June 9, 2025 • 52 mins
This week we dive deep for a review on the first book in a developing trilogy called Reign of the Empire. The first installment, by Alexander Freed, "Mask of Fear", is our subject this week. We get our special guest Iain Kay on with Josh for the review, the deep dive making connections and more.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Time to abandon ship!
(00:05):
Oh no!
Here we go!
Can I persuade you to join us for a drink?
It's a tradition.
Here, here.
Jar Jar, homie, my main man, quickly.
Before the separatists attack, get into the escape pod.
(00:28):
Hey!
This is escape!
Then wear the pod!
This is a surprise!
Welcome back to Star Wars Escape Pod and our first book review for the year.
I think it is.
Maybe the second, but welcome back either way.
We've got our old friend Ian in the podcast today to join me for a chat about Reign of
(00:54):
the Empire, the Mask of Fear, the first in a trilogy of books.
One each coming out each year for the next, the next two years, I guess, after this year.
And the first one is written by Alexander Freed.
So we're just going to talk about the book, our thoughts on it, and what we liked about
it and how it connects to Andor and various things like that.
So even if you haven't read the book, definitely just stay tuned in for what we have to say
(01:19):
about it.
And, you know, full spoilers ahead for any of you guys who care about that sort of thing.
So heads up on that.
Alright, let's get into it.
(01:49):
Another happy landing.
And the Jedi Librarian has been foiled.
What's happened?
The Chancellor's been elaborating on a plot by the Jedi to overthrow the Senate.
And the main Jedi will be hunted down and defeated.
All right, welcome back, Ian.
(02:18):
Thank you.
Hi, mate.
Nice to be back.
Nice to have you back, as always.
I feel like, I mean, we try to get you on at least once or twice a year.
But yeah, when was the last time we had you on again?
I was trying to remember.
Was it Living Force?
Living Force, mate.
Absolutely, yeah.
Awesome.
Okay, yeah.
So I'm trying to remember when that was.
Was that last year?
Was that this year earlier?
(02:40):
I think it was this year.
I'm pretty sure it was this year.
Maybe early this year.
Oh, okay.
I think.
Okay, great.
So we haven't let too much time go by then.
No.
All right, awesome.
Okay, yeah.
So it's actually just us today.
And I think you were just chatting about this before we started up the engines here.
But you've read this book.
(03:01):
It's just been a few months.
You read it back when it came out, which was February.
I saw the release date here.
I think it was February 25th, 2025 this year.
So you read this in March, I assume?
Yeah.
Do across late February, early March.
Yeah.
Awesome.
All right.
So in a nutshell, like we can kind of get into the plot here and then and then you can
kind of talk about just your overview of the book.
(03:24):
So in general, this book is it's written by Alexander Freed.
It's called Reign of the Empire, the Mask of Fear.
It's the first of a what will be a trilogy with two other authors writing the sequels.
And it takes place immediately after Revenge of the Sith in some ways.
I think there is a little bit of a time jump, but not very much at all.
And the novel really tells the story of the early years in the Empire, the early year in the Empire featuring Mon Mothma, Bail Organa, Saw Gerrera and and a few other newer characters that were introduced to as well.
(04:02):
And I just wanted to ask you about, you know, what first off, like, what did you think of kind of where this book takes place in the surrounding canon?
Because I know you've you've read a lot of the newer stuff, too.
Like, like, what do you think about kind of the genre of this book, like where it takes place and how it compares to Alexander Freed's other contributions to the Star Wars universe?
(04:24):
Yeah. So Alexander Freed wrote the aftermath, not aftermath, sorry, my mistake, the alphabet squadron trilogy, which I really enjoyed.
I don't know if you had a chance to read those.
I haven't yet. No, no, no, they're really good.
They tell a they tell a tale of a of a squadron of pilots.
The reason it's called alphabet squadron is because you have an X wing, a Y wing, a B wing, a U wing.
(04:48):
They all come together.
There's various like reasons for the characters to come together.
The X wing pilot is an X Imperial who took part in Operation Cinder.
And then obviously, as the book goes on, we find out.
But there's three books in that.
You've got alphabet squadron, Shadow Fall and Victory's Price.
I highly recommend anyone to read them or listen to them in audio book form.
(05:09):
They're really, really good.
He also did Battlefront Twilight Company, I believe, for the original Star Wars Battlefront that came out in 2015.
Oh, yeah.
Which I enjoyed.
It was a yeah, I enjoyed that.
It was a basically tells you the tale of the Battle of Sullust and a little bit of the the Battle of Kuat and all that type of thing.
So he has he's quite well versed in Star Wars and obviously with his new entry in kicking off a new trilogy, as you said, in Mask of Fear.
(05:36):
Mask of Fear.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So there's two other authors who are going to be contributing to this theory to this trilogy.
And I couldn't remember who those authors were.
Did you did you by any chance remember who those people were?
I was trying to try to think of it, but I'll just have a quick look now, to be fair.
I'm just going to have a quick look.
Yeah.
(05:57):
Because I'm sure it's quite a well-known Mask of Fear, Reign of Empire, Mask of Fear.
I was just looking at it.
Book two is written by Rebecca Roanhorse.
Her previous contributions to Star Wars was the Resistance Reborn.
I think that's the main one, which was obviously a tie in to the Rise of Skywalker.
But then they didn't really do anything with that book that tied into the Rise of Skywalker.
(06:20):
But that's right.
That's for another another day.
And that is a good book.
I did like I really did like Resistance Reborn.
I thought it was I thought it was good.
And then the third book comes out in spring 2027, and it is from Fran Wilde, who I am not familiar with, to be fair.
I'm just trying to think.
Fran Wilde, who wrote a canon short story tell no contingency, which included an anthology book from a certain point of view featuring Mon Mothma, leader of the Rebel Alliance.
(06:48):
There you go.
That makes sense.
Oh, wow.
So, so, so, yes, you wrote the end.
Yeah.
So this will be friends.
Like first book will be the the the finale of this trilogy.
That'll be friends first book.
So, yeah.
Yeah.
But like the the no contingency was that that was a short story in the Return of the Jedi book there, which I never read.
I heard that pretty good point of view.
Yeah.
Yeah.
(07:09):
I'll be brookers with you read a new hope and Empire Strikes Back.
I haven't got round to reading Jedi AIDS.
The book is actually quite big.
Yeah, I think read the return of the one.
So, yeah.
Well, yeah, no, the first two first two from a certain point of view are really good.
Some stories are better than others.
Yeah, some stories are quite weird.
Well, yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I'm a pretty new story from the point of view of the Dianoga, which was a bit strange.
(07:33):
Yeah, you know, when they announced those books, I actually liked the idea quite a lot because, you know, it was like celebrating Star Wars is 40th anniversary.
So they hired 40 different authors to write a short story that was at some point during the movie kind of a side character somewhere and their perspective on the events that were unfolding.
(07:54):
So it was it was it was very interesting, like someone there was some really big Star Wars news headlines that came out when that one came out, because, of course, I think, didn't they do some sort of Qui-Gon sort of force ghosty moment?
They did.
They did.
Yeah, I skipped into Return of the Jedi one.
And yeah, they did have a Qui-Gon journey basically said he basically that was the first time he manifested himself as a force ghost before we've obviously seen him in the Clone Wars as like a voice.
(08:20):
But this was the first time where we found out he actually can manifest himself as a ghost, which obviously we go on to see in the Obi-Wan Kenobi series.
Yeah.
And in the Clone Wars, to be fair.
Yeah.
And this was before the Obi-Wan show came out, too, right?
It was.
I believe so.
I think it was.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So like a lot of people were speculating that he was able to do this after the episode after episode three came out and Yoda had his little line about, you know, training to see his old master.
(08:46):
Right.
To commune with him and stuff.
So, yeah, I thought it was a really smart decision to kind of put that in and, you know, show that Obi-Wan is in a in a place of being able to do that.
And then, of course, in the show, they kind of later sort of backtracked a little bit and, you know, show showcase that he was struggling to be able to do that all those years later.
But, yeah, very, very cool story.
So, you know, hopefully hopefully this trilogy ends up turning out.
(09:10):
Like, you know, they've done this handoff thing before with movies, and I feel like it's not always worked out overly well.
So hopefully the hopefully the books are, you know, a bit of a different story when it comes to that.
But in the old expanded universe, they used to do this with a few authors kind of trading trading the torch with like the legacy of the Jedi series.
(09:31):
I think it was a number of series like they they kind of did this before.
So, you know, I'm sure it'll be fine.
But all right.
Yeah. So this is like kind of dawn of the empire era here.
And, you know, like you said, you know, great, great time period to, you know, tell a good story.
And this is like the ushering in of a new era, you know, kind of like how Palpatine says in his speech during the Bad Batch, which is kind of an extension of the one he gives in Episode 3.
(10:01):
And, you know, this book really feeds into Andor, which feeds into Rogue One, which then feeds into the original Star Wars movies.
And, you know, especially when you get into characters like Bail Organa and Mon Mothma, you know, characters that we've kind of known about for quite some time.
And yeah, I just thought I thought it was interesting.
Like, what do you think of the just the overall sense of the book?
(10:24):
Like what you walked away with after you finished reading it?
Like, what did you what do you feel like you feel like you read a pretty great story?
I think I read the beginnings of potentially of a great story.
I think obviously this lays the groundwork.
I think it opens up about a month after Revenge of the Sith.
And over the course of the book, you slowly start to see the Empire transition from the Republic into the Empire and what that means for the people.
(10:49):
You hear some quite harrowing stuff that some of the senators went through post, especially the the the big the big target of the Empire is the people who created the delegation of 2000, which people if people aren't familiar with that.
There was a set of cut scenes from Revenge of the Sith, led by Padme, Bail and Mon Mothma and a couple of other senators who basically weren't happy with the amount of power the senator senator chancellor chancellor Palpatine had at the time.
(11:18):
And he wanted them to obviously hand his power over.
So, yeah, that's a big target for the Empire when they first when they first transition into the Empire.
And you see a lot of the senators being rolled up.
But yeah, I think it's it's the start of a good story.
There is parts of it. I really liked this.
There is parts of it that was a bit slow, but that's just obviously starting a new trilogy is always going to be like that.
(11:39):
But yeah, no, I really enjoyed it.
Obviously, when we get closer into spoiler territory.
Awesome. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. So the novel opens up with sort of the ushering in of the new order.
And we see Bail on a very familiar planet to us Rogue One fans out there.
He's on the holy city of Jedha and he's in this state of mourning the Jedi.
(12:02):
And I really like how they kind of bring in his character storyline, because, you know, the last time we saw him was really helping the surviving Jedi survive.
You know, he's he's like, you know, helping Yoda get away from Palpatine.
He's helping Obi Wan get off Utapau, you know, after he's been flying around for a little while.
And then, you know, he's there to adopt Leia, you know, like Anakin and Padme's daughter.
(12:26):
And then and then he's there right to the very the very end, you know, in in kind of sending the rebellion on its way to become the success story that it does.
And, you know, he's such an influential character. But for someone who I guess I guess I have not read a tremendous amount of stories that feature Bail as a main character.
(12:47):
But it was really great to find to find a lot more detail about him in this book.
And that's something I really appreciated a lot because, you know, he plays so much influence over Leia and her life. Right.
And, you know, I just keep thinking to myself, like, OK, you know, this is somebody that Leia looks at as a father figure in a way that even though Luke has never really grown up with a father figure, he has grown up.
(13:11):
And even after meeting Vader for the first time and all these terrible things happening, he he comes to accept the truth that Darth Vader is his father.
And like that's what leads him to that very end. You know, Leia is never going to ever be in the state of being able to look at Vader like that, you know.
And I think like there's like a later point in her life in the Bloodline book that we we do get into those those those trajectories a little bit more.
(13:34):
But she's always looked at Bail as a father. And so, you know, this is an important character to to write about.
And and and it's important to remember that Bail really mourns the Jedi after they're gone.
