Padmé Amidala has a long road ahead of her to prove herself worthy as Queen of Naboo, but with the help of handmaidens, willing to sacrifice their life for her, the planet just might be in the best hands. Join us and read our second review of E. K. Johnston’s prequel novel Queen’s Peril.
In the past few years, Padmé has been the subject of quite a renaissance. After not appearing in much material for quite a while, Padmé started showing up in adult novels, comics, and even became the subject of a new series, of sorts, from Disney Press. I, for one, am loving the attention that the character did not receive in the time that the Prequels movies were new. We’re finally seeing those young enough to grow with the Prequels become authors, which makes for a nice change of pace as these authors can write about the characters who need a bit of extra attention. One such example is E. K. Johnston, who has now written two novels about Padmé Amidala. In her first novel, Queen’s Shadow, we learned about Padmé’s transition from Queen of Naboo to Senator for Naboo. In the sequel-prequel book, Queen’s Peril, we follow Padmé as she is elected Queen of Naboo, forms of a team of handmaidens, works to solve a particular problem facing Naboo at the onset of her reign, and deal with an invasion of her planet by the Trade Federation. Unfortunately, this book should have probably been named Queen’s Shadow, instead of the last one, as this book lives in the shadow of it’s much better predecessor that put roadblocks in front of this book’s success.
I’ll first talk about the characters, since they were one of the strengths of the novel, but also hampered pretty heavily by future works both from film and the printed page. Padmé with a lot more warmth in the novel compared with Queen’s Shadow, and I appreciated reading about her growth toward the monarchy. The Padmé material that we’ve gotten recently has not had the chance to get much into what makes her tick, so this was a nice way to highlight more of her personality and her upbringing. One of the best ways to bring about some of the change in her is introduce Sabé, who acts as an amazing foil to Padmé, both bringing her up as friends, but also in how she deals with conflict, especially when that conflict is with Padmé herself. A lot of their relationship was positive: the bits where she and Sabé practiced “the Queen’s voice,” the voice modulation practiced by Padmé and their handmaidens, which hides their identities, really stood out through the entire novel. But the two also come into conflict, as you would imagine young women growing into new roles would do, and these conflicts are mined for opportunities to help the two women grow.
The rest of the cast is rounded out by Padmé’s handmaidens. When the book focuses on the individual story of each handmaiden, it gives each handmaiden time to shine, showing why they were hired, and what skills they specifically bring to the table. In The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, Padmé’s handmaidens were featured heavily, but few had speaking lines outside of Sabé and Cordé. One of the strengths of these novels is that they are given much more room to speak and grow as characters. Especially rife for conflict and storytelling is how they come together as a team, which comes with some conflict, even with Padmé herself. This book, like its predecessor tries to do its best to give everyone to do, and a lot of that, at least in the first half, revolves around the handmaidens learning how to be Padmé for safety reasons. In my opinion, though, this plot line felt repetitive after reading Queen’s Shadow, where the handmaiden switch-gimmick was explored with a lot more fun contexts and a lot higher stakes.
Also hampering my enjoyment of the handmaidens is that none could grow past The Phantom Menace, coupled with the fact that a lot of the handmaidens made significant character growth in Queen’s Shadow, so every character felt like they were shadows of their future selves – the selves I have already read and grown to appreciate. In light of this, I felt as if every handmaiden was a bit blurry, and had trouble remembering who was who at some points until the second half. The second half, during the Invasion, some of the handmaidens are given a lot more to do, and the young handmaidens show incredible bravery in the face of one of the biggest threats to the planet ever. I just wish some of these defining moments came sooner.
Moving from the characters to the plot, I had one major issue with Queen’s Shadow: the plot felt light when compared to other books. In some ways, it’s hard to pin down what the main plotline of Queen’s Peril is, in the sense that you would describe a plot by an overarching event or activity. Without a central plot, the books feels like it’s two plots, stitched together at the center, glued together by the emotional trajectory of Padmé’s growth into Queen. Instead of a regular plot, the emotional core and the trajectory of the book was more of a character study: Queen’s Shadow spends most of its energy mapping Padmé’s growth into a Senator, with some events sprinkled throughout the book. Queen’s Peril works similarly – rather than having a central conflict, we again follow Padmé and her handmaidens as they transition from regular life on Naboo to royalty (or being a bodyguard for royalty). Like I said, if I were to describe the plot of the book, I would split it almost in half: the first, Padmé’s transition to royalty and a possible food shortage on Naboo, and the second, the Crisis on Naboo (also known as the events of The Phantom Menace.) Unfortunately, the two events are not drawn together as strongly as I would have liked, with the second seemingly coming out of left field, necessitated more by the film than the events of the book, with the main impact of the first half of the book shuffled to the side as the novel’s story started to match with the film. This may not be an issue for a lot of readers, those who prefer to read about characters than events.
The first part of the story, the portion that is unique to the novel, is about a possible food shortage on Naboo, and Padmé’s attempts to unify the Chrommel sector. The first half of the book is far more interesting to me than the second half, which has to start following the events of Episode I, rather than continuing to develop the main storyline that was developed in the first half. Instead, the second half is based more on a few side comments, events that happen just off-screen, more than they are based on the main events of the novel. The first half of the story might be stronger simply because it was all original material, letting Johnston work in freedom with her own story, rather than being forced to work around others.
I still can’t feel like the second half, the half that corresponds with The Phantom Menace really worked too well for me. The events of the movie are skipped over in the novel, which makes the book jump from the end of one portion to the next without situated itself in the movie too well. I was jarred by the transition at times, and I had to do quite a bit of work to position the portions within the events of the film. It’s not impossible to figure out where the novel fits into the events of the film, but I think the novel would’ve been served well by including more from the film itself in order to prevent these gaps from feeling too large.
I also wish that the novel would have gone more in depth with the events of the Trade Federation’s blockade of Naboo. Instead, the novel speaks hazily about failed bills and new bills and vaguely about Darth Sidious’s plan. As far as the book is concerned, the Blockade of Naboo is a coincidence, conveniently timed with the election of Padmé. It would have been really cool to see why the Trade Federation targeted Naboo specifically, and maybe feature more explanation to the opening crawl of The Phantom Menace. Of course, the novel is not aiming to be the canon version of James Luceno’s pre-TPM works, but it would have brought a lot more cohesion and substance to the novel.
Related, the novel featured a few interludes that brought us scenes with Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Darth Maul, Darth Sidious, and more. These scenes were nice snippets of the lives of these characters before the events of The Phantom Menace, but I’m not sure they added much to the characters or the novel. In fact, most of the interludes could be removed from the novel and I’m not sure any of the characters, or the novel, would be impacted much. In my opinion, they felt like overly prepared scenes to set up exact moments in the film that I’m not sure required that much set up. I would explain more, but I want to avoid spoilers on this review. (If you have read it, I’m thinking about the second scene featuring Darth Maul.)
So, in short, as much as I appreciate a new Padmé novel, I wish I could give this one a higher score. Unfortunately, this novel finds its hands tied too often, and isn’t given a lot of space to grow on its own. Paired with Queen’s Shadow, right after, might make a strong pair, but I’m not sure either stands completely on its own.
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DISCLOSURE: I received a copy of this book, through NetGalley, 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 E.K. JOHNSTON:
Queen’s Shadow (Novel) | Ahsoka (Novel) | “By Whatever Sun” – From a Certain Point of View (Novel)