Apparently the trilogy is considered by the fandom as one of the few worthwhile novel productions of the franchise and my expectations weren't really high, but I was pleasantly surprised to find some thought actually went into the characterization and setting
The character Bane starts life as a indebted indentured corporate slave on a mining world while also abused by his father, the book follows his increasing radicalization by the Sith and is largely centered around how he constructs his own specific brand of Sith ideology
The book presents a pretty accurate portray of how radicalization takes place and follows the rise to power of one of the more interesting Sith characters in the lore
https://staraudiobook.net/path-of-destruction-audiobook/ in case anyone else is bored at work
When star wars (or sci fi in general) actually acknowledges potentially interesting elements like class war & radicalization and then fit it into the setting with space magic, ooh baby that's some good shit. I enjoy the sometimes-supported-in-text idea of Sith ideology being one of false consciousness leading to radicalization into an extreme reactionary "libertarian" (fascist) ideology, with evil space wizard magic thrown in for flavor.
Half way thru the novel I was like, lmao is this guy the "Lenin" of the Sith?
the "Lenin" of the Sith
These are my favorite star wars books, I've read them multiple times, especially the first one, and I love how accurate this description is tho I never would've found the words.
Space Carly Simon (Qu'ar'Li Sime-ohn):
You're Darth Bane
You'll probably keep the sith to about two
its been a few decades since I've read it, but I wanted to say that is true.
I still have to finish the Guin Saga books I'm on but I've thought about getting into some of these SW books. Is there a curated list out there of the actually good novels? I know there's a lot of poo to sort through.
I think darth plagueis and the og thrawn triology also fall in the good novels stuff from legends
Honestly I was just desperate to listen to something other than mind numbing post-election analysis from the "left" podcast space, so I thought fuck it I need some Star Wars and picked the novels at the top of the fan leaderboard, had zero expectations which paid off and has made work less onerous for the last couple weeks
Been going through my collection of books just now, and apart from the Thrawn trilogy and Plagueis, I can also recommend "the hand of Thrawn" duology ("Specter of the Past" and "Vision of the Future") as well as the Han Solo trilogy ("The Paradise Snare", "The Hutt Gambit" and "Rebel Dawn").
I could probably recommend a few more, if you're interested, but these books are definitely worth the read.