Like he he had so many friends who were Jedi. He he admires them.
He would probably want to be one of them if he could, you know, and and I think somewhere in the book, it actually said that he tries to live by some of their, I guess, not philosophies.
(14:00):
But yeah, just their their their. Yeah. Like, yeah, he takes he takes pieces of their life and kind of applies it to his own, you know, like just like their mannerisms and things like that.
And I could totally see that now. Like, I don't know why it took me so long to recognize it.
But like now that I think about it, I was like, oh, man, like that's totally true.
Like, I could totally see that. Yeah. Very cool.
(14:20):
He's a great really great character.
Like it's quite fitting.
This book coming out the time it did with Andor.
And obviously we had the recasting of Bail Organa and Andor, obviously, to go off on a tangent.
And even though I really enjoyed Benjamin Bratt's Bail Organa, I thought he was really good.
But yeah, no, he's a great character, Bail Organa.
(14:41):
And Jimmy Smith and now Benjamin Bratt have done a really good job in keeping that character alive.
Definitely. Yeah, definitely.
I was. Yeah, I appreciated Benjamin's take on on the character as well.
I thought he was I thought he was great.
I must say, though, anytime they do a recasting, it always rubs me a little bit because, you know, it's especially Star Wars, because it's always a very visual continuity sort of saga.
(15:06):
Right. Like you kind of expect the same face on a lot of the same characters, especially when they they go the extra mile to pay all this money for a young CG Luke Skywalker in multiple Disney Plus shows.
And then it's like for Bail, they just kind of simply recast the character. It's like, OK, really?
So, you know, it's like, you know, where's the line drawn kind of thing?
(15:28):
But but yeah, I mean, you know, I guess we expect one thing, get another.
But he was great. He was really great.
Yeah. Mon Mophma, meanwhile, in this story is navigating the treacherous political landscape on Coruscant.
But this is after, of course, the siege of Coruscant, you know, being the big battle that takes place at the beginning of episode three that's wrecked a lot of the planet ships crashed down, you know, buildings have collapsed.
(15:53):
This is a war that takes place in the Clone Wars that I would like to know more about, because ever since the Genndy Tartavosky 2D Clone Wars series went away within the canon, like I feel like we're kind of missing a lot of detail as to maybe the events that transpired during that that event.
But but yeah, very, very cool stuff.
I liked how the 3D Clone Wars series overlapped with that event a little bit.
(16:14):
And so I'm always very intrigued any time it comes up.
I'm always very intrigued to, like, read about it a little bit more, like, you know, just digest the story a bit slower because it's a fascinating point of the war.
Yeah. So so she's kind of navigating all that stuff.
And of course, the new Imperial Senate that she has to kind of make adjustments to.
(16:36):
And like you said, the delegation of 2000, which kind of didn't didn't work out very well for them, because, you know, that was the at the end of the war that they brought that.
And then, of course, you know, Palpatine comes in with the Empire and they look at all those 2000 senators and go like, OK, these these are problematic people.
So, you know, every single one of them got arrested and kind of interrogated, sort of, but more or less like psychologically tortured in into submission kind of thing.
(17:03):
Like it was really weird how they dealt with that.
But but yeah, that was that was kind of kind of crazy.
So we also learned that she has a major anxiety.
Did you know that, like before before watching or before reading this book, like, would you have pinned her to have anxiety?
Probably going with what we know now.
Yeah.
Obviously, seeing Andor and that.
But yeah, no, they go they go into what happens to her, like in the immediate aftermath of the Empire rising of power.
(17:28):
She's arrested.
She's held for I don't know if they said in the book it was days or but they like wouldn't let her go to the toilet.
And they basically basically tortured her.
And yeah, she has severe anxiety based off that, which is understandable.
And like you said, the delegation of 2000s, she's a pretty prominent lead in that endeavor.
(17:49):
And the person they wanted power removed from now has ultimate power.
So it's not gone great for her.
And yeah, I can totally understand why she would be rife of anxiety at this point.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, I like how they added that to her character.
I thought that was really well played.
I kind of wish that in Andor we did see her popping pills, you know, for the like in those moments that were really high anxiety, like high stress, because we we really feel her anxiety in the show.
(18:17):
But in the book, on the book, they made that extra mile that goes like, OK, yeah, she does take some medication for it.
There was another new player that was added to the story.
His name's Sujin Vaknalis.
He's a cybernetically augmented separatist operative.
Basically, he's an assassin.
And he awakens from stasis into this sort of new galaxy, you know, like it's a changed world out there.
(18:41):
And the war that he was kind of made for has sort of disappeared.
And it's changed, you know, and it's this new landscape of like what to do about this, this new power that has come into play that really nobody knows what to do with.
You know, people who thought they were fighting for the right side in the republic have now started to question that a lot.
(19:02):
And then people who were part of the separatist movement have seen now all of their separatist senators being absorbed back into the empire, into the imperial Senate.
And, you know, really, it's just kind of independent movements here and there against the local authority.
And, you know, we're really just looking at especially especially this guy.
(19:23):
He's just kind of a terrorist, you know, like he's kind of like a rogue sort of, you know, missionless kind of guy off doing crazy stuff, killing people and thinks he's got a goal.
And, you know, it's it's it's that was kind of interesting to read about.
And he's connected to another character we're familiar with, which is Saw Gerrera, who eventually, you know, they kind of have a working relationship at some point, sort of.
(19:47):
And, you know, Saw Gerrera, as always, interesting character.
What did you think of Saw in this book compared to sort of the other comparable time in which we see him, which is during the Bad Batch?
I was kind of hoping we would get a crossover there.
But like, what did you think of him in this book?
I really enjoyed the character Saw Gerrera.
Like, I think Forrest Whitaker's portrayal of him, especially in like Andor and that, is some of the best actors in Star Wars.
(20:11):
But his portrayal in this book is pretty much what we see in the Bad Batch.
He's a man who was obviously bred to fight the Separatists.
And now the people they were fighting for the Republic is gone.
He now finds himself fighting.
I don't think Saw would ever be happy unless he had someone to fight.
I genuinely believe if he had lived to see the end of the Empire, it wouldn't have made him happy.
He would have found something else to rail against.
(20:32):
Going back to Sujin, we basically find out that the Separatists have the standing orders for these operatives.
He's not the only one.
He's the only one we see in the book.
Basically have these standing orders to sow chaos and terror across the Republic,
or what they think will be the Republic if the Republic wins.
And yeah, that's his goal.
But he doesn't really have a way of doing that.
(20:53):
Because, yeah, he's basically, like you said, he's a freedom fighter with nothing to fight for, really.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
In a way, he's kind of like Saw, but like a cybernetic version of him with directives that he has,
you know, he doesn't really know what to do with anymore.
(21:14):
Because, you know, the reason that he was fighting for is kind of gone, right?
Like, you know, and he is sort of having this tough time adjusting to a new perspective on things.
And that was interesting to read about.
I did want their relationship, though, because they hated each other.
But we kind of have to work through it.
That was quite funny in the book.
Like, you're a separatist.
(21:36):
I'm obviously a Republican.
Like, Republican, we don't like each other.
We have no common ground in terms of end goal.
But we kind of have to work together.
But I always knew they weren't really going to work together for a prolonged period of time.
Yeah, yeah.
No, that's a good point.
Yeah, I guess I should rephrase and say a reluctant working relationship.
(21:58):
Eugene kind of sees through Saw.
He's like, what's this guy talking about?
Like, he kind of like, yeah, he doesn't, he doesn't, I don't think he rates Saw that much, to be fair.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, so two other new characters.
Haki, Zeofreen, and Chemish, Runaza.
And these are, well, Haki, at least, is this, well, she used to, I guess she used to work for the Republic.
(22:25):
But now is kind of a faithful Imperial.
And she's kind of got the job to spy on Bail Organa.
And Chemish is, who's Chemish to her?
Is it, it's like a, like kind of her protege sort of thing?
If I remember correctly, she recruited his brother, which I can't remember.
And then his brother disappeared, or I'm pretty sure he's dead.
(22:46):
And then she obviously takes a liking to him, because obviously, I think she feels some guilt,
because she's obviously the one who recruited him into Republic Intelligence.
So yeah, she takes Chemish under her wing.
And then obviously, we see later in the book, the reasons why Chemish may be interested in, like, finding out what's going on within the Empire.
Right.
(23:06):
Yeah.
So yeah, one of the more core elements about this story is that Haki is kind of following Bail on his quest throughout this story.
And Bail's kind of taken out of the political world in this book.
He is put in a position of trying to find out evidence, because he knows the truth.
But he's trying to find proper evidence that he can present to the Senate, and that'll pin the blame of the eradication of the Jedi on Palpatine and his cronies.
(23:37):
Like, that's kind of the whole reason that he's out exploring the galaxy.
And it starts with his time on Jedha in the mourning process.
And it kind of goes from that to this determined kind of rage that he sets off to try and find the facts, you know?
Yeah, I think he has a real case of survivor's guilt.
(23:59):
He mentions Padme.
All the people he knew and loved are either dead in hiding, or he doesn't know.
Like, Padme's dead.
I did like the fact that they play off the relationship between Mon Mothra and Bail Organa in this book.
They do not like each other at this point.
Not really.
I think it's heavily implied that Padme was the glue that held that relationship together.
(24:23):
And they outright argue about Bail's, like, even, I think, because Mon, I think, is aware of the Jedi were betrayed.
But she's like, what is that, what is unearthing that at this point going to do?
Like, no one cares.
Like, she basically says no one cares.
But he's obviously wracked with guilt.
And he's trying to exonerate them in a way that benefits him as well, that obviously takes away some of that survivor's guilt.
(24:47):
It is quite interesting to learn about the relationship at this point and the fact that they didn't get along.
Yeah, it's also interesting, like, because you brought up Mon there as well.
Like, it's interesting to see the perspective of senators that we really respect within the stories and their protagonist characters that are fighting for the rebellion, which in a way is kind of tied to the downfall of the Jedi and all this stuff.
(25:09):
But, like, we always kind of think of, I guess maybe most people really look at Star Wars as this through the Jedi lens, you know.
And this book does a really good job of pointing out, like, hey, there's good people out there that, you know, they do want to fight the Empire.
But they don't necessarily want to fight the Empire because of Palpatine being a Sith Lord and Jedi being killed off.
(25:31):
You know, like, there's other reasons for it.
And I think Andor was one of those stories that really kind of showed us that there's a different way to look at things, you know, with this conflict.
And this book really did that because Bale is kind of like your average Star Wars fan.
Like, he's kind of that, like, oh, my goodness, like, you know, I know the truth and of, like, you know, who Palpatine really is.
(25:53):
And, like, I know what happened to all of my friends, you know, within the Jedi Order and stuff like that.
I need to present the facts.
And meanwhile, Mon Mothma is kind of like, okay, well, you know, the galaxy doesn't care anymore.
You know, the Jedi were killed overnight kind of thing.
And, you know, like, what difference has it made?
You know, like, it's like the galaxy's war is over now.
(26:17):
And, you know, at that point in time, you kind of start to think, like, what exactly did they add to the galaxy, you know, before the Clone Wars?
Like, what were they adding?
And I think, you know, it's kind of too bad that the Acolyte got canceled because I feel like it could have been a show that maybe told a little bit more about that.
But, yeah, as we kind of become, you know, closer to the Clone Wars, like the Jedi being intertwined within the politics of the galaxy, it becomes too much, right?
(26:41):
And I think it was sort of like, okay, well, at this point, who cares?
Like, people's opinion of them sucks anyway.
So, like, you know, why bother, right?
And Bale's opinion is, well, they were really good people and we were friends.
So for him, he cares a lot.
But for other people, it's not as big of a deal.
So that was really interesting to kind of see the perspective there.
(27:02):
And, yeah, like you said, of Padme being the glue that holds those two characters together.
You know, I kept thinking to myself, like, wow, I never really saw that in the movies.
