“Space is the perfect place to hide…”
Michael Reaves’s Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter is a thrilling, mile-a-minute, action-packed stand-alone Star Wars novel in the Expanded Universe. This novel, now one of my favorite Star Wars novels, is a direct prequel to the film Episode I: The Phantom Menace. In it, we follow the mysterious disappearance of a Neimoidian Trade Federation representative, Hath Monchar (deputy viceroy of the Trade Federation), who has fled from his colleagues (Federation Viceroy Nute Gunray, Rune Haako, and Daultay Dofine) and is now planning to secretly sell information he knows about the impending blockade of Naboo. Naturally, Darth Sidious wishes to prevent this from leaking so he dispatches his loyal apprentice, “his protégé, his disciple, his myrmidon,” Darth Maul, to track down the rogue Neimoidian and kill him before the whole ruse is spoiled.
The first half of the book concerns the hunt for Hath Monchar. Along with Sidious sending Darth Maul, the Neimoidians also hire a bounty hunter named Mahwi Lihnn to track down their treacherous colleague. The search leads both hunters from Coruscant’s Kaldani Spires Residential apartments to the Dewback Inn and down to the dark, depraved depths of the city’s underbelly. Along the way we meet a lowly information dealer named Lorn Pavan and his sentient protocol droid I-Five (the two of them have a delightful banter-filled friendship). We first encounter them getting swindled by a Toydarian selling a holocron. But when Maul finally locates Hath Monchar, he slaughters the cowering Neimoidian and takes his holocron depicting the details of the upcoming blockade. Yet somehow Hath’s holocron falls into the hands of the bounty hunter Mahwi Lihnn and Maul brutally slays her, too (unsurprisingly, Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter is an incredibly violent Star Wars novel).
The holocron eventually finds its way into the hands of Lorn Pavan and I-Five who flee from the devilish fiend Darth Maul. They accidentally befriend a Jedi padawan named Darsha Assant, who recently failed in her own mission to retrieve Oolth the Fondorian, a former Black Sun leader, back to the Jedi Temple for safe haven (he was one of the lone survivors of Maul’s recent raid on the Black Sun as depicted in the “Darth Maul” comics). Oolth had been hiding out in the notorious “Crimson Corridor” before Darsha failed to save him from an attack by a street ruffian gang known as the “Raptors.” In the ensuing escape, Oolth was violently attacked by hawk-bats, they clawed out Oolth’s eye, and he ultimately fell underground to his death. Now, Darsha’s Twi’lek Jedi master, Anoon Bondara, has rejoined with her in the underground search for Oolth’s body (which they never recover) before they become swept up in the escape from Darth Maul with Lorn and I-Five.
Once Padawan Darsha Assant and Jedi Master Anoon Bondara join up with Lorn Pavan and I-Five, the adventure takes them to Yanth the Hutt, a Black Sun Vigo and owner of the Tusken Oasis night club. They sell the stolen holocron to Yanth shortly before he too is also slaughtered by Darth Maul along with his Trandoshan bodyguards. Maul then takes the holocron that was sold to Yanth and chases after Lorn and the others because none can be left alive bearing the knowledge of the Naboo blockade. As the four heroes desperately flee from Darth Maul, the group leaves a trail of wreckage throughout Coruscant, from gutted skyhoppers and destroyed skycars to murdered corpses. But the mission grows desperate as they are forced to head underground into the terrifying darkness of the labyrinthine tunnels below the city, where subhuman tribes of cannibalistic “Cthons” have been living in near total darkness and have gone genetically blind.
Consider the following description of Coruscant’s Blade Runner-esque underground:
“But all visions of soaring beauty and wealth, no matter how stately, must be grounded somewhere, somehow. Along the equatorial strip, below the lowest stratum of air traffic, beneath the illuminated skywalks and the glittering facades, lay another view of Coruscant. There, sunlight never penetrated; the endless city night was lit only by flickering neon holoprojections advertising sleazy attractions and shady businesses. Spider-roaches and huge armored rats infested the shadows, and hawk-bats with wingspans of up to one and a half meters roosted in the rafters of deserted structures. This was the underbelly of Coruscant, unseen and unacknowledged by the wealthy, belonging solely to the disenfranchised and the damned” (15).
After battling gangs like the “Raptors” and the subhuman Cthons, the foursome of Darsha, Bondara, Lorn, and I-Five encounter a truly terrifying Lovecraftian creature haunting the depths called a “taozin,” an ancient web-shooting being who is resistant to the Force (the taozin was once thought to be extinct). The group cleverly uses Maul as a distraction and escapes from the taozin, leaving Maul to fight this ancient being. But tragically in the course of things, Anoon Bondara decides to sacrifice herself in a speeder bike accident so the rest can escape. And when the Jedi Council receives no updates from either Darsha or Bondara, they send padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi to track down the missing Jedi.
Of course, there is a final showdown between Maul and Darsha. Even though she is woefully outmatched, she cleverly sacrifices herself, allowing herself to be injured before sending her lightsaber into a gas line, blowing it up with flammable containers she had piled up around the room using the Force during the fight. Darsha dies in the explosion which causes Lorn great sorrow (despite having only just met her, she and Lorn were already falling in love). As a bit of backstory, Lorn is spiteful toward the Jedi for his own personal reasons. He once worked as an employee in the Jedi Temple, but he was forced out of his job when his son Jax was taken by the Jedi for training (the Jedi apparently have a policy eliminating familial contact when training a padawan). After that, Lorn’s wife left him and Lorn blames all his familial strife on the Jedi. But after witnessing Darsha sacrifice herself, Lorn is given a new perspective on the Jedi. At any rate, I-Five saves both of them by carbonite freezing. This leads Maul to believe they must have died in the explosion since there are no life signs in the vicinity. Maul then departs believing his mission has been accomplished.
