Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith - The Collected Stories

I went into this book not expecting much of anything, not hearing anything good or bad one way or the other and I came out the other end absolutely loving it! This book is a must read for any fan of Legends or Star Wars books in general, taking place thousands of years before the films and even the KOTOR games, these collected short stories (that all link together) follow a group of Sith who have crash landed on a planet filled with natives. The Sith do what they do best and the story goes on from there. There is a few stories that take place with the same characters but then the timeline jumps forward giving you fresh new characters and a changing world. I was not expecting to love the characters and mythology that Miller created as much as I do. It feels alive and just as Star Wars as anything else you love. If you like stories that take place in the Old Republic you'll love this, if you love the Sith you'll love this, if you love good Star Wars you'll love this! Trust me you've got to read this sooner than later! (I read it in less than a week, you won't get bored!)

For the past few years, the Star Wars Expanded Universe was largely focused on a series of novels collectively called "Fate of the Jedi". One of the major antagonist groups of the story was the so-called "Lost Tribe of the Sith", which pretty much came out of nowhere, spawning the rather memorable Vestara Khai. It also introduced a compelling back story for the Lost Tribe, which was only marginally explored in those novels. Concurrent with the main novels, however, a series of short stories were released (for free, no less) as e-books. Knowing that they would eventually be gathered into one collection, I waited for that to happen. Sure enough, here it is, and perhaps equally as predictable, the collection comes with a novella that brings the sprawling narrative to a firm conclusion. (Notice that the novella wasn't free, only the stories leading up to it; the novella is only available in the collection!) The nature of the collection is such that some of the stories interconnect directly, one after the other, but it covers a period of 2000 years or so before all is said and done. In essence, it is the long process of the arrival of the human Sith to Kesh, their early struggles with non-human fellow Sith and native Keshari, and ultimately their path to survival. (It also leads into the recently started "Lost Tribe of the Sith" comic series from Dark Horse.) By its very nature, the collection is rather narrow in terms of audience. If you didn't read a word of "Fate of the Jedi", and no practically nothing of the much older comics continuity of roughly the same period, a lot of the references and context will mean nothing. There is some basic arc structure to the collection, tying it all together, but I'm not sure it's enough to make this a must-read for the casually initiated. For my own part, the Lost Tribe has represented one of the few opportunities for those working on the Star Wars Expanded Universe to provide the Sith with a reasonable philosophical underpinning for their vision of galactic society. Various books have delved into the struggle to balance Jedi righteousness with a free government, but the Sith (their equal but opposite) has rarely been anything more than monolithically evil and self-serving. To some degree, this book does touch on the notion that the Sith themselves run into the problem of what happens when an entire society builds itself on the notion of individual hunger for power and control. In short, society breaks down in such a situation, unless there is something for that society to strive for as a unit. Looking at this notion from a historical standpoint in the real world, there's some truth to it. But it still retains the primary problem: the Sith remain two-dimensional villains. They don't pursue self-interest logically (a philosophy that recognizes that serving one's own interests means attending to those of society in a rational, balanced fashion), but rather, by constantly trying to screw each other over. It reminds me very much of the depiction of Slytherins in "Harry Potter" or Republicans in just about any Aaron Sorkin production; while there is lip service to the existence of well-balanced individuals in those groups, all too often, it descends into a skewed stereotype. Still, this is not entirely the fault of the author, since this all derives from Lucas' original inability to portray the Sith as anything but melodramatic villains of unimaginable evil. It's not as if Anakin was lured to the Dark Side by persuasive argument! For what it is, the book delivers exactly what one would expect, and provides some solid short stories in the process.

Great read.