But then again, all those scenes were cut.
So, yeah, but it's like, I guess, like, I guess we just assume things, right?
Like, we just assume that everybody's friends.
We just assume that everyone in the Rebellion's friends.
(27:23):
We assume that they're all fighting on the same side.
We're all looking through it with the Luke Skywalker, you know, like, like the sunny goggles.
You know what I mean?
Like, everyone's a good guy.
It's like, no, you know what?
This book really painted me a new picture of, like, there's people fighting for the Rebellion.
There are dangerous people.
Like, they're, like, more dangerous sometimes than people in the Empire.
(27:45):
And they're willing to do radical, radical things like, you know, hurt innocent people to sort of get vengeance on this regime.
But, you know, yeah, it's crazy, man.
Like, I appreciated the different perspectives in this book because it really kind of unlocked a different side of things.
And, you know, I appreciated that all of these characters aren't as one-dimensional or two-dimensional as we really thought from what we've seen them in already.
(28:11):
You know, there's kind of other size to them that this book shaped out.
And I think that was the most, like, the biggest thing I think I appreciated about this novel was that it was able to do that.
So, yeah.
All right.
Let me try to skip ahead here to some other things.
One thing I did find interesting was the Perrin's in this book.
(28:32):
And he's quite a different character than what we see in Andor, which is quite interesting.
Because in Andor, we see him as the, I think he's just, I think he tries to come across as happy in Andor, but we really know for a fact he's not.
We see that at the end of Andor season two.
I don't think he's overly happy.
I think he's just, but yeah, no, there was this point where their relationship is quite different.
(28:52):
I would never say they're totally in love, but I think there was a lot closer relationship at that point.
Yeah.
Yeah, for sure.
And, you know, more details were kind of revealed about their relationship in how, you know, they've had like a marriage since they were like, what was it, like 14 or 15 or something like that?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Roughly around that time, yeah.
(29:12):
Yeah.
So that's, it kind of, it kind of provides some insight on the wedding from Andor season two with her daughter.
And, and, and how sort of, I guess she just kind of, I don't really, you know, she just kind of goes along with it.
But, you know, Mon, I guess, has never really felt like it was maybe for her.
Like she kind of feels like, you know, her, obviously she doesn't have the best marriage.
(29:34):
So, so, you know, that's why it kind of leads her to say what she says before her daughter gets married.
And she says, you know, you don't have to go through with this.
And of course, when she says that she's kind of feeling guilty for, you know, setting that whole thing up because of financial issues and whatnot.
But, but at the same time, like, you know, you think like, oh, well, no, she's got some personal ties to feeling bad about, you know, walking into a bad marriage too early or too young or whatever.
(29:59):
And, and, you know, cause she's done it and, you know, and at the end of Andor season two, you see Perrin with, with the other lady, you know, was it Davin, Davin's wife or something like that?
Yeah.
And, and it's like, wow.
Yeah.
That's, that's awkward, you know, like, so I, yeah, I just, yeah.
I was, it was interesting to like, kind of get more details on, on that, on that side of things.
(30:21):
Yeah.
Perrin, great to see in this book.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What did you think of, I guess the, just the, I mean, there was, there was so much that happened in this book.
I think this book was, how many chapters was this?
It was like 50 something, 50 something chapters.
I believe it was no 72, 72 chapters.
I think it was, I think it was 72.
Yeah.
It was a lot.
(30:42):
So I'm, you know, we're, we're skipping over a lot of stuff in, in kind of this general review here,
but what did you think of when we got to the end of the story?
And Bale has kind of found a, a source of where and how to acquire the facts of the Jedi being framed and then murdered.
And, and the events that transpire between Mon and her crossover with Sujin.
(31:08):
And at some point in the book, Sujin and Bale kind of get to know each other a little bit.
And then they go their separate ways under stressful circumstances with, with the, with the Empire.
And, and, you know, they're about to get caught and whatnot.
So, so they kind of part ways, but they set up a meeting.
Mon kind of goes to meet Sujin.
And the plan that Sujin has in mind is he's going to go and try and assassinate the Chancellor.
(31:31):
He's going to go and try and assassinate Palpatine.
But he's, he's got all the facts that Bale needs to prove that Palpatine's responsible for the Jedi downfall.
Right. And Mon does this crazy thing where she, she gets, she gets information from some, a different Senator who used to be a separatist of how to activate the self-destruct sequence on the cybernetic assassins.
(31:54):
And, and she does it, you know, like through the, through the, she sets it up very like, you know, subtly as she's like kind of saying something and slips in the first keyword there.
And I had to re-listen because I was, I read part of this book and I listened to the audio book for the other half.
And I had to listen to that little like dialogue piece, like three times for me to actually pick it up because it was so subtly slipped in there.
(32:18):
And I was like, oh man, I didn't even notice that.
Like when I was listening to it the first time, I was like, whoa, that's, that's so well done.
And then, and then she uses the intercom to activate the second keyword, which then blows Sujin up out of the sky as he's kind of flying away on his speeder towards his mission.
And, and I don't know, what'd you think of that?
And like Bale kind of sees this on the news and he knows who it is that blew up.
(32:39):
And he knows that there goes all the hope in the world that he has a chance of showcasing the facts and everything.
Like, like, what did you think of all this stuff?
Yeah, it was, uh, obviously we see mom Mothma, uh, take a life, which is, which is crazy at this point.
She, she knows, uh, it's very winter soldier type thing of trying to, uh, uh, deactivate his self-destruct mode.
(33:01):
There's certain words and key phrases that she has to say.
And yeah, it's, it's, it's quite a, it's quite an emotional thing.
She obviously gets quite gravely injured off the back of it because, uh, it obviously blows up near her as he's on his way to,
I don't know whether it's the Jedi temple or the Senate building, but he's on his way, he's on his way to kill Palpatine.
And yeah, so I thought it was really, really quite shocking.
(33:23):
Actually, I was quite shocked at the fact that Mon did that.
Uh, I can't remember a reason in why, cause you think she'd want to kill the emperor, but I can't remember why she didn't want,
maybe because he was going to kill a bunch of innocent people with them as well.
Yeah.
Uh, but yeah, no, I thought that was quite shocking.
Uh, and something I didn't expect.
Sorry, say, say, uh, uh, you, you didn't expect that to happen?
(33:43):
I didn't expect, uh, obviously when we started the book, I didn't expect Mon to like kill someone, which is basically what she does.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. I, um, yeah, that, I mean, that came as a surprise to me too.
Um, I think like, I think like, as far as like the reason she did it was, uh, because I know there was something in this book that they brought up a number of times.
(34:05):
It was one of the more recent conflicts between her and Bale was that Bale was trying to attack the empire from a point of view of the Jedi's downfall, right?
Like he was trying to find the facts and then he was going to go after the power that the empire had built up now, uh, with the evidence that they were responsible for framing and killing the Jedi in, in, in, in the movement that they kind of, uh, played at the very end of the Clone Wars there to, to take power over the Republic.
(34:32):
Like, and, uh, and then Mon's point of view was okay, but we have all of these separatist senators that have now kind of merged with us.
Like we can approach this situation from a political point of view, from a bill that will, you know, take the power back into the Senate's hands and, uh, power away from, uh, the emperor himself, as long as like enough people vote for it.
(34:55):
Right. And so, you know, they were kind of rubbing against each other with that sort of thing.
And her perspective is if Sujin, who is a separatist assassin tries and successfully kills Palpatine, someone, someone's going to take his place or, or something's going to happen.
Something bad's going to happen. Right. And we're just going to have a political civil war all over again, because this guy is tied to these senators who are now just recently merged with us once again. Right.
(35:20):
So that was like kind of the stressful circumstance. So she thought, okay, I've just got to blow this guy up because you know, if he, if he, if he succeeds, we're all doomed.
Like this, this plan is my plan is not going to succeed. So that's why she does what she does. Um, and I was like, you know, I can totally see her doing that too, because like, I feel like, I don't know, like, like I, like she's, um, she's got, I think she's got a lot more depth to her character than I think we've kind of initially given her credit for, uh, in the previous stories that we've seen.
(35:47):
And, and, uh, she's such a soft-spoken person, but she's, she's different than Padme, who is like a very, uh, you know, like whip out the gun and just get in the action sort of girl.
Whereas like Mon is like totally not like that. And, you know, as she's being rescued from the Senate by Andor, we see her kind of like, you know, when, when he kills people, she's like in shock. Right.
But, uh, but at the same time, she's not afraid to get her hands dirty if she's desperate. And I think that key word of like desperation is sort of what drives a lot of the decisions that a lot of these characters make through this particular story.
(36:18):
And, and, um, that was something I appreciated a lot about how these characters were written here was that desperation is, is kind of on their mind all the time.
Like constantly they're, they're, they're desperate under the current circumstances because of the new empire and the way that things worked out.
And, uh, uh, yeah, like the set, the separatist, uh, senators, like they're only maybe going along with things because they're desperate.
(36:42):
Like their, their entire reason for fighting a war was just kind of demolished, like, you know, within a matter of days and, and, uh, uh, you know, what point is there to kind of carry on that fight?
So, um, yeah, lots of, uh, lots of desperation going around.
Uh, one of the things that she really, um, was trying to push is this, um, it was called, what was the bill called?
(37:03):
It was, uh, the, uh, yes, that was the one.
Yeah.
So her, her strategy, the Imperial Rebirth Act was to put the power back in the hands of the people, so to speak.
Um, and, uh, and like, what, what did you think of that?
And then how we saw things kind of come together at the end with, um, uh, a small appearance from Masamita, uh, at the very end of this story and him showcasing something to her about the empire's plans for, uh, uh, they're kind of like, um, rehabilitation.
(37:33):
Centers, but we could probably imagine them to be like kind of torture centers for people who don't want to comply.
Uh, and, uh, you know, he basically kind of gives two, two, two cents about, about revert, like about, uh, nullifying her bill, which does end up passing.
Um, and, uh, I don't know, like, what, what'd you think of that crazy ending?
Yeah, that ending was intense, but obviously Masamita takes her away to this, uh, to a planet and it's basically got, I think they call them like re-education camps and it's basically, it's basically a veiled way of saying either shut up, get in line or you'll end up in one of these camps.
(38:06):
And he says, we've got one built now, we're building like, I think he says something like seven or eight more on different worlds and we will, we will, uh, get our way.
So yeah, she basically threatens her saying, get in line. So I think that's where she has to realize she potentially has to play the game a bit more.
Uh, yeah. And with the Imperial Rebirth Act, I just thought, obviously we know, I'm like, this isn't going to work.
(38:28):
I mean, cause we were like, Palpatine's, it's like in the Bad Batch where they obviously present that, uh, Ambro Rampart destroyed Kamino and then all of a sudden Palpatine rocks up and he's like, see, I told you.
And then we need Stormtroopers now. And it's like every time he just, he's just one step ahead.
But we don't, we don't, we don't, uh, we don't see the Emperor in these books or all, but he's very heavily alluded to.
(38:51):
And just like in Andor season two, like, you don't have to see him to know. I'm sure he's in the background.
Right.
Scheming.
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Uh, oh yeah. There was something I just missed, uh, I missed here at the end, uh, is Mon Mothma survives,
so right before the events that transpired between her and Masamita, she survives an explosion that happens.
(39:11):
Uh, she's gravely injured and she ends up, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, getting cybernetic replacements installed for her stomach.
So, yeah, she, she kind of gets, um, uh, like a Fennec Shand operation done where, where her stomach needs to be replaced for, in order for her to survive.
And, um, I didn't know that about her. I, I don't know if this was like something that they brought in from the expanded universe and the legends continuity,
(39:36):
or if it's something that is like new for her character, but, uh, nowhere, nowhere in other stories that I've seen her, did they ever indicate that this was like a thing?
Uh, so, I don't know. What are your thoughts on that little piece of story there?
I think, I think that's new. I, I'm with you. I haven't heard, uh, have that sort of procedure before in legends.
