The Disney Star Wars really likes to see Vader kill people. In the old movies, the threat of Vader was enough. Sure, we saw him murder a few people, a few casual choking deaths here and there, but we never saw the scenes of outright carnage Disney seems so fond of. That scene in Rogue One, for example, where we spend a movie rooting for the good guys that Vader just slaughters. And how the audience cheered! Narrative dissonance is fun! And that love of Vader murderizing continues in Lords of the Sith.
Lords of The Sith takes place after the Clone Wars when the seeds of rebellion against the Empire are starting to grow. In the Disney canon, the Rebellion began on one planet--Ryloth--and it's here where most of the novel takes place.
For reasons that don't bear much scrutiny, Darth Vader and the Emperor go to Ryloth just in time to end up facing an attack that strands both of them in the murder jungles of the aforementioned planet. The Free Ryloth movement then spend a lot of time trying to kill them, while dealing with Imperial traitors and their own internal tensions.
There is also a subplot focusing on the tensions between the Emperor and Vader. Apparently, the Emperor likes to snipe at Vader for his past failures as Anakin Skywalker and to gauge whether or not Vader wants to level up his Sith-ness by murdering the Emperor himself.
I had hoped for some deep Sith lore like that found in the Drew Karpyshyn novels. I was disappointed. There is really nothing Sith about this book aside from the mutual distrust between the Emperor and Vader and their red lightsabers. It highlights how the whole Sith apprentice program would never really work, because if selfishness is integral to a Sith, why would you ever take an apprentice, especially when the graduation program involves your own murder?
The most interesting character in the book was Isval, a Twi'lek working for the Free Ryloth movement who apparently moonlights as a serial killer of Imperial officers. That was an interesting take, especially when the author starts looking at the differences between 'terrorists' and 'freedom fighters'. The Free Ryloth people kill a lot of people, many of them unarmed. And in that weird thing that Disney does, they are seen somewhat as monsters, while the low level Imperials are seen as stand up guys just doing their jobs. It's that same dissonance that was in Rogue One--just who are we cheering for? The Rebels or the crushing branch of Imperial tyranny?
When Vader is in conflict with the Free Ryloth fighters, the story is fun, because even though we know how this will play out, it was still fun to read. But too much time is spent on Vader just fighting predators in the murder jungles, just slaughtering animals that were just trying to either survive or protect their young. They aren't evil. But Vader and the Emperor get to do back flips and do Force shit against creatures that don't stand a chance against them--and this goes on for pages.
Lords of the Sith isn't a bad book. But it suffers from the same thing all Disney Star Wars suffers from: there doesn't seem a plan to any of this. It's about moments, about cool shit, but not about creating characters that we can relate to or grow fond of. In the end, it just feels forgettable, and light, and another missed opportunity.