Shortly thereafter, Lorn and I-Five awaken with their Sakiyan friend Tuden Sal. I-Five reveals to Lorn that he secretly stole a skin nodule from the taozin creature when they were down in the depths (the taozin skin is made of specially adapted cells to block receptivity to the Force). I-Five gives nodule to Lorn so that he may hunt down Maul without being detected by the Force. Meanwhile, Tuden Sal promises to deliver I-Five to the Jedi Council so he can share this whole story. Lorn manages to follow and subdue Maul thanks to the nodule. He reclaims the holocron (losing his hand in the process). In exasperation, he finally delivers the holocron to a trusted senator –who turns out to be none other than Senator Sheev Palpatine! After all the effort, in a bit of delicious dramatic irony, only we in the audience are truly aware of what Lorn has just done. It is a clever twist!
Senator Palpatine takes the holocron while Lorn is later assassinated in his hotel room by Maul. Lorn dies thinking about his long-lost son Jax. Thus, the secret of the Naboo blockade is preserved. The novel ends with Obi-Wan returning to the Jedi Temple and telling his master Qui-Gon Jinn about the trail of destruction he just witnessed which led to the deaths of both Darsha Assant and Anoon Bondara. Who could have caused such violence? Could it have been the Black Sun? Or something far more concerning? Unfortunately, there is no time to deliberate over such matters because the Trade Federation has already started its blockade of Naboo and Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are quickly dispatched as ambassadors to help settle the matter.
“There is no emotion; there is peace.”
Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter is a breakneck paced thrill-ride, a page-turner from start to finish. Published shortly before the release of the film Episode II: Attack of the Clones, this book successfully builds upon the lore leading up to the prior film and it offers a high octane adventure. While it doesn’t add much to the overall Star Wars mythos, I appreciated the opportunity to revisit the “scum and villainy” of the Star Wars underworld, which in this case, is less charming like the Mos Eisley Cantina (Chalmun’s Spaceport Cantina) and more of a dark, twisted world of claustrophobic underground horror while the vicious Sith Lord Maul hunts in the shadows.
Darth Maul serves as the perfect amoral predator in this novel. And while I didn’t really care for the vague romantic inclinations between Lorn and Darsha, all the characters were still well-imagined in this book. By the end I was left wonder: What happened to I-Five? Did he make it to the Jedi Temple? And what ever became of Lorn’s son Jax Pavan? Did he become a Jedi? Apparently, Jax Pavan returns in future books, like the Coruscant Nights trilogy as well as The Last Jedi (which were also written by Michael Reaves). Lastly, Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter offers some interesting commentary on the contrast between Jedi and Sith, from a perspective beyond good and evil, with the Jedi seeing the Force as an end in itself, while the Sith view the Force as merely a means toward accumulating power. It is a fascinating dichotomy explored within the mind of Darth Maul.
Tragically, Michael Reaves died of Parkinson’s Disease in 2023 at the age of 72 after a lengthy career writing scripts for animated television shows like Gargoyles, Smurfs, Superman, Spider-Man Unlimited, Star Wars: Droids, Ewoks, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Batman: The Animates Series, as well as live action shows like the 1980s Twilight Zone reboot and a Season 1 episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation (“Where No One Has Gone Before“). He penned numerous media tie-in novels including nine in the Star Wars universe.
Notes:
- The Neimoidian home planet is briefly referenced a few times in this novel, particularly with respect to things like the fungus farms on Neimoidia.
- For the Neimoidians, one of the most difficult concepts to understand in the galactic lexicon of Basic is the word “loyalty.” They are naturally treacherous creatures.
- Darth Maul’s massacre of Black Sun is depicted in the 2000-era “Darth Maul” comics.
- At the start of this novel, Darth Maul is training with four Dueling Droids – Rapier, Chain, Cudgel, and Hachete.
- The Neimoidian freighter in this novel is called the Saak’ak.
- On Coruscant we are reminded that the oceans and seas were once drained through underground caverns more than a thousand generations ago.
- The Crimson Corridor is a region of Courscant located in the third Quadrant of the Zi-Kree Sector. It is known for being crime-riddled and dangerous.
- There are plenty of minor references to things in the Star Wars universe, like Cybot G7 powerbus cables, the Manari Mountains on Coruscant, ferrocrete, transparisteel, Agaric ale, Corellian Banshee Bird, Jakka seeds, BlasTech DH-17
- Members of the Jedi Council who are referenced in this book include: Adi Gallia, Plo Koon, Eeth Koth, Yoda, Mace Windu, and Anoon Bondara.
- Maul’s ship with a state of the art stygium cloaking device is called “The Infiltrator” (apparently it was later called the “Scimitar”).
- In this novel, we learn that Maul cannot recall much of his youth. He believes he came from the planet Iridonia
- The bounty hunter Mahwi Lihnn carries twin DL-44 blasters on each hip, a small disruptor pistol in a concealed ankle holster, MM9 wrist rockets on each wrist, and on her right hand is a palm flechette shooter.
- This novel reaffirms that Adegan crystals are the crystals of choice used by Jedi in construct their lightsabers. They are mined in the Adega System. However, the dark masters of the Sith prefer to create their own synthetic crystals for their lightsabers.
- PCBU droid-piloted police cruisers are used in the lawless areas of Coruscant.
- The ship provided to Lorn by Tuden Sal is an ARE Thixian Seven.
Reaves, Michael. Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter. Random House Worlds, New York, New York, first published in 2001 (I read the Essential Legends Collection edition). Michael Reaves dedicated this book to his daughter Mallory: “The Force is strong with this one.”