I'm not sure. Maybe I, maybe she did, but, uh, I find it interesting. I think the explosion is when she blows up, uh, Sojourn.
(40:03):
I think that's the explosion she's injured in. And, uh, yeah, I find that is interesting because like you said, we, we've never even got like an inkling of that in other stories.
So, uh, I assume that's new to Canon. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I thought so too. I thought it was kind of new to the Canon, uh, but, um, yeah, very, uh, uh, interesting,
interesting little piece of, of knowledge there for, uh, for her. Um, but, uh, yeah, so that, uh, they, they, they tied off the book with a few, uh, sort of loose ends,
(40:34):
no real massive setups for the next book, other than that conversation about how Palpatine and, and his group were going to, uh, basically try and nullify
everything she's worked for throughout this entire story. And, um, kind of expected that to happen, sort of, but, uh, because as we know,
we, we all know how this ends, right? We all know that in about 18 or 19 years, Palpatine dissolves the Senate and takes complete control
(41:00):
of the galaxy as sole, you know, ruler, uh, of everything. And, um, you know, that happens when, when, uh, Tarkin walks in the room
in episode four and, and says that the Imperial Senate has now been, uh, dissolved or whatever he says, right?
And, and, uh, yeah. And then, and then goes on to say how the, the governors within the, um, within the military essentially are going to be
(41:20):
taking control of their respective areas in, in the galaxy. And, uh, yeah, it's, it's, it's an interesting piece of,
it's like a big moment that is kind of very glossed over in like two sentences in the movie. But, um,
but we all know kind of that it's, it's headed in that direction. And, uh, so yeah, I'm very curious,
you know, I'm very curious to see how, uh, this bill is going to get handled in the next story in
(41:44):
the next book. Um, you know, what they're going to do to, you know, nullify it and like how they're
going to go about navigating the legal means of doing that. And if, whether or not there's going to be
like a Senate revolt against that being able to be a possibility. And, uh, maybe what we're going
to work up to is, you know, when I was watching Andor, I couldn't help but notice. And I think
(42:04):
they brought this in from other stories as well, but, uh, the Senate chambers felt a little empty,
you know, compared to how it was before. And maybe it's because people just don't see the,
the use and showing up to work anymore. It's like, you know, what are we doing here? You know,
like, what are we, what are we doing representing our people when there's no point in representing
anybody if, if somebody's just calling all the shots and passing over my job, you know? And,
(42:27):
uh, uh, yeah, I thought, I thought that might, maybe, maybe that's kind of where we're headed
with, with the, uh, the, the storytelling from, from this particular trilogy, but, um, yeah,
very cool stuff. Um, yeah. So, uh, is there anything you wanted to bring up out, uh, anything
else that we may have missed that were kind of big moments here?
One of the big moments in the book is how Saw Gerrera, I think, becomes galactically known
(42:50):
as a terrorist. Basically, there is a planet called Eo de Jurit or something like that.
Ah, yeah.
And I don't know, I don't know how you have it in, uh, across the pond, but in, in the
UK, we have these things called heritage sites and you can't build on them. Like, it's basically
a historical site, like Stonehenge.
Yeah, they're like protected, protected land by the government, you know? Yeah, yeah.
(43:11):
Yeah, we have that. So basically this planet is, is, uh, ancient civilization that's obviously
gone extinct at this point, but it's, it's, as a, as a protected site and basically Saw
Guerrera blows it up and becomes wanted because he's obviously, cause I think it's quite a
well-known, well-loved, right, historical place in the Star Wars galaxy. He blows a big
portion of it and then that's how I think he becomes, cause he's even seen like a, like
(43:33):
a, like a press release or a thing where he's, he's quite happy that he's now notorious.
Yeah. This is, this is also, this is, um, probably a lot of time now, not too much time,
but like enough time after the initial bad batch, uh, appearance that he makes with, um,
with, uh, oh my goodness, clone force 99. Like, I mean, I, I, I think like I would have
(43:55):
really loved sort of, you know, cause we do get into his head a little bit, but, uh, I
would have really loved for him to have kind of referenced that moment that may have only
taken place a few weeks or months earlier. Um, and, uh, but you know, we, we, we didn't
get a mention to that at all, but, uh, that would have been a really nice crossover to
have. That's something I was kind of looking for in this book, um, being him of one of
(44:17):
the main characters, but, uh, but yeah, that's, that's a great moment to bring up. Um, I was
very, cause in the bad batch, he's already being hunted down as an enemy of the empire because
of his growing reputation as a, as a freedom fighter. Right. And so they send
him after they send clone force 99 to take him out because of some of the things he's
(44:38):
already kind of doing to, to piss off the empire. And I just kind of thought it was like
a little, almost a little humorous that the thing that makes him a number one most wanted
was like what he does on, on, uh, on, on this place, you know, to take down like a, like
a national park kind of thing. I just thought it was kind of, uh, it's like, really, that's
(44:58):
what, that's what they're coming after you for now. Like, uh, you know, it's just
one of those. Well, we see in the bad batch, uh, basically
talking about to take him off the board within days of the empire forming. So he sends obviously
clone force 99 to, uh, to take him out. And obviously they don't, but yeah, they were,
they were fully aware of Saul Guerrero, uh, by the time the empire came about.
Yeah. Yeah. Uh, but yeah, big moment in the book. Um, and, um, yeah, definitely, uh, foreshadows
(45:24):
his future extremism. I think that was kind of the point they were trying to make was
that his methods of doing things is, is hurting innocent people. And, uh, you know, I guess
it was a really good way to paint that picture. Um, so yeah, um, we also saw, I know Bale never
really got a crazy good speech in Andor, other than setting up the speech for Mon Mothma, but,
(45:46):
uh, he did make the pitch for Mon Mothma's bill. So even though there's a rivalry or a little bit
of a dislike between those two characters of Mon and Bale, uh, she did trust him enough
to deliver the, the masterful speech for her bill that she worked so hard for throughout
this entire story. So, um, that was really interesting to read. And, uh, you know, his
(46:07):
speech was, was, uh, was, you know, well done and, uh, well executed and, um, very strategized
from a, a point of view that, um, I guess could convince people that may have not been convinced
before, uh, that, that they want to vote for the Imperial Rebirth Act. Like he was
kind of, he put it in a way that was deceptively attractive, you know, to, to vote for this bill
(46:31):
either way. And, uh, and, you know, you know, he succeeded because everyone voted for the
bill, but, but, you know, of course now we'll, we'll see what happens to that. But, uh, that
was a, that was a favorite moment for me as well for, for Bale's character. Um, yeah.
Yeah. Uh, I'm looking at like a top 10 defining moments of this book. I feel like we've definitely
hit them all. Um, like all the things that we mentioned. Um, but, uh, so yeah, I think,
(46:53):
uh, if you're good, then we can, we can move on to giving this some Pablo points and pudous.
Um, yeah, definitely. Yeah. I'm good. All right. Sweet. So, uh, Pablo points and pudous. Oh,
hold on a second. Let's, uh, let's queue up the music here. All right. So Pablo points and
pudous is our rating system on the podcast. Um, I feel like you might be, uh, familiar with
(47:14):
it by now, but we'll just, uh, we go over for our listeners who might be a first timers
here. So, uh, three Pablo pudous is like terrible. Two Pablo pudous is really bad. One Pablo pudou
is just bad. A bendu is a 50% score. It's kind of like, you know, so, so, uh, one Pablo point
(47:34):
is good. Two Pablo points is great. And three Pablo points is terrific. The best of the best.
And there's point fives in there as well, if you want to give it a point five. Uh, so, uh, what would
you give the mask of fear brand of the reign of the empire? Number one, would you, what would you
give it? Well, I always, I always great stuff on the Darth Plagueis scale. So Darth Plagueis in
(48:00):
your scoring system would be three Pablo points. So I would give mask of fear one. I thought it was
good. Yep. Yeah. I think it has a potential to be great. Obviously when we see what happens with
the, the menu of the trilogy. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I agree. I agree. All right. Yeah. So, uh, okay. So
you get a one Pablo point. Uh, all right. Darian gave it, uh, Darian's, uh, our other, uh, our other
(48:22):
friend here who, uh, uh, would have been here today, but, um, he, he read the book and he's given
a 1.5 Poodoos. So he, uh, I don't think he really didn't like it. Um, I gave it a, uh,
a 0.5 Pablo point. So like a little, a little under you. Uh, but I think, I feel like you
and I are pretty synced up on this score, but, um, but at the same time, I think the
(48:45):
one thing that took it down a 0.5 for me was that the book felt quite long at times.
And, um, it just like, as much as I appreciated the plot and the characters and, and kind of
what it got into, I also felt like it was maybe longer than it needed to be for us, for
the, for the setup of what it's going to be a trilogy of events. Um, I'm hoping that the
(49:08):
next two books don't really, uh, I hope they maybe cap it at like 55 chapters or something.
I feel like 72 may have been a bit, a bit much, but, um, you know, we'll, uh, I'm more of
a cut to the chase kind of guy, you know, when it comes to, it comes to the stories,
but, um, yeah, it is what it is. Um, all right. Well, uh, that's Pablo points of
(49:28):
poodoo's. Um, and, uh, I think that's everything. Um, I think before we wrap things up, I got
one little piece of news, but before, uh, before I get to that, I just wanted to ask
you what, what's, what's something that you were looking forward to, uh, for, I guess
the remainder of 2025, you know, like, like star Wars fans don't have a crazy amount
coming their way. Um, so, you know, but there's always lots of things that, you know,
(49:53):
it's kind of fly under the radar a little bit. I think visions volume three is, uh, maybe
one of the larger things that's coming out there for the rest of the year, but there
really isn't too much more. There's no more games coming out. I don't think, uh, we just
have books and comics, but what is there something that, you know, is there something
else that you're really looking forward to this year? Uh, there's a couple of things
I'm looking forward to, uh, masters of evil, which is from, uh, which is a new book
(50:18):
coming out from Adam Christopher who wrote the tremendous shadow of the Sith. I'm looking
forward to that. Uh, I'm also looking forward to the 20th anniversary of Avenger the Sith
novelization coming out by Matthew Stover. That's going to have annotations and, uh, that
that comes out in October. And, uh, other than that, no, I'm just looking forward to that.
You see, we haven't got a lot to look forward to, but potentially we could, we could get
(50:39):
Maul's Shadow Lord, uh, very early in 2026. Hopefully anyway.
Oh yeah. Here's hoping. Yeah. That's going to be awesome. Uh, yeah. Awesome. Uh, sweet.
Thanks Ian. Um, always great having you on as always. Um, and, uh, hopefully we do another
one of these, uh, book reviews before the, before the year is up and, uh, you know, catch
(50:59):
up on some more Star Wars. So, uh, you know, big thank you for, uh, for joining us this week.
Always a pleasure, man. I always love coming on.
Awesome. All right. We'll see you in the next one.
All right. Thank you so much to our audience for tuning in as always. Definitely go and,
uh, uh, go follow Ian on, on, uh, on X, um, and, uh, and the social links are going to
(51:25):
be down in the, uh, description below. And, um, we also have some news about orbit key.
We have paired up with them, uh, like maybe once in the past to do a giveaway. And, uh,
they're a fantastic company that makes sort of organizing your, uh, your life, uh, very
pleasant and premium. And, uh, they have everything from key organizers to, uh, uh, to nest
(51:47):
boxes and desk mats, laptop sleeves, everything like that. So, uh, they're having a massive
sale to go and check out orbit key. The links are going to be down below and, uh, we're doing
a giveaway with them. Uh, this time it's going to be 10 winners. So they've been, uh, fantastic
enough to, to offer it for us to run this giveaway for them. And, uh, uh, it's going to be all
Star Wars merch. So we've got some tote bags, key organizers, nest boxes, all that kind of
(52:11):
thing for 10 winners. So check out the link down in the description and, uh, throw your
name in the hat because it could be you. So we will see you in the next one. There's only
a few days left of giveaway. So definitely do it soon. All right. We'll see you in the next
episode of Star Wars Escape Pod. May the force be with you.
