Star Wars: Tarkin by: James Luceno

 

Peter Cushing’s performance is one of those elements of Star Wars that doesn’t get discussed in larger circles, people being more interested in how it lays the groundwork for the trilogy with The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi often overshadowing Star Wars, for good reason.  Cushing, however, is one of the actors that really ties the original film together, acting as the primary antagonist and as an actor is a guide for Carrie Fisher’s performance in particular.  Tarkin is a novel that expands upon Grand Moff Tarkin as a character leading up to the beginning of the Death Star’s construction after the events of Revenge of the Sith.  This is a novel of two halves, the first being interspersed with flashback’s to Tarkin’s upbringing and first meetings with Senator Palpatine.  It’s these sections where author James Luceno excels at portraying the nature of Tarkin’s family and personhood, focusing on the general ruthlessness and awareness of what he is doing.  There aren’t excuses made and this novel isn’t portraying the character as at all sympathetic, Luceno is portraying a fascist rising the ranks of a democracy in the middle of a fascist takeover.  This is a particularly difficult task after all, one pitfall would be attempts to make Tarkin sympathetic which is avoided by making it very clear that his ambition is both something instilled in the character from his upbringing as well as making them his ambitions.  The man is immediately willing to grab at any piece of power he can while having this gentlemanly attitude towards the galaxy at large: he will stab you in the back but while he do it there will be such a niceness to it that you can’t help but be charmed by the man.  Luceno makes this partially a mask the character is wearing and developing, but not a mask of lies, Tarkin is that manipulative but still develops it over time.

 

Where the back half of the book excels is not the plot, that is actually the weaker aspect of the novel becoming a bit too obsessed with getting the reader to the point of the Death Star being built and as such many of the subplots are particularly shallow, but portraying the trio of Tarkin, Vader, and the Emperor.  The Emperor as a character obviously had a particular image and this novel was published after the prequel trilogy released, but Luceno is interested in characterizing Palpatine as he was in the original trilogy.  This is a character who has won everything and it is almost a clash of genres whenever Palpatine and Tarkin interact, Palpatine is a megalomaniac while Tarkin is a Peter Cushing character.  There is a moment where Tarkin refers to the Emperor by his first name which stood out in particular: it creates a moment of humanization to the evil again without creating sympathy for the devil.  Darth Vader completes the trilogy and it is utterly fascinating to keep the stoic and calm Vader of Star Wars throughout this novel which features quite a bit of scheming to keep the Empire’s power intact.  The fragile situation of the Empire is particularly fascinating, something that would be maintained throughout its rule.

 

Overall, Tarkin works at its best when it is focused in on being a character study, especially in the first half where that’s all it is doing.  The second half suffers by rushing through to the point where Star Wars needs to begin and the Death Star needs to be built and that rush really brings down what could have been a great book to just a pretty good one.  7/10.