A friend of mine recommended the Darth Bane series, and I decided to give it a shot. I really liked the first book, Darth Bane: Path of Destruction. I think I mentioned this when I read the Kenobi book, but it is weird coming back to the Legends universe. Some of the things Jedi/Sith can do with the Force in those books, are definitely different. If you enjoy a book told through the perspective of the bad guy, then I definitely suggest reading this one. From here on out there will be spoilers as I give some of my stray thoughts…
-I feel like the writers of Andor read this book. The origin of Bane and Andor is similar (granted, this is an obvious to get someone off a tiny planet and out into the wider world). They both are out at a bar/club, then end up being followed by guards they ran into at the bar. There is a fight and a guard ends up dead. Bane/Andor must flee the planet.
-Some of the Sith ritual stuff was weird. Thought bomb? Holding hands and chanting??? I felt like Han Solo:
-I feel like you could make this into a series, and change a few things to make it canon. A big change would be the way the Jedi act in the Army of the Light. I think the High Republic series has established that the Galactic Republic does not have a standing military, so it would be cool to see the Republic putting together a coalition to fight the Sith military, while also convincing the Jedi Council to become involved (remember, by the time of the High Republic, the Jedi Council was involved, but there were many who thought they should not be, so it seems that maybe 800 years before, the Jedi would have been more separate). You could have the Jedi showing up at battles to help fight Sith lords, and to provide aid, but not taking orders or leading normal soldiers…be an interesting change.
-The weird battle meditation thing, which I remember Timothy Zahn introducing in his Thrawn books (I think he wanted Joruus C’Baoth to do something similar to guide the Imperial military during the battles. It was weird back then, it was weird in this book.
-It was fun rooting for Darth Bane at times, but then remembering that “oh yeah, this dude is totally evil and will eventually want to destroy all the Jedi.” A great example is after he is poisoned by Githany, and he kills a family of scavengers in order to build up his strength. I want him to survive, but then he does something awful in order to survive.