Time to abandon ship!
(00:05):
Oh no!
Here we go!
Can I persuade you to join us for a drink?
It's a tradition.
Here, here.
Jar Jar, homie, my main man, quickly.
Before the separatists attack, get into the escape pod.
(00:28):
Hey!
This is escape!
Then wear the pod!
This is a surprise!
Welcome back to Star Wars Escape Pod and our first book review for the year.
I think it is.
Maybe the second, but welcome back either way.
We've got our old friend Ian in the podcast today to join me for a chat about Reign of
(00:54):
the Empire, the Mask of Fear, the first in a trilogy of books.
One each coming out each year for the next, the next two years, I guess, after this year.
And the first one is written by Alexander Freed.
So we're just going to talk about the book, our thoughts on it, and what we liked about
it and how it connects to Andor and various things like that.
So even if you haven't read the book, definitely just stay tuned in for what we have to say
(01:19):
about it.
And, you know, full spoilers ahead for any of you guys who care about that sort of thing.
So heads up on that.
Alright, let's get into it.
(01:49):
Another happy landing.
And the Jedi Librarian has been foiled.
What's happened?
The Chancellor's been elaborating on a plot by the Jedi to overthrow the Senate.
And the main Jedi will be hunted down and defeated.
All right, welcome back, Ian.
(02:18):
Thank you.
Hi, mate.
Nice to be back.
Nice to have you back, as always.
I feel like, I mean, we try to get you on at least once or twice a year.
But yeah, when was the last time we had you on again?
I was trying to remember.
Was it Living Force?
Living Force, mate.
Absolutely, yeah.
Awesome.
Okay, yeah.
So I'm trying to remember when that was.
Was that last year?
Was that this year earlier?
(02:40):
I think it was this year.
I'm pretty sure it was this year.
Maybe early this year.
Oh, okay.
I think.
Okay, great.
So we haven't let too much time go by then.
No.
All right, awesome.
Okay, yeah.
So it's actually just us today.
And I think you were just chatting about this before we started up the engines here.
But you've read this book.
(03:01):
It's just been a few months.
You read it back when it came out, which was February.
I saw the release date here.
I think it was February 25th, 2025 this year.
So you read this in March, I assume?
Yeah.
Do across late February, early March.
Yeah.
Awesome.
All right.
So in a nutshell, like we can kind of get into the plot here and then and then you can
kind of talk about just your overview of the book.
(03:24):
So in general, this book is it's written by Alexander Freed.
It's called Reign of the Empire, the Mask of Fear.
It's the first of a what will be a trilogy with two other authors writing the sequels.
And it takes place immediately after Revenge of the Sith in some ways.
I think there is a little bit of a time jump, but not very much at all.
And the novel really tells the story of the early years in the Empire, the early year in the Empire featuring Mon Mothma, Bail Organa, Saw Gerrera and and a few other newer characters that were introduced to as well.
(04:02):
And I just wanted to ask you about, you know, what first off, like, what did you think of kind of where this book takes place in the surrounding canon?
Because I know you've you've read a lot of the newer stuff, too.
Like, like, what do you think about kind of the genre of this book, like where it takes place and how it compares to Alexander Freed's other contributions to the Star Wars universe?
(04:24):
Yeah. So Alexander Freed wrote the aftermath, not aftermath, sorry, my mistake, the alphabet squadron trilogy, which I really enjoyed.
I don't know if you had a chance to read those.
I haven't yet. No, no, no, they're really good.
They tell a they tell a tale of a of a squadron of pilots.
The reason it's called alphabet squadron is because you have an X wing, a Y wing, a B wing, a U wing.
(04:48):
They all come together.
There's various like reasons for the characters to come together.
The X wing pilot is an X Imperial who took part in Operation Cinder.
And then obviously, as the book goes on, we find out.
But there's three books in that.
You've got alphabet squadron, Shadow Fall and Victory's Price.
I highly recommend anyone to read them or listen to them in audio book form.
(05:09):
They're really, really good.
He also did Battlefront Twilight Company, I believe, for the original Star Wars Battlefront that came out in 2015.
Oh, yeah.
Which I enjoyed.
It was a yeah, I enjoyed that.
It was a basically tells you the tale of the Battle of Sullust and a little bit of the the Battle of Kuat and all that type of thing.
So he has he's quite well versed in Star Wars and obviously with his new entry in kicking off a new trilogy, as you said, in Mask of Fear.
(05:36):
Mask of Fear.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So there's two other authors who are going to be contributing to this theory to this trilogy.
And I couldn't remember who those authors were.
Did you did you by any chance remember who those people were?
I was trying to try to think of it, but I'll just have a quick look now, to be fair.
I'm just going to have a quick look.
Yeah.
(05:57):
Because I'm sure it's quite a well-known Mask of Fear, Reign of Empire, Mask of Fear.
I was just looking at it.
Book two is written by Rebecca Roanhorse.
Her previous contributions to Star Wars was the Resistance Reborn.
I think that's the main one, which was obviously a tie in to the Rise of Skywalker.
But then they didn't really do anything with that book that tied into the Rise of Skywalker.
(06:20):
But that's right.
That's for another another day.
And that is a good book.
I did like I really did like Resistance Reborn.
I thought it was I thought it was good.
And then the third book comes out in spring 2027, and it is from Fran Wilde, who I am not familiar with, to be fair.
I'm just trying to think.
Fran Wilde, who wrote a canon short story tell no contingency, which included an anthology book from a certain point of view featuring Mon Mothma, leader of the Rebel Alliance.
(06:48):
There you go.
That makes sense.
Oh, wow.
So, so, so, yes, you wrote the end.
Yeah.
So this will be friends.
Like first book will be the the the finale of this trilogy.
That'll be friends first book.
So, yeah.
Yeah.
But like the the no contingency was that that was a short story in the Return of the Jedi book there, which I never read.
I heard that pretty good point of view.
Yeah.
Yeah.
(07:09):
I'll be brookers with you read a new hope and Empire Strikes Back.
I haven't got round to reading Jedi AIDS.
The book is actually quite big.
Yeah, I think read the return of the one.
So, yeah.
Well, yeah, no, the first two first two from a certain point of view are really good.
Some stories are better than others.
Yeah, some stories are quite weird.
Well, yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I'm a pretty new story from the point of view of the Dianoga, which was a bit strange.
(07:33):
Yeah, you know, when they announced those books, I actually liked the idea quite a lot because, you know, it was like celebrating Star Wars is 40th anniversary.
So they hired 40 different authors to write a short story that was at some point during the movie kind of a side character somewhere and their perspective on the events that were unfolding.
(07:54):
So it was it was it was very interesting, like someone there was some really big Star Wars news headlines that came out when that one came out, because, of course, I think, didn't they do some sort of Qui-Gon sort of force ghosty moment?
They did.
They did.
Yeah, I skipped into Return of the Jedi one.
And yeah, they did have a Qui-Gon journey basically said he basically that was the first time he manifested himself as a force ghost before we've obviously seen him in the Clone Wars as like a voice.
(08:20):
But this was the first time where we found out he actually can manifest himself as a ghost, which obviously we go on to see in the Obi-Wan Kenobi series.
Yeah.
And in the Clone Wars, to be fair.
Yeah.
And this was before the Obi-Wan show came out, too, right?
It was.
I believe so.
I think it was.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So like a lot of people were speculating that he was able to do this after the episode after episode three came out and Yoda had his little line about, you know, training to see his old master.
(08:46):
Right.
To commune with him and stuff.
So, yeah, I thought it was a really smart decision to kind of put that in and, you know, show that Obi-Wan is in a in a place of being able to do that.
And then, of course, in the show, they kind of later sort of backtracked a little bit and, you know, show showcase that he was struggling to be able to do that all those years later.
But, yeah, very, very cool story.
So, you know, hopefully hopefully this trilogy ends up turning out.
(09:10):
Like, you know, they've done this handoff thing before with movies, and I feel like it's not always worked out overly well.
So hopefully the hopefully the books are, you know, a bit of a different story when it comes to that.
But in the old expanded universe, they used to do this with a few authors kind of trading trading the torch with like the legacy of the Jedi series.
(09:31):
I think it was a number of series like they they kind of did this before.
So, you know, I'm sure it'll be fine.
But all right.
Yeah. So this is like kind of dawn of the empire era here.
And, you know, like you said, you know, great, great time period to, you know, tell a good story.
And this is like the ushering in of a new era, you know, kind of like how Palpatine says in his speech during the Bad Batch, which is kind of an extension of the one he gives in Episode 3.
(10:01):
And, you know, this book really feeds into Andor, which feeds into Rogue One, which then feeds into the original Star Wars movies.
And, you know, especially when you get into characters like Bail Organa and Mon Mothma, you know, characters that we've kind of known about for quite some time.
And yeah, I just thought I thought it was interesting.
Like, what do you think of the just the overall sense of the book?
(10:24):
Like what you walked away with after you finished reading it?
Like, what did you what do you feel like you feel like you read a pretty great story?
I think I read the beginnings of potentially of a great story.
I think obviously this lays the groundwork.
I think it opens up about a month after Revenge of the Sith.
And over the course of the book, you slowly start to see the Empire transition from the Republic into the Empire and what that means for the people.
(10:49):
You hear some quite harrowing stuff that some of the senators went through post, especially the the the big the big target of the Empire is the people who created the delegation of 2000, which people if people aren't familiar with that.
There was a set of cut scenes from Revenge of the Sith, led by Padme, Bail and Mon Mothma and a couple of other senators who basically weren't happy with the amount of power the senator senator chancellor chancellor Palpatine had at the time.
(11:18):
And he wanted them to obviously hand his power over.
So, yeah, that's a big target for the Empire when they first when they first transition into the Empire.
And you see a lot of the senators being rolled up.
But yeah, I think it's it's the start of a good story.
There is parts of it. I really liked this.
There is parts of it that was a bit slow, but that's just obviously starting a new trilogy is always going to be like that.
(11:39):
But yeah, no, I really enjoyed it.
Obviously, when we get closer into spoiler territory.
Awesome. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. So the novel opens up with sort of the ushering in of the new order.
And we see Bail on a very familiar planet to us Rogue One fans out there.
He's on the holy city of Jedha and he's in this state of mourning the Jedi.
(12:02):
And I really like how they kind of bring in his character storyline, because, you know, the last time we saw him was really helping the surviving Jedi survive.
You know, he's he's like, you know, helping Yoda get away from Palpatine.
He's helping Obi Wan get off Utapau, you know, after he's been flying around for a little while.
And then, you know, he's there to adopt Leia, you know, like Anakin and Padme's daughter.
(12:26):
And then and then he's there right to the very the very end, you know, in in kind of sending the rebellion on its way to become the success story that it does.
And, you know, he's such an influential character. But for someone who I guess I guess I have not read a tremendous amount of stories that feature Bail as a main character.
(12:47):
But it was really great to find to find a lot more detail about him in this book.
And that's something I really appreciated a lot because, you know, he plays so much influence over Leia and her life. Right.
And, you know, I just keep thinking to myself, like, OK, you know, this is somebody that Leia looks at as a father figure in a way that even though Luke has never really grown up with a father figure, he has grown up.
(13:11):
And even after meeting Vader for the first time and all these terrible things happening, he he comes to accept the truth that Darth Vader is his father.
And like that's what leads him to that very end. You know, Leia is never going to ever be in the state of being able to look at Vader like that, you know.
And I think like there's like a later point in her life in the Bloodline book that we we do get into those those those trajectories a little bit more.
(13:34):
But she's always looked at Bail as a father. And so, you know, this is an important character to to write about.
And and and it's important to remember that Bail really mourns the Jedi after they're gone.
Like he he had so many friends who were Jedi. He he admires them.
He would probably want to be one of them if he could, you know, and and I think somewhere in the book, it actually said that he tries to live by some of their, I guess, not philosophies.
