The Masks of Worry is the Star Wars Guide for the ...

Alexander Freed has written a few of the most compelling books of Star Wars‘ fashionable period, however I don’t suppose that makes him psychic. It could be straightforward to prescribe an eerie sense of clairvoyance to a ebook like his newest, The Mask of Fear, releasing for the time being in time it does within the early months of the second Trump administration–despite the fact that nobody in its creation might’ve predicted the methods its examination of the early weeks of the Galactic Empire’s institution might map onto information tales and headlines we’re seeing daily.

Nevertheless it wouldn’t precisely be truthful–I’m positive Freed, like many people, didn’t see half the issues we’ve heard about up to now few weeks coming, in essentially the most particular of senses. It wouldn’t be honest to Masks of Worry, the primary in a deliberate trilogy of novels throughout a trifecta of authors attributable to launch throughout the subsequent few years, to take action both. In reality, Freed is solely doing what Star Wars has all the time carried out, mapping a cycle in politics that speaks to, and displays in myriad methods, the American empire in varied states of decline.

This has been a purpose of the sequence for the reason that very begin, from Lucas’ intended parallels between the Insurgent Alliance’s guerrilla warfare and the Vietnam warfare–framing the Empire itself to American pursuits–to the methods the prequel trilogy examined a corrupted authorities usurped and reworked, although warfare and different means, right into a fascistic surveillance state on the peak of the warfare on terror. It’s been a purpose past him, suffused into the very means Star Wars is now, with up to date tales like Ahsoka, Andor, and The Mandalorian which have all mirrored in some small methods on the recurrent political nature of its world, and the way that may relate to America’s personal alternation between liberal and conservative powers.

In some methods, it could additionally not totally be both honest or truthful to check Masks of Worry to the Star Wars textual content it has been most in comparison with because it was first introduced, the aforementioned Andor. Sure, it definitely focuses on characters that bought a highlight in that glorious sequence (within the type of Mon Mothma and Noticed Gerrera, who, alongside Bail Organa, are the three major pillars Masks builds itself round), and positively evokes the equally darker and grounded tone of a political thriller.

However it could be extra honest to say that Andor and Masks deal with the same thought from the angle of two very totally different contexts. Andor begins its story simply 5 years earlier than the occasions of Rogue One and A New Hope: the Empire is properly established because the de facto ruling energy of the galaxy, its grip tightened, and the constructions of resistance we see fomenting beneath that grip are factions we’re not assembly of their most nascent kinds. They’re not fairly the organized resistance that might entrance a galactic civil warfare but, however they’ve been combating the Empire in some kind or one other for lengthy whereas.

The Masks of Worry sits at virtually the precise reverse finish of that chronological spectrum. Set simply weeks after the top of Revenge of the Sith, the Empire itself nonetheless barely greater than a reputation and sweeping array of government motion from Palpatine, the ebook is fascinated with exploring two particular concepts: what it seems to be prefer to have an authoritarian regime out of the blue speed up into energy off of the again of populism, and what any type of unified pushback to that energy seize can appear to be at its most prototypical, as individuals slowly however certainly start to understand simply what they’re really coping with.

There are of course parts of espionage and subterfuge interwoven all through the three major arcs of the ebook–Mon Mothma rallying political help within the now-Imperial Senate for a invoice trying to muzzle Palpatine’s government energy, Bail desperately searching for to reveal the reality concerning the destruction of the Jedi Order, and Noticed encountering a former Separatist sleeper agent reckoning along with his place in newfound resistance to the previous Republic. However Masks of Worry is, at its core, an intensely political ebook.

What meaning is just not essentially that Masks of Worry trades scenes of covert motion for rigorous debate about coverage. However as an alternative that, no matter which pillar of the narrative we’re specializing in–or the handful of latest characters that get woven via these storylines to supply their very own insights and views into this fascinating interval of Star Wars‘ timeline–Masks of Worry is deeply within the politics of individuals, of coalition constructing, of morals being reshaped or forged apart out of the perceived requirements of constructing a coherent motion.