The first eight of these collected stories were released as free e-books with the ninth, and final, story being finally released in this book. It appears that the free bits may have disappeared with the collected stories version coming out. What a pain - I wrote reviews for those stories that are now marked "unavailable". Such is life. Anyways, as this is the collected stories, here are my collected reviews with a review for the ninth story added at the end. (spoiler alert level - medium). Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith #1: Precipice Here come the Sith - A Sith ship (the Omen) crashes and the kindly sweet Sith emerge to teach the locals how to get along in peace and kindness. Actually, the Sith are nice at first. This "Lost Tribe of the Sith" episode gives a nice view of how the Sith under Naga Sadow thought and acted. It is also interesting in that it details some of the interplay between the human and Sith races. Overall, this is the tale of arrival and setting up to take control of a new planet. Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith #2: Skyborn Meet the Natives - The Sith arrived and set up camp in the previous episode (Precipice), now it's time to say hello to the neighbors. A local woman introduces the Sith to the local powers that be who are, essentially, dragon riders and the top caste of Kesh society. It turns out they worship deities called the "Skyborne" (opportunity knocks). The Sith form social alliances with various locals to both protect themselves from the far larger local population and to gather some local power. The Sith are also busily trying to gather resources to fix their ship and get back to the war. Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith #3: Paragon Meet the New Boss - In this episode, the Sith have take over Kesh and have mostly given up on ever leaving. It is the effort to fix the ship, however, that had them cooperating so well with each other. Now they are indulging their normal tendencies to fight one another and decide just who is the new boss of Kesh. As long as it isn't a Kesheri (Kesh native), of course. It's nice that the eugenics program is making the Sith so easy to look at, and a lot less red. Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith #4: Savior The Locals Strike Back - The Sith have taken over. Most of the Kesh locals now believe that the Sith actually are the "Skyborn" deities and should be prayed to. The Sith, meanwhile, have figured out they aren't going to be leaving anytime soon. As this episode progresses, some locals recognize the Sith for what they are and try to undermine them. Interestingly, the local Kesh use Sith-style deceit to advance their cause. Maybe they've learned to well from their new masters? Good luck with deceiving the Sith. Side note - the tension finally disappears between the human race and Sith race. It's all part of a eugenics program. Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith #5: Purgatory Let the in-fighting continue - The earlier episodes of this series detailed the Sith taking over the planet. In this episode, they've ruled Kesh for a thousand years. Things are a bit different. For one thing, the original Sith shipwreck contained a bunch of relatively weak and untrained Sith. They were soldiers and sailors, not Lords. No one was even close to being a Sith lord. Now things are different. The Sith don't seem all that stronger in the Force, but they've grown into their mantel of power. In other words, they are a bunch of scheming psychopaths but force choking isn't a big thing. Into all that, an oddly serene dirt farmer catches a young Sith's attention Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith #6: Sentinel There are two sides to the force - This installment follows immediately from the fifth (Purgatory). It turns out that it's pretty hard to completely deceive a Sith who has risen to rule an entire continent. It's much easier to blow them up with a little republic ship. Meanwhile, an ex-Jedi (not fallen, just separated) and a Sith hook up and tune out. Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith #7: Pantheon Dust to Dust - The first few episodes of this series covered the rise of the ship wrecked Sith to rule Kesh. The next couple episodes cover events a thousand years later when the Sith run the place and are at the top of their game. With this seventh installment, another thousand years have passed. The original shipwreck crew have become mythical beings and the nearly complete lack of natural resources on Kesh has brought the Sith low as they no longer reach for the stars or understand their own birthright. In other words, it's kind of like the dark ages in Europe with less opportunity for reprieve. Meanwhile, a scholar tries to tie things together, keep the peace, and preserve what heritage remains. It isn't an easy task with either barbarians or with Sith. Sith barbarians are even nastier to deal with. Another chunk of interest is how wrecked everything is from lack of care. Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith #8: Secrets Losing their religion - The Sith have completely lost faith in having any reason to cooperate. The last one standing is the winner. The Sith have pretty much decided to wreck the place and kill whoever is available for killing. That and maybe it's time to finish off the old abandoned temple. Meanwhile, that scholar heads back to the Omen to discover some secret knowledge. What he finds is a map. A camera on the Omen had survived the crash and had also recorded images of Kesh as the Omen headed in. The Sith decide to curb their murderous rampage return to that old school style of treachery and assassination. Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith #8: Pandemonium Let's do it, do it, do it again - It turns out that the Omen had crashed into about the worst place on Kesh. It's a continent of pretty much dirt and Keshiri. No decent metals and there isn't even good enough wood to go sailing and looking for more stuff to take over. It left the Sith with little to do but breed and in-fight for a few millenia. But... in the previous story "Secrets", they turned up a map showing a second and much nicer continent and decide to head on over for a little how-do-you-do (conquest). A Sith Lord (Sithepher Columbus?) and friends make their way to that bigger and more resource rich continent that is full of unconquered Kesheri. In the negative column, all those unconquered Kesheri know about the Sith, really hate them, and have been preparing. What's a Dark Lord to do? Infiltrate, of course. After all, love and hate are different sides of the same coin.