(14:00):
But yeah, just their their their. Yeah. Like, yeah, he takes he takes pieces of their life and kind of applies it to his own, you know, like just like their mannerisms and things like that.
And I could totally see that now. Like, I don't know why it took me so long to recognize it.
But like now that I think about it, I was like, oh, man, like that's totally true.
Like, I could totally see that. Yeah. Very cool.
(14:20):
He's a great really great character.
Like it's quite fitting.
This book coming out the time it did with Andor.
And obviously we had the recasting of Bail Organa and Andor, obviously, to go off on a tangent.
And even though I really enjoyed Benjamin Bratt's Bail Organa, I thought he was really good.
But yeah, no, he's a great character, Bail Organa.
(14:41):
And Jimmy Smith and now Benjamin Bratt have done a really good job in keeping that character alive.
Definitely. Yeah, definitely.
I was. Yeah, I appreciated Benjamin's take on on the character as well.
I thought he was I thought he was great.
I must say, though, anytime they do a recasting, it always rubs me a little bit because, you know, it's especially Star Wars, because it's always a very visual continuity sort of saga.
(15:06):
Right. Like you kind of expect the same face on a lot of the same characters, especially when they they go the extra mile to pay all this money for a young CG Luke Skywalker in multiple Disney Plus shows.
And then it's like for Bail, they just kind of simply recast the character. It's like, OK, really?
So, you know, it's like, you know, where's the line drawn kind of thing?
(15:28):
But but yeah, I mean, you know, I guess we expect one thing, get another.
But he was great. He was really great.
Yeah. Mon Mophma, meanwhile, in this story is navigating the treacherous political landscape on Coruscant.
But this is after, of course, the siege of Coruscant, you know, being the big battle that takes place at the beginning of episode three that's wrecked a lot of the planet ships crashed down, you know, buildings have collapsed.
(15:53):
This is a war that takes place in the Clone Wars that I would like to know more about, because ever since the Genndy Tartavosky 2D Clone Wars series went away within the canon, like I feel like we're kind of missing a lot of detail as to maybe the events that transpired during that that event.
But but yeah, very, very cool stuff.
I liked how the 3D Clone Wars series overlapped with that event a little bit.
(16:14):
And so I'm always very intrigued any time it comes up.
I'm always very intrigued to, like, read about it a little bit more, like, you know, just digest the story a bit slower because it's a fascinating point of the war.
Yeah. So so she's kind of navigating all that stuff.
And of course, the new Imperial Senate that she has to kind of make adjustments to.
(16:36):
And like you said, the delegation of 2000, which kind of didn't didn't work out very well for them, because, you know, that was the at the end of the war that they brought that.
And then, of course, you know, Palpatine comes in with the Empire and they look at all those 2000 senators and go like, OK, these these are problematic people.
So, you know, every single one of them got arrested and kind of interrogated, sort of, but more or less like psychologically tortured in into submission kind of thing.
(17:03):
Like it was really weird how they dealt with that.
But but yeah, that was that was kind of kind of crazy.
So we also learned that she has a major anxiety.
Did you know that, like before before watching or before reading this book, like, would you have pinned her to have anxiety?
Probably going with what we know now.
Yeah.
Obviously, seeing Andor and that.
But yeah, no, they go they go into what happens to her, like in the immediate aftermath of the Empire rising of power.
(17:28):
She's arrested.
She's held for I don't know if they said in the book it was days or but they like wouldn't let her go to the toilet.
And they basically basically tortured her.
And yeah, she has severe anxiety based off that, which is understandable.
And like you said, the delegation of 2000s, she's a pretty prominent lead in that endeavor.
(17:49):
And the person they wanted power removed from now has ultimate power.
So it's not gone great for her.
And yeah, I can totally understand why she would be rife of anxiety at this point.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, I like how they added that to her character.
I thought that was really well played.
I kind of wish that in Andor we did see her popping pills, you know, for the like in those moments that were really high anxiety, like high stress, because we we really feel her anxiety in the show.
(18:17):
But in the book, on the book, they made that extra mile that goes like, OK, yeah, she does take some medication for it.
There was another new player that was added to the story.
His name's Sujin Vaknalis.
He's a cybernetically augmented separatist operative.
Basically, he's an assassin.
And he awakens from stasis into this sort of new galaxy, you know, like it's a changed world out there.
(18:41):
And the war that he was kind of made for has sort of disappeared.
And it's changed, you know, and it's this new landscape of like what to do about this, this new power that has come into play that really nobody knows what to do with.
You know, people who thought they were fighting for the right side in the republic have now started to question that a lot.
(19:02):
And then people who were part of the separatist movement have seen now all of their separatist senators being absorbed back into the empire, into the imperial Senate.
And, you know, really, it's just kind of independent movements here and there against the local authority.
And, you know, we're really just looking at especially especially this guy.
(19:23):
He's just kind of a terrorist, you know, like he's kind of like a rogue sort of, you know, missionless kind of guy off doing crazy stuff, killing people and thinks he's got a goal.
And, you know, it's it's it's that was kind of interesting to read about.
And he's connected to another character we're familiar with, which is Saw Gerrera, who eventually, you know, they kind of have a working relationship at some point, sort of.
(19:47):
And, you know, Saw Gerrera, as always, interesting character.
What did you think of Saw in this book compared to sort of the other comparable time in which we see him, which is during the Bad Batch?
I was kind of hoping we would get a crossover there.
But like, what did you think of him in this book?
I really enjoyed the character Saw Gerrera.
Like, I think Forrest Whitaker's portrayal of him, especially in like Andor and that, is some of the best actors in Star Wars.
(20:11):
But his portrayal in this book is pretty much what we see in the Bad Batch.
He's a man who was obviously bred to fight the Separatists.
And now the people they were fighting for the Republic is gone.
He now finds himself fighting.
I don't think Saw would ever be happy unless he had someone to fight.
I genuinely believe if he had lived to see the end of the Empire, it wouldn't have made him happy.
He would have found something else to rail against.
(20:32):
Going back to Sujin, we basically find out that the Separatists have the standing orders for these operatives.
He's not the only one.
He's the only one we see in the book.
Basically have these standing orders to sow chaos and terror across the Republic,
or what they think will be the Republic if the Republic wins.
And yeah, that's his goal.
But he doesn't really have a way of doing that.
(20:53):
Because, yeah, he's basically, like you said, he's a freedom fighter with nothing to fight for, really.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
In a way, he's kind of like Saw, but like a cybernetic version of him with directives that he has,
you know, he doesn't really know what to do with anymore.
(21:14):
Because, you know, the reason that he was fighting for is kind of gone, right?
Like, you know, and he is sort of having this tough time adjusting to a new perspective on things.
And that was interesting to read about.
I did want their relationship, though, because they hated each other.
But we kind of have to work through it.
That was quite funny in the book.
Like, you're a separatist.
(21:36):
I'm obviously a Republican.
Like, Republican, we don't like each other.
We have no common ground in terms of end goal.
But we kind of have to work together.
But I always knew they weren't really going to work together for a prolonged period of time.
Yeah, yeah.
No, that's a good point.
Yeah, I guess I should rephrase and say a reluctant working relationship.
(21:58):
Eugene kind of sees through Saw.
He's like, what's this guy talking about?
Like, he kind of like, yeah, he doesn't, he doesn't, I don't think he rates Saw that much, to be fair.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, so two other new characters.
Haki, Zeofreen, and Chemish, Runaza.
And these are, well, Haki, at least, is this, well, she used to, I guess she used to work for the Republic.
(22:25):
But now is kind of a faithful Imperial.
And she's kind of got the job to spy on Bail Organa.
And Chemish is, who's Chemish to her?
Is it, it's like a, like kind of her protege sort of thing?
If I remember correctly, she recruited his brother, which I can't remember.
And then his brother disappeared, or I'm pretty sure he's dead.
(22:46):
And then she obviously takes a liking to him, because obviously, I think she feels some guilt,
because she's obviously the one who recruited him into Republic Intelligence.
So yeah, she takes Chemish under her wing.
And then obviously, we see later in the book, the reasons why Chemish may be interested in, like, finding out what's going on within the Empire.
Right.
(23:06):
Yeah.
So yeah, one of the more core elements about this story is that Haki is kind of following Bail on his quest throughout this story.
And Bail's kind of taken out of the political world in this book.
He is put in a position of trying to find out evidence, because he knows the truth.
But he's trying to find proper evidence that he can present to the Senate, and that'll pin the blame of the eradication of the Jedi on Palpatine and his cronies.
(23:37):
Like, that's kind of the whole reason that he's out exploring the galaxy.
And it starts with his time on Jedha in the mourning process.
And it kind of goes from that to this determined kind of rage that he sets off to try and find the facts, you know?
Yeah, I think he has a real case of survivor's guilt.
(23:59):
He mentions Padme.
All the people he knew and loved are either dead in hiding, or he doesn't know.
Like, Padme's dead.
I did like the fact that they play off the relationship between Mon Mothra and Bail Organa in this book.
They do not like each other at this point.
Not really.
I think it's heavily implied that Padme was the glue that held that relationship together.
(24:23):
And they outright argue about Bail's, like, even, I think, because Mon, I think, is aware of the Jedi were betrayed.
But she's like, what is that, what is unearthing that at this point going to do?
Like, no one cares.
Like, she basically says no one cares.
But he's obviously wracked with guilt.
And he's trying to exonerate them in a way that benefits him as well, that obviously takes away some of that survivor's guilt.
(24:47):
It is quite interesting to learn about the relationship at this point and the fact that they didn't get along.
Yeah, it's also interesting, like, because you brought up Mon there as well.
Like, it's interesting to see the perspective of senators that we really respect within the stories and their protagonist characters that are fighting for the rebellion, which in a way is kind of tied to the downfall of the Jedi and all this stuff.
(25:09):
But, like, we always kind of think of, I guess maybe most people really look at Star Wars as this through the Jedi lens, you know.
And this book does a really good job of pointing out, like, hey, there's good people out there that, you know, they do want to fight the Empire.
But they don't necessarily want to fight the Empire because of Palpatine being a Sith Lord and Jedi being killed off.
(25:31):
You know, like, there's other reasons for it.
And I think Andor was one of those stories that really kind of showed us that there's a different way to look at things, you know, with this conflict.
And this book really did that because Bale is kind of like your average Star Wars fan.
Like, he's kind of that, like, oh, my goodness, like, you know, I know the truth and of, like, you know, who Palpatine really is.
(25:53):
And, like, I know what happened to all of my friends, you know, within the Jedi Order and stuff like that.
I need to present the facts.
And meanwhile, Mon Mothma is kind of like, okay, well, you know, the galaxy doesn't care anymore.
You know, the Jedi were killed overnight kind of thing.
And, you know, like, what difference has it made?
You know, like, it's like the galaxy's war is over now.
(26:17):
And, you know, at that point in time, you kind of start to think, like, what exactly did they add to the galaxy, you know, before the Clone Wars?
Like, what were they adding?
And I think, you know, it's kind of too bad that the Acolyte got canceled because I feel like it could have been a show that maybe told a little bit more about that.
But, yeah, as we kind of become, you know, closer to the Clone Wars, like the Jedi being intertwined within the politics of the galaxy, it becomes too much, right?
(26:41):
And I think it was sort of like, okay, well, at this point, who cares?
Like, people's opinion of them sucks anyway.
So, like, you know, why bother, right?
And Bale's opinion is, well, they were really good people and we were friends.
So for him, he cares a lot.
But for other people, it's not as big of a deal.
So that was really interesting to kind of see the perspective there.
(27:02):
And, yeah, like you said, of Padme being the glue that holds those two characters together.
You know, I kept thinking to myself, like, wow, I never really saw that in the movies.
But then again, all those scenes were cut.
So, yeah, but it's like, I guess, like, I guess we just assume things, right?
Like, we just assume that everybody's friends.