All three pillars of Masks of Worry ultimately intersect, however despite the fact that we all know that in some unspecified time in the future Bail, Mon, and Noticed will all ostensibly be in alliance with one another for a time, what defines them most on this ebook is the very lifelike sense that they’re all people with comparable, but wildly totally different targets and beliefs. But Freed establishes a maturity in his writing and characterisation that isn’t afraid to mine these divides, and push away or pull collectively these characters, in sudden methods.

These fundamental views within the ebook all signify totally different sides of the Revolt as we are going to come to understand it. Mon nonetheless has religion in political techniques and actions no matter both their corruption within the waning days of the Republic or Palpatine’s usurpation of them. Bail is seen by others and infrequently by himself as being so blinded in exposing the reality about Order 66, that he could be silly sufficient to consider simply cracking the case would put Palpatine away without end (Freed by no means pushes Bail fairly far sufficient right into a direct parallel to how some individuals seen Robert Mueller’s investigation into interference within the 2016 U.S. presidential election, however there’s definitely echoes of that there, simply as there are echoes to up to date U.S. politics all through the ebook). Noticed, whereas arguably the least-explored of the trio on this explicit a part of the trilogy, is already properly into the method of his radicalization in the direction of extremist motion being the one possible counterpoint to excessive authoritarianism, no matter value.

Masks of Worry is at its best possible when it’s about exploring these differing views, and coming to some extent the place they could be synthesized right into a coalition of resistance. Palpatine could also be a specter that lingers over everything of the ebook, however he’s not a gift, cackling villain for a bunch of heroes to face and defeat. The battle is as an alternative both inner as these political opinions and beliefs take maintain, or about a lot smaller battles, acts that finally come all the way down to the easy selection of whether or not or to not adjust to a regime that has come rumbling into the corridors of energy, tearing up established precedent alongside the best way.

It’s that latter feeling that may maybe resonate with audiences essentially the most, particularly these anxious concerning the current state of the U.S.. Whereas the parallels might really feel significantly pointed studying this within the right here and now, once more, Freed is just not writing from a degree of precognition–and neither is his writing unsubtle sufficient the place circumstances would demand that Mon Mothma proverbially turned to the reader and stated “vote blue irrespective of who” to hammer a degree house. The Masks of Worry is as a lot about America in 2025 as it’s concerning the nation because it was in 2016, because it was in 2001, because it was within the ’80s and ’70s–because it, or some other nation could also be at any interval in its future, grapples with the specter of authoritarians and oligarchs.

A lesser story might have merely gestured in the direction of the present state of the world, performed the proverbial “so that is how liberty dies” clip from Revenge of the Sith, and left it there, however Masks of Worry is much smarter than that. What Freed is exploring on this ebook, via the framework of Star Wars‘ personal established historical past and political infrastructures, is concepts which have resonated all through the franchise from the very starting. In doing so via a matured lens–via characters that, whereas we all know their eventual fates, are largely nonetheless early sufficient of their journeys to these fates they are often explored in fascinating depth–Freed weaves a narrative that’s gripping past its parallels to the world outdoors our home windows, however one that’s nonetheless deeply enriched by them.

Most apparently and most fittingly for this ebook then, each as the primary in a trilogy and for its broader perspective of Star Wars‘ battle towards fascism, Masks of Worry is just not actually a ebook that has a specific finish. Threads conclude, definitely, however each we the viewers and the story know that that is just the start of a motion many years within the making. There isn’t any clear villain to be bested on this ebook, however as an alternative an acknowledgement to be accepted: that resistance takes time, it takes constructing alliances, it takes the braveness to face for what you really consider in in a world swept up within the harmful allures of populist, authoritarian enchantment, and that none of it’s straightforward.

Star Wars does, after all, sometimes permit itself the luxurious fantasy of a singular and open evil to face down and defeat, and there may be pleasure in that. However The Masks of Worry relishes in a world that, within the current second, lacks that–and for all its darkish shadows, it finds an excessive amount of mild in reckoning that the combat have to be fought anyway.

Star Wars: Reign of the Empire – The Masks of Worry hits cabinets February 25. A complicated copy was supplied for evaluation.

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