By Mike Snider, USA Today, Apr. 1, 2005

Darth Vader returns … to bookstores this weekend, six weeks before the final Star Wars film hits theaters.

On sale Saturday (or at midnight tonight at some stores): Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith (Del Rey Books, $26), a 419-page novel based on George Lucas’ story and screenplay for Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, which opens May 19.

For fans of the six-part saga, the book invites a peek into how Lucas bridges the second and fourth episodes (2002’s Attack of the Clones and 1977’s A New Hope), offering details about how Anakin Skywalker is transformed into the evil Lord Vader.

“In broad outline, we already know what’s going to happen,” says Matthew Stover, who wrote the Revenge of the Sith novel. “We just don’t know how Mr. Lucas is going to present it to us.”

Some tidbits gleaned from Stover’s version (stop reading if you want Sith the movie to be a 100% surprise):

Skywalker’s destiny. Now a Jedi Knight, Skywalker is turned to the dark side of the Force by Chancellor Palpatine, who is really the Sith Lord Darth Sidious. He makes Anakin jealous of his wife, Senator Padme Amidala, and suspicious of his former master, Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Annihilation of the Jedi. The Jedi are wiped out, except for Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda.

The man in black. In an inevitable showdown, Obi-Wan and Anakin (now called Darth Vader) duel. Both survive, but Vader is injured so severely that Palpatine/Sidious must place him in the infamous lifesaving outfit.

The fate of Senator Amidala and her offspring. Amidala dies in childbirth, but not before naming her twins Leia and Luke. They are separated and hidden so that the Sith do not find out they exist.

A new hope. After escaping from Palpatine/Sidious, a mediating Yoda is contacted by Obi-Wan’s late master, Qui-Gon Jinnn, who has learned to live within the Force. Jinn becomes Yoda and Obi-Wan’s new master and trains them to eventually defeat the Sith.

An author of two other Star Wars books, Stover believes that Lucas has masterfully tied up all the loose strands.

“It’s just brilliant. Not only are (fans) going to think this is a great movie, but they are going to go back to Episodes I and II and realize those movies are better than they thought they were.”

Excerpt:

It came when Yoda found himself alone against the dark.

In that lightning-speared tornado of feet and fist and blades and bashing machines, his vision finally pierced the darkness that had clouded the Force.

Finally, he saw the truth.

This truth: that he, the avatar of light, Supreme Master of the Jedi Order, the fiercest, most implacable, most devastatingly powerful foe the darkness had ever known …

Just –

didn’t –

have it.

He’d never had it. He had lost before he started.

He had lost before he was born.

The Sith had changed. The Sith had grown, had adapted, had invested a thousand years’ intensive study into every aspect of not only the Force but Jedi lore itself, in preparation for exactly this day. The Sith had remade themselves.

They had become new.

While the Jedi –

The Jedi had spent that same millennium training to refight the last war.

The new Sith could not be destroyed with a lightsaber; they could not be burned away by any torch of the Force. The brigher his light, the darker their shadow. How could one win a war against the dark, when war itself had become the dark’s own weapon?

He knew, at that instant, that this insight held the hope of the galaxy. But if he fell here, that hope would die with him.

Hmmm, Yoda thought. A problem this is…

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Prepare for a galaxy of “Star Wars” offering

The novelization of Sith heralds a Star Wars assault on bookstores. Other offerings:

The Art of Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (Del Rey, $35) has hundreds of production images, including several of Mustafar, the hellish lava planet where Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi have a final duel, and the medical chamber where Aankin is fitted with the Vader uniform.

The Making of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith ($35; paperback, ($21.95) includes interviews with Lucas and the actors, plus portions of the script at various stages of development.

Revenge of the Sith Illustrated Screenplay ($4.99; price goes to $7.99 on May 19) is an electronic book with the film’s script and photos sold at websites such as amazon.com, bn.com, fictionwise.com. It comes with an another 3-book, The Making of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith – The Final Chapter.

Five children’s books from Random House are the Episode III Scrapbook ($7.99), a photo storybook and a sticker book. From Scholastic, Star Wars: Secrets of the Jedi ($12.95).

A four-part Episode III comic-book adaptation ($2.99 each) from Dark Horse comics also comes in a $12.95 paperback version.

Sith-based Visual Dictionary and The Definitive Guide to Spaceships and Vehicles (Dorling Kindersley; $19.99 each).

The Cinema of George Lucas (Harry N. Abrams Inc., $50), a coffee-table book encompassing his filmmaking career.

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