We just assume that everyone in the Rebellion's friends.
(27:23):
We assume that they're all fighting on the same side.
We're all looking through it with the Luke Skywalker, you know, like, like the sunny goggles.
You know what I mean?
Like, everyone's a good guy.
It's like, no, you know what?
This book really painted me a new picture of, like, there's people fighting for the Rebellion.
There are dangerous people.
Like, they're, like, more dangerous sometimes than people in the Empire.
(27:45):
And they're willing to do radical, radical things like, you know, hurt innocent people to sort of get vengeance on this regime.
But, you know, yeah, it's crazy, man.
Like, I appreciated the different perspectives in this book because it really kind of unlocked a different side of things.
And, you know, I appreciated that all of these characters aren't as one-dimensional or two-dimensional as we really thought from what we've seen them in already.
(28:11):
You know, there's kind of other size to them that this book shaped out.
And I think that was the most, like, the biggest thing I think I appreciated about this novel was that it was able to do that.
So, yeah.
All right.
Let me try to skip ahead here to some other things.
One thing I did find interesting was the Perrin's in this book.
(28:32):
And he's quite a different character than what we see in Andor, which is quite interesting.
Because in Andor, we see him as the, I think he's just, I think he tries to come across as happy in Andor, but we really know for a fact he's not.
We see that at the end of Andor season two.
I don't think he's overly happy.
I think he's just, but yeah, no, there was this point where their relationship is quite different.
(28:52):
I would never say they're totally in love, but I think there was a lot closer relationship at that point.
Yeah.
Yeah, for sure.
And, you know, more details were kind of revealed about their relationship in how, you know, they've had like a marriage since they were like, what was it, like 14 or 15 or something like that?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Roughly around that time, yeah.
(29:12):
Yeah.
So that's, it kind of, it kind of provides some insight on the wedding from Andor season two with her daughter.
And, and, and how sort of, I guess she just kind of, I don't really, you know, she just kind of goes along with it.
But, you know, Mon, I guess, has never really felt like it was maybe for her.
Like she kind of feels like, you know, her, obviously she doesn't have the best marriage.
(29:34):
So, so, you know, that's why it kind of leads her to say what she says before her daughter gets married.
And she says, you know, you don't have to go through with this.
And of course, when she says that she's kind of feeling guilty for, you know, setting that whole thing up because of financial issues and whatnot.
But, but at the same time, like, you know, you think like, oh, well, no, she's got some personal ties to feeling bad about, you know, walking into a bad marriage too early or too young or whatever.
(29:59):
And, and, you know, cause she's done it and, you know, and at the end of Andor season two, you see Perrin with, with the other lady, you know, was it Davin, Davin's wife or something like that?
Yeah.
And, and it's like, wow.
Yeah.
That's, that's awkward, you know, like, so I, yeah, I just, yeah.
I was, it was interesting to like, kind of get more details on, on that, on that side of things.
(30:21):
Yeah.
Perrin, great to see in this book.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What did you think of, I guess the, just the, I mean, there was, there was so much that happened in this book.
I think this book was, how many chapters was this?
It was like 50 something, 50 something chapters.
I believe it was no 72, 72 chapters.
I think it was, I think it was 72.
Yeah.
It was a lot.
(30:42):
So I'm, you know, we're, we're skipping over a lot of stuff in, in kind of this general review here,
but what did you think of when we got to the end of the story?
And Bale has kind of found a, a source of where and how to acquire the facts of the Jedi being framed and then murdered.
And, and the events that transpire between Mon and her crossover with Sujin.
(31:08):
And at some point in the book, Sujin and Bale kind of get to know each other a little bit.
And then they go their separate ways under stressful circumstances with, with the, with the Empire.
And, and, you know, they're about to get caught and whatnot.
So, so they kind of part ways, but they set up a meeting.
Mon kind of goes to meet Sujin.
And the plan that Sujin has in mind is he's going to go and try and assassinate the Chancellor.
(31:31):
He's going to go and try and assassinate Palpatine.
But he's, he's got all the facts that Bale needs to prove that Palpatine's responsible for the Jedi downfall.
Right. And Mon does this crazy thing where she, she gets, she gets information from some, a different Senator who used to be a separatist of how to activate the self-destruct sequence on the cybernetic assassins.
(31:54):
And, and she does it, you know, like through the, through the, she sets it up very like, you know, subtly as she's like kind of saying something and slips in the first keyword there.
And I had to re-listen because I was, I read part of this book and I listened to the audio book for the other half.
And I had to listen to that little like dialogue piece, like three times for me to actually pick it up because it was so subtly slipped in there.
(32:18):
And I was like, oh man, I didn't even notice that.
Like when I was listening to it the first time, I was like, whoa, that's, that's so well done.
And then, and then she uses the intercom to activate the second keyword, which then blows Sujin up out of the sky as he's kind of flying away on his speeder towards his mission.
And, and I don't know, what'd you think of that?
And like Bale kind of sees this on the news and he knows who it is that blew up.
(32:39):
And he knows that there goes all the hope in the world that he has a chance of showcasing the facts and everything.
Like, like, what did you think of all this stuff?
Yeah, it was, uh, obviously we see mom Mothma, uh, take a life, which is, which is crazy at this point.
She, she knows, uh, it's very winter soldier type thing of trying to, uh, uh, deactivate his self-destruct mode.
(33:01):
There's certain words and key phrases that she has to say.
And yeah, it's, it's, it's quite a, it's quite an emotional thing.
She obviously gets quite gravely injured off the back of it because, uh, it obviously blows up near her as he's on his way to,
I don't know whether it's the Jedi temple or the Senate building, but he's on his way, he's on his way to kill Palpatine.
And yeah, so I thought it was really, really quite shocking.
(33:23):
Actually, I was quite shocked at the fact that Mon did that.
Uh, I can't remember a reason in why, cause you think she'd want to kill the emperor, but I can't remember why she didn't want,
maybe because he was going to kill a bunch of innocent people with them as well.
Yeah.
Uh, but yeah, no, I thought that was quite shocking.
Uh, and something I didn't expect.
Sorry, say, say, uh, uh, you, you didn't expect that to happen?
(33:43):
I didn't expect, uh, obviously when we started the book, I didn't expect Mon to like kill someone, which is basically what she does.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. I, um, yeah, that, I mean, that came as a surprise to me too.
Um, I think like, I think like, as far as like the reason she did it was, uh, because I know there was something in this book that they brought up a number of times.
(34:05):
It was one of the more recent conflicts between her and Bale was that Bale was trying to attack the empire from a point of view of the Jedi's downfall, right?
Like he was trying to find the facts and then he was going to go after the power that the empire had built up now, uh, with the evidence that they were responsible for framing and killing the Jedi in, in, in, in the movement that they kind of, uh, played at the very end of the Clone Wars there to, to take power over the Republic.
(34:32):
Like, and, uh, and then Mon's point of view was okay, but we have all of these separatist senators that have now kind of merged with us.
Like we can approach this situation from a political point of view, from a bill that will, you know, take the power back into the Senate's hands and, uh, power away from, uh, the emperor himself, as long as like enough people vote for it.
(34:55):
Right. And so, you know, they were kind of rubbing against each other with that sort of thing.
And her perspective is if Sujin, who is a separatist assassin tries and successfully kills Palpatine, someone, someone's going to take his place or, or something's going to happen.
Something bad's going to happen. Right. And we're just going to have a political civil war all over again, because this guy is tied to these senators who are now just recently merged with us once again. Right.
(35:20):
So that was like kind of the stressful circumstance. So she thought, okay, I've just got to blow this guy up because you know, if he, if he, if he succeeds, we're all doomed.
Like this, this plan is my plan is not going to succeed. So that's why she does what she does. Um, and I was like, you know, I can totally see her doing that too, because like, I feel like, I don't know, like, like I, like she's, um, she's got, I think she's got a lot more depth to her character than I think we've kind of initially given her credit for, uh, in the previous stories that we've seen.
(35:47):
And, and, uh, she's such a soft-spoken person, but she's, she's different than Padme, who is like a very, uh, you know, like whip out the gun and just get in the action sort of girl.
Whereas like Mon is like totally not like that. And, you know, as she's being rescued from the Senate by Andor, we see her kind of like, you know, when, when he kills people, she's like in shock. Right.
But, uh, but at the same time, she's not afraid to get her hands dirty if she's desperate. And I think that key word of like desperation is sort of what drives a lot of the decisions that a lot of these characters make through this particular story.
(36:18):
And, and, um, that was something I appreciated a lot about how these characters were written here was that desperation is, is kind of on their mind all the time.
Like constantly they're, they're, they're desperate under the current circumstances because of the new empire and the way that things worked out.
And, uh, uh, yeah, like the set, the separatist, uh, senators, like they're only maybe going along with things because they're desperate.
(36:42):
Like their, their entire reason for fighting a war was just kind of demolished, like, you know, within a matter of days and, and, uh, uh, you know, what point is there to kind of carry on that fight?
So, um, yeah, lots of, uh, lots of desperation going around.
Uh, one of the things that she really, um, was trying to push is this, um, it was called, what was the bill called?
(37:03):
It was, uh, the, uh, yes, that was the one.
Yeah.
So her, her strategy, the Imperial Rebirth Act was to put the power back in the hands of the people, so to speak.
Um, and, uh, and like, what, what did you think of that?
And then how we saw things kind of come together at the end with, um, uh, a small appearance from Masamita, uh, at the very end of this story and him showcasing something to her about the empire's plans for, uh, uh, they're kind of like, um, rehabilitation.
(37:33):
Centers, but we could probably imagine them to be like kind of torture centers for people who don't want to comply.
Uh, and, uh, you know, he basically kind of gives two, two, two cents about, about revert, like about, uh, nullifying her bill, which does end up passing.
Um, and, uh, I don't know, like, what, what'd you think of that crazy ending?
Yeah, that ending was intense, but obviously Masamita takes her away to this, uh, to a planet and it's basically got, I think they call them like re-education camps and it's basically, it's basically a veiled way of saying either shut up, get in line or you'll end up in one of these camps.
(38:06):
And he says, we've got one built now, we're building like, I think he says something like seven or eight more on different worlds and we will, we will, uh, get our way.
So yeah, she basically threatens her saying, get in line. So I think that's where she has to realize she potentially has to play the game a bit more.
Uh, yeah. And with the Imperial Rebirth Act, I just thought, obviously we know, I'm like, this isn't going to work.
(38:28):
I mean, cause we were like, Palpatine's, it's like in the Bad Batch where they obviously present that, uh, Ambro Rampart destroyed Kamino and then all of a sudden Palpatine rocks up and he's like, see, I told you.
And then we need Stormtroopers now. And it's like every time he just, he's just one step ahead.
But we don't, we don't, we don't, uh, we don't see the Emperor in these books or all, but he's very heavily alluded to.
(38:51):
And just like in Andor season two, like, you don't have to see him to know. I'm sure he's in the background.
Right.
Scheming.
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Uh, oh yeah. There was something I just missed, uh, I missed here at the end, uh, is Mon Mothma survives,
so right before the events that transpired between her and Masamita, she survives an explosion that happens.
(39:11):
Uh, she's gravely injured and she ends up, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, getting cybernetic replacements installed for her stomach.
So, yeah, she, she kind of gets, um, uh, like a Fennec Shand operation done where, where her stomach needs to be replaced for, in order for her to survive.
And, um, I didn't know that about her. I, I don't know if this was like something that they brought in from the expanded universe and the legends continuity,
(39:36):
or if it's something that is like new for her character, but, uh, nowhere, nowhere in other stories that I've seen her, did they ever indicate that this was like a thing?
Uh, so, I don't know. What are your thoughts on that little piece of story there?
I think, I think that's new. I, I'm with you. I haven't heard, uh, have that sort of procedure before in legends.
I'm not sure. Maybe I, maybe she did, but, uh, I find it interesting. I think the explosion is when she blows up, uh, Sojourn.
