In Charles Soule’s Darth Vader – Dark Lord of the Sith, we spend a lot of time with Darth Vader after he was defeated on Mustafar. Part of spending time with Vader was seeing how he interacted with the Inquisitors, who were (mostly) fallen Jedi, who were commissioned by the Emperor to track down Jedi who survived Order 66 and eliminate them. In one of the story arcs, we meet two unnamed Inquisitors, whom Vader chases across Coruscant after he suspects them of treason. This story, in the comic, was the motivation for Palpatine to give Vader Mustafar, where he built his fortress. Delilah S. Dawson, author of Phasma and Black Spire, took these characters and built an entire novel around them, hoping to expand their stories a bit. This novel was birthed out of that desire, and it comes years after the comic. The question is: was it worth the wait? Is this a story worth telling? And, ultimately, I’m leaning toward: maybe it was worth being told, but this novel made me wish that it hadn’t been.
Perhaps the biggest problem I ran into while reading the novel is that I simply did not like Iskat, the main character. Red Blades focuses, almost exclusively, on Iskat Akaris. We follow the events of the novel through her POV, rather than following a few characters in different contexts. This has its strengths, but it also has some weaknesses. There have been some Star Wars novels in the recent past that have followed simply far too many points of view, like Cataclysm. Following too many POVs can muddy a story, ruin the pace, and become confusing. By following only a singular point of view, we definitely get to know Iskat better, and we learn a lot about her as we see the galaxy through her eyes. But the thing is…the longer I read the novel, the less I figured I wanted to read the galaxy through her eyes. I never quite connected with Iskat, and I think her story relied on you connecting with her. Because I didn’t, I found her slightly grating at times, and I couldn’t quite buy her motivations across the board.
The novel was, from the title alone, clearly pointing toward Iskat becoming an Inquisitor. I personally do not gravitate toward novels that are based on the villain and their point of view, as I usually prefer to read novels where I want the main character to succeed, rather than find out how they fail. In this case, this novel was already facing an uphill battle for me. Unfortunately, I never really felt like I wanted to see Iskat succeed, nor was I terribly concerned how she would be stopped. Until the end of the novel, I never truly understood why her questions would really drive her to the Dark Side, rather than be something of a minor teenage existential crisis. I rarely sympathized with the way that she sought help or interacted with the characters around her. There’s a tragedy to Iskat that’s really baked into the novel, but the novel rarely focuses on it long enough to let us sympathize with her – there’s simply too much going on as the novel tries to get her closer to the darkness more quickly.
I think having a few other points of view may have actually helped here. For example, Iskat believes that her fellow Jedi are either afraid of her or hate her. But we can only take her word for it, as we never investigate the mindset of these other Jedi. I think this would’ve helped me connect with her more, or realize how much her mind was twisted by the Dark Side. I personally think it would’ve been more interesting to learn whether characters truly feared her, or if it was entirely within Iskat’s mind. (You might argue that it’s not important what the reality was, only what Iskat’s perception was. In some cases, I agree, but I don’t think it helps me become empathetic or sympathetic when I don’t know for sure.) Without any other points of view, I felt like the entirety of the side cast fell too flat for me. Even without talking about Iskat’s relationship with these side characters, other characters should still have some sort of story arc within the book, even if it’s not about them. While one character, Tualon, has an arc, it happens almost entirely off-page, which is a major disappointment, and takes a lot out of the climax of the novel. Tualon’s story follows him as a Jedi, who somewhat believes in Iskat and wants to help her, and (kind of) traces his turn into an Inquisitor. In some ways, that I won’t get into because of spoilers, Tualon may have the more interesting story here, but it’s developed off-page, therefore removing from the story entirely. There are a few other key characters that I think would’ve benefitted majorly from a quick point of view change, like Charlin or some of her former Jedi mentors. Unfortunately, characters fall more flat as the novel goes along, leaving the Inquisitors (when the book finally gets there) to be entirely underdeveloped, and Iskat never really seems to fit in their story, either.
I also found the pacing to be really slow, which took the wind out of the sails of the novel very early. Iskat’s turn into an Inquisitor doesn’t happen until after the halfway point – more like the 60% percent mark, if you were reading on a Kindle. This may be one place where better-managed expectations would serve the reader. I expected a novel about an Inquisitor, when the novel is more concerned about tracing her entire journey. As I waited for her to become an Inquisitor, I felt myself less and less interested in the Jedi aspects of her story and wanted to move on to Nur and the Dark Times. This also means that some elements, like an inherent romantic sub-plot, are developed far too late in the novel.
I also found the scenes within the Inquisitorious lacking, as well. Even though they were one-sided, I thought reading about Iskat’s relationship with the Jedi around her helped me to understand her a little bit better. When it comes to the Inquisitors, we don’t really see them interact at all, outside of Tualon. I felt like most scenes where she interacted with an Inquisitor that wasn’t the Grand Inquisitor could’ve been anybody. She has a conflict with the Seventh Sister, but outside of a few minor details, the conflict could’ve just as easily been with the Ninth Sister or Tenth Brother. There are some glaring omissions within the Inquisitorious that made me feel like this book was written before Jedi: Fallen Order and Obi-Wan Kenobi.
I do want to make one more comment that I feel is important when talking about a Delilah S. Dawson novel. I found Phasma to be overly violent for the franchise, despite liking the rest of the novel. Black Spire, on the other hand, turned the violence in the wrong direction, aiming it almost entirely at Vi Moradi. Poor Vi spends the entire novel getting the crap beat out of her, all of which seems like violence for the sake of making the book more violent. This has been heavily criticized, and for good reason. I am sad to report that Iskat also gets the snot kicked out of her in this novel, which is a troubling continuation of the too-violent trends I find within her writing. While Iskat is not a black woman, as Vi is, there are still troubling elements in this writing to me. The violence is a little more “in-context” here, as it comes by the hands of fellow Inquisitors, but it still felt like violence for violence’s sake. We could’ve learned about the rivalry between Inquisitors without the gruesome details of how they physically break one another.
In a lot of ways, I think that this novel would’ve been better in say, 2017, than it is now. Seeing the evolution of an Inquisitor, after only really seeing them on Rebels, would have been a really interesting way to open up the galaxy. But now, after stories like Obi-Wan Kenobi and the Jedi video game series have explored Inquisitors with a lot more nuance, this book feels too…simple. While I think Iskat does provide an interesting look into the mind of a single Inquisitor, it feels too underdeveloped compared to the story of almost any other Inquisitor. Unfortunately, the novel doesn’t provide a much greater look into the Inquisitorious either, which would’ve been welcome after we’ve been to Nur multiple times. I read this book with the feeling that Dawson was blocked from the most interesting parts of the Inquisitorious because other projects already had dibs, leaving this story incredibly hampered. Overall, I don’t recommend this novel, and probably will not revisit this one as time goes on.
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DISCLOSURE: I received a copy of this book from the publisher at no charge in order to provide an early review. However, this did not affect the overall review content. All opinions are my own.
ALSO BY DELILAH S. DAWSON:
“Worthless” Stories of Jedi and Sith (novel) | “She Will Keep Them Warm” – From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back (novel) | Black Spire (novel) | Phasma (novel) | The Perfect Weapon (short story) | “The Secrets of Long Snoot” – From a Certain Point of View (novel) | “Rose and Paige” – Star Wars Adventures: Forces of Destiny (comic miniseries)