If I wasn’t a die-hard “Star Wars” books completist, I would’ve given up on Joe Schreiber after “Red Harvest,” which was a whole novel’s worth of people I didn’t care about slaughtering or getting eaten by zombies. I did enjoy about half of his first effort, “Death Troopers,” although even that one devolved into a mess of violence and gore.
“Maul: Lockdown” (2014), now in paperback, has more gruesome scenes than your average “Star Wars” novel, sure, but here Schreiber focuses on a character (Darth Maul) worth following and tries his hand at a mystery plot.
He doesn’t totally succeed on the latter point: The book’s driving force is Maul’s attempt to get a nuclear weapon for Sidious, and for some bizarre reason he can only get it from an inmate deeply entrenched in a horrific prison inside an asteroid.
But I very much enjoyed the respite of the occasional chapter featuring exchanges between Sidious and his master, Plagueis. It reminded me that “Lockdown” takes place just before “Episode I,” and that “Darth Plagueis” – James Luceno’s shining example of galactic-chessboard intrigue – overlaps with “Episode I.” The presence of Jabba the Hutt and a (sort of) Jedi also add layers to “Lockdown.”
Darth Maul has enjoyed a resurgence in recent years thanks to “The Clone Wars,” but the legless, insane Maul is almost a different person than the pre-“death” Maul. Schreiber delves into the classic version of Maul, someone who is utterly loyal to Sidious, despite the insanity of this mission and the instruction that he not use the Force to achieve it.
He has no problem using any other means necessary, though. When he’s first dropped into Cog Hive Seven, a monstrous creature knocks out one of Maul’s teeth and repurposes it in its own mouth. Maul kills the creature, establishes his reputation and earns the moniker Jagganath, which means “The Tooth.”
In a more down-and-dirty version of that arena from Marvel “Star Wars” Issue 20 where Han and Chewie are forced to fight to the death, Cog Hive Seven features no-holds-barred death matches that are broadcast to various casinos and overseen by galactic gambling regulators (further evidence that – despite being better than the Empire – the Republic had a seedy side). Unlike with Han and Chewie, there’s no danger of Maul being pitted against a friend: Everyone is his enemy here. Because he’s the point-of-view character, Maul stands out in “Lockdown” more so than in “Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter,” where he was the monster and we sympathized with the good-guys-of-the-week.
While “Lockdown’s” various genres don’t totally jell, this book does offer a more varied ride than “Death Troopers” and “Red Harvest,” and the short, punchy chapters make it a page-turner. At the same time, Schreiber doesn’t forget his bread and butter: Horror fans should enjoy the landscape of Cog Hive Seven, several gross-out set pieces and, above all, the time we get to spend in the mind of the titular hot-blooded killer.
