confederacy of Independent Systems– AKA the Separatist coalition– who reluctantly joins the guerilla fighting force of extremist resistance combatant Saw Gerrera. Saw himself does not get more than a couple POV chapters near the end of the book, but he’s such an enigmatic figure that it makes much more sense for other characters to watch him from afar.
The fifth featured POV character here is the wild card of the bunch: a non-binary operative named Chemish working under Haki on Coruscant who takes it upon themself to infiltrate an Imperialist militia after Haki goes missing with Bail Organa. Chemish provides the boots-on-the-ground perspective of those living under Imperial rule and the variety of affiliations and approaches to activism that make up the Coruscanti populace post-Republic. All of these assorted personalities interact with each other at some point in the story, each bouncing off each other in interesting and intriguing ways. But the most fascinating relationship might be the one between Mothma and Organa, two senators who should ostensibly be on the same side, but have strikingly different strategies in their respective methods of winning over their peers. It’s extremely enlightening to the big picture of the senate during this volatile period to watch them squabble over policy disagreements at the beginning of this narrative and then… well, I don’t want to spoil what comes next.
This is Freed’s sixth Star Wars novel– after Star Wars: Battlefront – Twilight Company, the Rogue One: A Star Wars Story novelization, and the aforementioned Alphabet Squadron trilogy… not to mention his work in Star Wars comics, short stories, and on The Old Republic MMORPG– so he’s already proven himself more than capable of handling the gritty wartime aspect of this universe, not to mention establishing new characters and building upon existing ones. I would go so far as to say his skills as a writer have only improved over that time, and though I was indeed one of those fans who were less than enamored with the political aspects of the prequels, The Mask of Fear might actually be one of my favorite Star Wars novels of all time. It’s difficult to express how impressed I am by how the author balances political intrigue with occasional exciting spurts of action and more introspective character beats that genuinely get to the heart of what makes the galaxy tick, while simultaneously crafting something that feels incredibly timely for the present state of our real world. In fact the pending release of this book could not be more pertinent at this moment in history, both because of current events and the upcoming second season of Andor, which I can only imagine is going to be even better appreciated by those who have consumed this book. It’s been a rare occasion in recent years that I would call a Star Wars novel a must-read for all fans, but this is definitely one of them.
Star Wars: Reign of the Empire – The Mask of Fear will be released on Tuesday, February 25th, but is available for pre-order right now.