Revan

LucasBooks breaks up the hundreds of titles in its Star Wars franchise into six distinct eras; Revan is from the oldest (the "Old Republic") and occurs about 3950 years before Episode IV. The plot focuses on Revan, a disgraced Jedi knight trying to get his life back on track after a stint as, of all things, a Sith lord on the dark side. Though Revan's memory has been wiped clean, glimmers of images lead him on adventures that include looking for the Mask of Mandalore on the planet Rekkiad; seeking clues on the spooky, lifeless planet Nathema; and then traveling to the planet Dromund Kaas for a face- off against the Emperor and an up-and-coming Sith named Scourge. With his usual excellence, narrator Marc Thompson masterfully differentiates among the multitude of characters, and while they wouldn't fit every fictive scenario, loads of sf sound effects tend fittingly to amplify the experience. VERDICT Recommended for series fans, this might see unusually high circulation owing to its link with BioWare's Star Wars: The Old Republic massively multiplayer online role-playing video game. [The LucasBooks hc, published in November, was a New York Times best seller.-Ed.]-Douglas C. Lord, Connecticut State Lib., Middletown (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.