The Wrath of Darth Maul by Ryder Windham

I was very impressed by The Wrath of Darth Maul, especially because I really didn't expect it to be a great book. In case you didn't know already, Darth Maul is one of the evil characters of Star Wars that gets killed off way too quickly in Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. The author, Ryder Windham, shows the reader a side of Darth Maul that we never got to see before: the creation of Maul. The book starts off with his childhood, then goes on to show the many years of intense training with the dark Sith Lord, Darth Sidious. At some point, I start to feel bad for Maul, realizing that it wasn't his choice to be born into darkness. Maul was just an innocent, curious little boy that was taught to embrace his anger and use it to hunt down the weaker species. Windham does an excellent job of leading the story up to the point where the Phantom Menace begins. It's very interesting hearing about the events that took place from someone else's point of view, especially during the final battle. Towards the end, a hero known as Obi-Wan Kenobi slices Maul right through the middle, letting his remains fall into a huge pit. In the movie, you automatically assume that Maul died, but in the book, that's not what happens. The main character somehow survived the maim and the fall, but lost his memory during the recovery! Windham then takes some information from the TV series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars by bringing in a recently made character, Savage Opress. Opress comes looking for Maul, and takes him along in his ship. The story ends will Maul thinking about how he will destroy Obi-Wan. I loved this book! I think my favorite part was Darth Maul's character change, how he went from an open minded child to a ruthless, angry killer. This makes me think that behind every character, good or bad, there is always a story to how they got to their position now.