(40:03):
I think that's the explosion she's injured in. And, uh, yeah, I find that is interesting because like you said, we, we've never even got like an inkling of that in other stories.
So, uh, I assume that's new to Canon. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I thought so too. I thought it was kind of new to the Canon, uh, but, um, yeah, very, uh, uh, interesting,
interesting little piece of, of knowledge there for, uh, for her. Um, but, uh, yeah, so that, uh, they, they, they tied off the book with a few, uh, sort of loose ends,
(40:34):
no real massive setups for the next book, other than that conversation about how Palpatine and, and his group were going to, uh, basically try and nullify
everything she's worked for throughout this entire story. And, um, kind of expected that to happen, sort of, but, uh, because as we know,
we, we all know how this ends, right? We all know that in about 18 or 19 years, Palpatine dissolves the Senate and takes complete control
(41:00):
of the galaxy as sole, you know, ruler, uh, of everything. And, um, you know, that happens when, when, uh, Tarkin walks in the room
in episode four and, and says that the Imperial Senate has now been, uh, dissolved or whatever he says, right?
And, and, uh, yeah. And then, and then goes on to say how the, the governors within the, um, within the military essentially are going to be
(41:20):
taking control of their respective areas in, in the galaxy. And, uh, yeah, it's, it's, it's an interesting piece of,
it's like a big moment that is kind of very glossed over in like two sentences in the movie. But, um,
but we all know kind of that it's, it's headed in that direction. And, uh, so yeah, I'm very curious,
you know, I'm very curious to see how, uh, this bill is going to get handled in the next story in
(41:44):
the next book. Um, you know, what they're going to do to, you know, nullify it and like how they're
going to go about navigating the legal means of doing that. And if, whether or not there's going to be
like a Senate revolt against that being able to be a possibility. And, uh, maybe what we're going
to work up to is, you know, when I was watching Andor, I couldn't help but notice. And I think
(42:04):
they brought this in from other stories as well, but, uh, the Senate chambers felt a little empty,
you know, compared to how it was before. And maybe it's because people just don't see the,
the use and showing up to work anymore. It's like, you know, what are we doing here? You know,
like, what are we, what are we doing representing our people when there's no point in representing
anybody if, if somebody's just calling all the shots and passing over my job, you know? And,
(42:27):
uh, uh, yeah, I thought, I thought that might, maybe, maybe that's kind of where we're headed
with, with the, uh, the, the storytelling from, from this particular trilogy, but, um, yeah,
very cool stuff. Um, yeah. So, uh, is there anything you wanted to bring up out, uh, anything
else that we may have missed that were kind of big moments here?
One of the big moments in the book is how Saw Gerrera, I think, becomes galactically known
(42:50):
as a terrorist. Basically, there is a planet called Eo de Jurit or something like that.
Ah, yeah.
And I don't know, I don't know how you have it in, uh, across the pond, but in, in the
UK, we have these things called heritage sites and you can't build on them. Like, it's basically
a historical site, like Stonehenge.
Yeah, they're like protected, protected land by the government, you know? Yeah, yeah.
(43:11):
Yeah, we have that. So basically this planet is, is, uh, ancient civilization that's obviously
gone extinct at this point, but it's, it's, as a, as a protected site and basically Saw
Guerrera blows it up and becomes wanted because he's obviously, cause I think it's quite a
well-known, well-loved, right, historical place in the Star Wars galaxy. He blows a big
portion of it and then that's how I think he becomes, cause he's even seen like a, like
(43:33):
a, like a press release or a thing where he's, he's quite happy that he's now notorious.
Yeah. This is, this is also, this is, um, probably a lot of time now, not too much time,
but like enough time after the initial bad batch, uh, appearance that he makes with, um,
with, uh, oh my goodness, clone force 99. Like, I mean, I, I, I think like I would have
(43:55):
really loved sort of, you know, cause we do get into his head a little bit, but, uh, I
would have really loved for him to have kind of referenced that moment that may have only
taken place a few weeks or months earlier. Um, and, uh, but you know, we, we, we didn't
get a mention to that at all, but, uh, that would have been a really nice crossover to
have. That's something I was kind of looking for in this book, um, being him of one of
(44:17):
the main characters, but, uh, but yeah, that's, that's a great moment to bring up. Um, I was
very, cause in the bad batch, he's already being hunted down as an enemy of the empire because
of his growing reputation as a, as a freedom fighter. Right. And so they send
him after they send clone force 99 to take him out because of some of the things he's
(44:38):
already kind of doing to, to piss off the empire. And I just kind of thought it was like
a little, almost a little humorous that the thing that makes him a number one most wanted
was like what he does on, on, uh, on, on this place, you know, to take down like a, like
a national park kind of thing. I just thought it was kind of, uh, it's like, really, that's
(44:58):
what, that's what they're coming after you for now. Like, uh, you know, it's just
one of those. Well, we see in the bad batch, uh, basically
talking about to take him off the board within days of the empire forming. So he sends obviously
clone force 99 to, uh, to take him out. And obviously they don't, but yeah, they were,
they were fully aware of Saul Guerrero, uh, by the time the empire came about.
Yeah. Yeah. Uh, but yeah, big moment in the book. Um, and, um, yeah, definitely, uh, foreshadows
(45:24):
his future extremism. I think that was kind of the point they were trying to make was
that his methods of doing things is, is hurting innocent people. And, uh, you know, I guess
it was a really good way to paint that picture. Um, so yeah, um, we also saw, I know Bale never
really got a crazy good speech in Andor, other than setting up the speech for Mon Mothma, but,
(45:46):
uh, he did make the pitch for Mon Mothma's bill. So even though there's a rivalry or a little bit
of a dislike between those two characters of Mon and Bale, uh, she did trust him enough
to deliver the, the masterful speech for her bill that she worked so hard for throughout
this entire story. So, um, that was really interesting to read. And, uh, you know, his
(46:07):
speech was, was, uh, was, you know, well done and, uh, well executed and, um, very strategized
from a, a point of view that, um, I guess could convince people that may have not been convinced
before, uh, that, that they want to vote for the Imperial Rebirth Act. Like he was
kind of, he put it in a way that was deceptively attractive, you know, to, to vote for this bill
(46:31):
either way. And, uh, and, you know, you know, he succeeded because everyone voted for the
bill, but, but, you know, of course now we'll, we'll see what happens to that. But, uh, that
was a, that was a favorite moment for me as well for, for Bale's character. Um, yeah.
Yeah. Uh, I'm looking at like a top 10 defining moments of this book. I feel like we've definitely
hit them all. Um, like all the things that we mentioned. Um, but, uh, so yeah, I think,
(46:53):
uh, if you're good, then we can, we can move on to giving this some Pablo points and pudous.
Um, yeah, definitely. Yeah. I'm good. All right. Sweet. So, uh, Pablo points and pudous. Oh,
hold on a second. Let's, uh, let's queue up the music here. All right. So Pablo points and
pudous is our rating system on the podcast. Um, I feel like you might be, uh, familiar with
(47:14):
it by now, but we'll just, uh, we go over for our listeners who might be a first timers
here. So, uh, three Pablo pudous is like terrible. Two Pablo pudous is really bad. One Pablo pudou
is just bad. A bendu is a 50% score. It's kind of like, you know, so, so, uh, one Pablo point
(47:34):
is good. Two Pablo points is great. And three Pablo points is terrific. The best of the best.
And there's point fives in there as well, if you want to give it a point five. Uh, so, uh, what would
you give the mask of fear brand of the reign of the empire? Number one, would you, what would you
give it? Well, I always, I always great stuff on the Darth Plagueis scale. So Darth Plagueis in
(48:00):
your scoring system would be three Pablo points. So I would give mask of fear one. I thought it was
good. Yep. Yeah. I think it has a potential to be great. Obviously when we see what happens with
the, the menu of the trilogy. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I agree. I agree. All right. Yeah. So, uh, okay. So
you get a one Pablo point. Uh, all right. Darian gave it, uh, Darian's, uh, our other, uh, our other
(48:22):
friend here who, uh, uh, would have been here today, but, um, he, he read the book and he's given
a 1.5 Poodoos. So he, uh, I don't think he really didn't like it. Um, I gave it a, uh,
a 0.5 Pablo point. So like a little, a little under you. Uh, but I think, I feel like you
and I are pretty synced up on this score, but, um, but at the same time, I think the
(48:45):
one thing that took it down a 0.5 for me was that the book felt quite long at times.
And, um, it just like, as much as I appreciated the plot and the characters and, and kind of
what it got into, I also felt like it was maybe longer than it needed to be for us, for
the, for the setup of what it's going to be a trilogy of events. Um, I'm hoping that the
(49:08):
next two books don't really, uh, I hope they maybe cap it at like 55 chapters or something.
I feel like 72 may have been a bit, a bit much, but, um, you know, we'll, uh, I'm more of
a cut to the chase kind of guy, you know, when it comes to, it comes to the stories,
but, um, yeah, it is what it is. Um, all right. Well, uh, that's Pablo points of
(49:28):
poodoo's. Um, and, uh, I think that's everything. Um, I think before we wrap things up, I got
one little piece of news, but before, uh, before I get to that, I just wanted to ask
you what, what's, what's something that you were looking forward to, uh, for, I guess
the remainder of 2025, you know, like, like star Wars fans don't have a crazy amount
coming their way. Um, so, you know, but there's always lots of things that, you know,
(49:53):
it's kind of fly under the radar a little bit. I think visions volume three is, uh, maybe
one of the larger things that's coming out there for the rest of the year, but there
really isn't too much more. There's no more games coming out. I don't think, uh, we just
have books and comics, but what is there something that, you know, is there something
else that you're really looking forward to this year? Uh, there's a couple of things
I'm looking forward to, uh, masters of evil, which is from, uh, which is a new book
(50:18):
coming out from Adam Christopher who wrote the tremendous shadow of the Sith. I'm looking
forward to that. Uh, I'm also looking forward to the 20th anniversary of Avenger the Sith
novelization coming out by Matthew Stover. That's going to have annotations and, uh, that
that comes out in October. And, uh, other than that, no, I'm just looking forward to that.
You see, we haven't got a lot to look forward to, but potentially we could, we could get
(50:39):
Maul's Shadow Lord, uh, very early in 2026. Hopefully anyway.
Oh yeah. Here's hoping. Yeah. That's going to be awesome. Uh, yeah. Awesome. Uh, sweet.
Thanks Ian. Um, always great having you on as always. Um, and, uh, hopefully we do another
one of these, uh, book reviews before the, before the year is up and, uh, you know, catch
(50:59):
up on some more Star Wars. So, uh, you know, big thank you for, uh, for joining us this week.
Always a pleasure, man. I always love coming on.
Awesome. All right. We'll see you in the next one.
All right. Thank you so much to our audience for tuning in as always. Definitely go and,
uh, uh, go follow Ian on, on, uh, on X, um, and, uh, and the social links are going to
(51:25):
be down in the, uh, description below. And, um, we also have some news about orbit key.
We have paired up with them, uh, like maybe once in the past to do a giveaway. And, uh,
they're a fantastic company that makes sort of organizing your, uh, your life, uh, very
pleasant and premium. And, uh, they have everything from key organizers to, uh, uh, to nest
(51:47):
boxes and desk mats, laptop sleeves, everything like that. So, uh, they're having a massive
sale to go and check out orbit key. The links are going to be down below and, uh, we're doing
a giveaway with them. Uh, this time it's going to be 10 winners. So they've been, uh, fantastic
enough to, to offer it for us to run this giveaway for them. And, uh, uh, it's going to be all
Star Wars merch. So we've got some tote bags, key organizers, nest boxes, all that kind of
(52:11):
thing for 10 winners. So check out the link down in the description and, uh, throw your
name in the hat because it could be you. So we will see you in the next one. There's only
a few days left of giveaway. So definitely do it soon. All right. We'll see you in the next
episode of Star Wars Escape Pod. May the force be with you.
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