One for 2014? 'Maul: Lockdown' (Joe Schreiber)

I promise there won't be too many more of these... It's just that my other reading has stalled while I'm finishing the last 'Black Company' book for Tor.com. Ok, I've stalled on that book as well. Oh well, anyway... Check out my latest 'heads up' on a book that I think could be worth looking at next year (January next year to be more precise),

In a tale of retribution and survival set before the events of The Phantom Menace, Darth Plagueis
and Darth Sidious dispatch Sith apprentice Darth Maul on a secret mission to infiltrate a criminal empire operating from inside Cog Hive Seven--a hidden prison teeming with the galaxy's most savage criminals. There, he must contend against the scummiest and most villainous in gladiatorial death matches while carrying out his masters' clandestine commands. Failure is not an option; success will ignite the revenge of the Sith against the Jedi Order.

All my reasons for not reading Star Wars fiction still stand (too many to go into here) but I am prepared to make an exception in this case. Schreiber wrote the excellent 'Death Troopers' and 'Red Harvest' as well as 'No Doors, No Windows' (not a Star Wars book). If he can bring some of the horror and menace to 'Maul: Lockdown' that he did with 'Death Troopers' (both set in prison facilities) then we're in for a Star Wars novel that bucks tradition and actually does something new. Please let that happen... I'll be reading 'Maul: Lockdown' very soon so I'll let you know what I think.