THE BAD:
I had great difficulty finding anything even remotely bad about this book. One thing that could be improved though is the story runs very quickly after the great Jedi Purge, and the following storyline advances rapidly. I believe this section could have been described better and taken up more pages. The whole of Part 1 is merely describing the first 20 minutes of the book, right up until the rescue of Chancellor Palpatine. But Part Three describes the entire final fight scene, the battle in Palpatines office; every after the point where Mace Windu first discovers that Palpatine is a Sith Lord. I believe he tried to cram too much plot line into that one part, and would have been better off to add a part four. But the way he did conclude the story was a great one anyway, and I congratulate him on such a great book, for the way he did write Part Three is unique and a fascinating read none-the-less.

SUMMARY:
This book is a necessary read for ANY star wars fan, and non-star wars fans alike. Every point in the novel is gripping, and makes you not want to put the book down!

One of my favourite parts of the novel, which I explained briefly before, is the introduction to every part, and the ending to the last part. If you read the passage on its own, it seems irrelevant to star wars. However, when combined with this book it has incredible power. It really matches the storyline, each section summarising the previous part and leading into the next. What follows is an extract from the book; the beginning and end to every part.

Following Text From: Star Wars – Revenge of the Sith Novelisation by Matthew Stover

This story happened a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. It is already over. Nothing can be done to change it.
It is a story of love and loss, brotherhood and betrayal, courage and sacrifice and the death of dreams. It is a story of the blurred line between our best and our worst.
It is a story of the end of an age.
A strange thing about stories-
Though this all happened so long ago and so far away that words cannot describe the time or the distance, it is also happening right now. Right here.
It is happening as you read these words.
This is how twenty-five millennia come to a close. Corruption and treachery have crushed a thousand years of peace. This is not just the end of a republic; night is falling on civilization itself.
This is the twilight of the Jedi.
The end starts now.


The dark is generous.
Its first gift is concealment: our true faces lie in the dark beneath our skins, our true hearts remain shadowed deeper still. But the greatest concealment lies not in protecting our secret truths, but in hiding from us the truths of others.
The dark protects us from what we dare not know.
Its second gift is comforting illusion: the ease of gentle dreams in night's embrace, the beauty that imagination brings to what would repel in day's harsh light. But the greatest of its comforts is the illusion that the dark is temporary: that every night brings a new day. Because it is day that is temporary.
Day is the illusion.
Its third gift is the light itself: as days are defined by the nights that divide them, as stars are defined by the infinite black through which they wheel, the dark embraces the light, and brings it forth from the centre of its worn self.
With each victory of the light, it is the dark that wins.

The dark is generous, and it is patient.
It is the dark that seeds cruelty into justice, that drips contempt into compassion, that poisons love with grains of doubt.
The dark can be patient, because the slightest drop of rain will cause these seeds to sprout.
The rain will come, and the seeds will sprout, for the dark is the soil in which they grow, and it is the clouds above them, and it waits behind the star that gives them light.
The dark's patience is infinite.
Eventually, even stars burn out.

The dark is generous, and it is patient, and it always wins.
It always wins because it is everywhere.
It is in the wood that burns in your hearth, and in the kettle on the fire; it is under your chair and under your table, and under the sheets on your bed. Walk in the midday sun and the dark is with you, attached to the soles of your feet.
The brightest light casts the darkest shadow.

The dark is generous, and it is patient, and it always wins - but in the heart of its strength lies weakness: one lone candle is enough to hold it back.
Love is more than a candle.
Love can ignite the stars.

End Extract


I am not quite sure why, but I find this section of the story fascinating. However, I also enjoy another section of the book. The Jedi Purge. I absolutely love the simplicity in the way the author described this section.

And the clones have no malice, no hatred, not the slightest ill intent that might give warning. They are only following orders.
In this case, Order Sixty-Six.
Hold-out blasters appear in clone hands. ARC-170's drop back onto the tails of Jedi starfighters. AT-STs swivel their guns. Turrets on hovertanks swung silently.
Clones open fire, and Jedi die.
All across the galaxy. All at once.
Jedi Die.


The reason that section was so powerful for me was because of the simplicity of it all. Jedi Die. He does not try and explain in detail the horrific events that must have happened, but sums up the sad event in a few sentences. It leaves the reader to think about what had happened. I remember every time I get to that part in the novel I have to put the book down and pause, reflecting on it, which is a great affect for a book to have.

All in all, this book is a must read if you are a fan of the Star Wars saga. You have not had the complete experience of Revenge of the Sith unless you have read the book. Of course, the movie does have some aspects to it that are left out of the book and vice-versa. But together, the duo makes a powerful couple. I seriously recommend this book to everybody who can get a copy of it. I am not sure if this novel would have quite the same affect on non-star wars fans as it had on me, but it is definitely worth reading anyway. I rate this book “Fit-for-a-Sith” ;-)