Revenge of the Sith

**Avi_stetto** · April 27th, 2005, 12:41 PM

I finished this last Saturday, and it was worth every minute of the read. I really liked how Stover delved into the emotional aspects of Anakin's descent.

I was suprised at how small a role Padme had in the book. It was really heavily focused on Anakin and Palpatine, which was really cool.

**Desert Summer** · May 14th, 2005, 02:36 AM

Seems like I missed a forum in my travels earlier this week.

Matt Stover's interview on The Dragon Page is now available for download, as well as airing this weekend on the syndicated stations.

Go to The Dragon Page's most recent "Cover to Cover" show and download the MP3.

Summer

**Gary Wassner** · May 16th, 2005, 02:41 PM

Summer - could you post some better instructions for downloading the interviews? I can't seem to find the right place on your website.

**Desert Summer** · May 17th, 2005, 06:33 PM

If you go to that link for Cover to Cover #165, you'll see a link that says "Download Cover to Cover #165", just above the "Vote at Podcast Alley" image.

If you hover over that link, it should point to an MP3 of last week's show.

From there, you can right-click on the link to save it to disk (or Ctrl-click then "Save as" if you're using a Mac (yay you!)), then once it's saved, you should be able to play the file in your favorite MP3 player.

Same procedure for any of the shows still available online (about a month's worth, 8 shows total).

If you're still having problems, let me know (but just fyi, I'm not a Windows person, not in the least).

**Shehzad** · May 20th, 2005, 08:14 PM

Matt: if you're reading this, you've succeeded.

Having seen the movie, the book augments the movie superbly. It's almost a must-read for anybody who enjoyed the movie.

Wow.

**Erfael** · May 21st, 2005, 10:03 AM

Originally Posted by Shehzad

Matt: if you're reading this, you've succeeded.

Having seen the movie, the book augments the movie superbly. It's almost a must-read for anybody who enjoyed the movie.

Wow.

I haven't seen the movie yet, and I was distinctly unexcited about the whole thing after the first two, but I've been going to my local B&N to read the book, and after spending about 4 hours there yesterday and being about halfway through, I just had to buy it. I couldn't wait until the next time I had enough time to go sit at the bookstore to read it. And given the strength of the novel, I'll probably even crumble and go see the movie, though I don't really expect it to compare favorably with what I'm reading now. Again, nice job Matt for creating something so compelling.

**JRMurdock** · May 22nd, 2005, 09:35 AM

Ditto here Matt. Love the book. It gave a whole new dimmension to the movie. The movie actually lacked in my opinion. Of course, that's after reading the book.

Time to go back and give BoT and HD another chance methinks.

At least you didn't have to write Jar Jar into any scenes

**RAD** · September 25th, 2005, 01:13 AM

Question for MWS

I've been reading Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea books (I'm almost done with "The Farthest Shore") and I notice how similar Anakin's and Dooku's experience with the dark side was to Sparrowhawk's feekings when he tried to open the door to death in "Wizard of Earthsea." To paraphrase LeGuin, he feels as if he's become the center of the universe, will all magic and the world made to serve him.

Later, in "The Farthest Shore," the King in the dark place and his followers sound very much like Sith in their attempts to gain immortality. In contrast, Sparrowhawk's and Ogion's descriptions of what magic is and what it means to be a mage are...welll...Jedi-like in a lot of ways. Jedi-like as you've described it, at least.

Was this a concious effort on your part when you were depicting Anakin's fall and the Force in general? If not, was there any particular sort of philosophy on which you were modeling your take on events?

**MWStover** · October 4th, 2005, 09:32 AM

Originally Posted by RAD

Question for MWS

Was this a concious effort on your part when you were depicting Anakin's fall and the Force in general? If not, was there any particular sort of philosophy on which you were modeling your take on events?

Well, yeah.

Jedi philosophy.

Which is consciously based, by Mr. Lucas, on classical (non-dogmatic, non-ritualized, straight from the Old Boy's mouth, er, pen) Taoism.

"The name which can be named is not the eternal Name" can also be literally translated as "The force which can be forced is not the eternal Force."

Which would very likely be the basis for the spirituality in LeGuin's books as well, since I am aware she has, for example, done a very well-regarded translation of the TAO TI CHING.

Remember that I wrote REVENGE after not only spending a LOT of time thinking and writing about Jedi and the Force (more than two years, in fact) but after meeting with George Lucas to make sure that my impressions were the precisely the ones we both wanted people to get. Remember too that Mr. Lucas went through my manuscript word-for-word, to make sure that there would be no misinterpretation.

I'm pretty sure we got it right.

**allanon** · November 29th, 2005, 10:33 AM

The book is excellent, I cried when count Dooku died. It was so sad, lord Tyrannos was a idealist, Palpatine manipulated him...

**saintjon** · April 22nd, 2006, 03:00 PM

I pulled into my parking space at my apartment building a few hours ago and just flipped open the book on a whim (I've been very curious about how the big showdown between Obi-wan and Grievous goes down in this book) and I found myself reading through Obi-wan and Anakin's first encounter with the Big G and I was just totally blown away by the awesome tour through the mind of a Jedi warrior on Obi-wan's level. I ended up just sitting in my car for a good 10 minutes completely engrossed in an encounter I already knew the outcome too. I wish I'd read the book before I saw the movie now!

If I was bowed to your writing before, Matt, I'm pretty well prostrated on the ground now. Great job!

**TheIELighten** · February 27th, 2012, 03:47 PM

I bought the hardcover edition from a bargain rack at B. Dalton several weeks before the movie came out. I was amazed at how good it was. One of the best character studies I have ever read. I was disappointed by the movie just because I liked the book so much better!

Haven't read anything else by Stover, yet, but I do want to.