John Jackson Miller has been amassing an impressive list of Star Wars contributions, notably with his superb run writing the Dark Horse comic series Knights of the Old Republic and then continuing into the Knight Errant series, which is still ongoing. Knight Errant saw him public an excellent full-length novel as well. Here, Mr. Miller writes something with a scope between the comics and the books: nine short stories originally published as e-books (well, at least eight were, with the ninth being exclusive to this trade paperback). These stories were released as free downloads initially and have now been collected into this compendium. I'm old-fashioned when it comes to reading fiction and so was quite pleased to have these tales in print form. The stories contained within Lost Tribe of the Sith: The Collected Stories span slightly over two thousand years of galactic history, starting five thousand years before the Battle of Yavin. The Sith vessel Omen experiences a catastrophic crash on a remote and desolate planet. The crash itself is quite interesting as it completes the story of what happened with the two Sith vessels on a doomed mining mission at the outset of Paul S. Kemp's Crosscurrent. The Sith Lord commanding the vessel, Yaru Korsin, sets off to build a new civilization with the extremely limited resources available on this new world. Fortunately for the Sith, they quickly meet a native people and are able to start leveraging their existing mythology and beliefs to benefit the Sith. There are several tensions presented in the first few short stories (which tell one complete story before time jumps forward) which are dramatic and intriguing. The first is between the Sith of human/alien origin and the Massassi who have traditionally been subjugated by the Sith. The Massassi do not adapt well to the alien environment, to say the least, and there is a quick rebalancing among the survivors of Omen's crash. The other tension of greatest interest is between the native Keshiri and the Sith accidental invaders. At first a Keshiri named Adari is excited to meet the new visitors but over time she is saddened to realize the underlying evil of the Sith culture and she starts to see a need for the Keshiri to protect themselves. The fifth story of the nine jumps forward over one thousand years to the time of the Knights of the Old Republic and Darth Revan. Several stories cover this era and then we have a final jump forward to 2975 BBY (Before the Battle of Yavin) as the book concludes. Mr. Miller does a good job of connecting these stories together and presents the overall evolution of a stable Sith society in a convincing manner. No easy trick considering Sith nature is to prey upon the weak and not help those in need. These Sith evolve into a more secure society than any others we've seen presented in the Star Wars galaxy to date. I favor full-length novels over short stories, as I often struggle to get into a short story in the limited pages it is allotted, but Mr. Miller does well in making these chronologically disparate tales hang together. Some characters do not have much opportunity to develop but giving several stories in a row to the same group gives the main ones a little room to grow. The world the Sith are stranded on is compelling, with its lack of raw materials and general remoteness from the galaxy at large. The Lost Tribe of the Sith plays a major role in the Fate of the Jedi saga and so I chose to read this collection just before plunging into those nine books. Even though its characters do not appear in Fate of the Jedi, the background it gives to this unique Sith group is welcome. The story of the Lost Tribe is also being expanded upon in an ongoing Dark Horse comics series. I wouldn't recommend this story collection to a casual Star Wars reader but I would definitely do so to anyone interested in reading Fate of the Jedi or learning more about a different take on a Sith society.

When this became next on the list to read, I thought I was going to be sleepy from boredom, with enough irrelevance to just not be interested. I was wrong. All these stories span a couple thousand years, starting with the Sith miners arriving on Kesh, from being ambushed on their ship and crash landing. They start a civilization with the natives, and these stories are the 2,000 years of that influence. These stories are connect through time done well by the author, this is a good read.

Instead of following the straight line of events through the Star Wars history, the Lost Tribe of the Sith is like a detour. Kind of like going to Sea World or Universal Studios in the middle of your vacation to Disneyworld. I found these short stories interesting enough to re-read and take notes so that I could tie it altogether when I read the other tie-in books. I'm not sure how each short ties in with the others in the collected book, for that matter I'm not sure how the book ties in with the whole scheme of the Star Wars Universe just yet, but I assume that will happen when I read the tie-in books that will involve Luke, Leia, and her children. This is just part of the fun of Star Wars, like waiting for Episodes I II and III. Of course all good stories have a few twist and turns and so does the final episode. There is enough action to keep you interested and reading. And I want to get to the tie-in books, but there are many references to the Thrawn Triology and the New Jedi Era that I need to read these before.

I actually downloaded all these book at once on my kindle, but now I have them all collected in one shiny package with the never before released last part. Man was this a fun ride. This series covers the lost sith tribe we got to see glimpses in the fate of the jedi series. It shows just how far back greed and corruption of the sith actually go. Even right from the start when the a whole sith tribe is about to be wiped out by a space shuttle crash. It really shows the downside to the sith empire. Everyone wants to be on top and because there is so much backstabbing and corruption the sith will never succeed. Like most novel in the Star Wars universe this is a great read the stories or short and to the point and just plain fun. So pick it up.