Alexander Freed has written some of the most compelling books of Star Wars‘ modern era, but I don’t think that makes him psychic. It would be easy to prescribe an eerie sense of clairvoyance to a book like his latest, The Mask of Fear, releasing at the moment in time it does in the early months of the second Trump administration–even though no one in its creation could’ve predicted the ways its examination of the early weeks of the Galactic Empire’s establishment could map onto news stories and headlines we’re seeing every day.
But it wouldn’t exactly be truthful–I’m sure Freed, like many of us, did not see half the things we’ve heard about in the past few weeks coming, in the most specific of senses. It wouldn’t be fair to Mask of Fear, the first in a planned trilogy of novels across a trifecta of authors due to release within the next few years, to do so either. In actuality, Freed is simply doing what Star Wars has always done, mapping a cycle in politics that speaks to, and reflects in myriad ways, the American empire in various states of decline.
This has been a goal of the series since the very start, from Lucas’ intended parallels between the Rebel Alliance’s guerrilla warfare and the Vietnam war–framing the Empire itself to American interests–to the ways the prequel trilogy examined a corrupted government usurped and transformed, though war and other means, into a fascistic surveillance state at the height of the war on terror. It’s been a goal beyond him, suffused into the very way Star Wars is now, with contemporary stories like Ahsoka, Andor, and The Mandalorian that have all reflected in some small ways on the recurrent political nature of its world, and how that can relate to America’s own alternation between liberal and conservative powers.
In some ways, it would also not entirely be either fair or truthful to compare Mask of Fear to the Star Wars text it has been most compared to since it was first announced, the aforementioned Andor. Yes, it certainly focuses on characters that got a spotlight in that excellent series (in the form of Mon Mothma and Saw Gerrera, who, alongside Bail Organa, are the three primary pillars Mask builds itself around), and certainly evokes the similarly darker and grounded tone of a political thriller.
But it would be more fair to say that Andor and Mask tackle a similar idea from the perspective of two very different contexts. Andor begins its tale just 5 years before the events of Rogue One and A New Hope: the Empire is well established as the de facto ruling power of the galaxy, its grip tightened, and the structures of resistance we see fomenting underneath that grip are factions we are not meeting in their most nascent forms. They’re not quite the organized resistance that would front a galactic civil war yet, but they’ve been fighting the Empire in some form or another for a good long while.
The Mask of Fear sits at almost the exact opposite end of that chronological spectrum. Set just weeks after the end of Revenge of the Sith, the Empire itself still barely more than a name and sweeping array of executive action from Palpatine, the book is interested in exploring two specific ideas: what it looks like to have an authoritarian regime suddenly accelerate into power off of the back of populism, and what any kind of unified pushback to that power grab can look like at its most prototypical, as people slowly but surely begin to realise just what they’re actually dealing with.
There are naturally elements of espionage and subterfuge interwoven throughout the three primary arcs of the book–Mon Mothma rallying political support in the now-Imperial Senate for a bill attempting to muzzle Palpatine’s executive power, Bail desperately seeking to expose the truth about the destruction of the Jedi Order, and Saw encountering a former Separatist sleeper agent reckoning with his place in newfound resistance to the former Republic. But Mask of Fear is, at its core, an intensely political book.
What that means is not necessarily that Mask of Fear trades scenes of covert action for rigorous debate about policy. But instead that, regardless of which pillar of the narrative we’re focusing on–or the handful of new characters that get woven through those storylines to offer their own insights and perspectives into this fascinating period of Star Wars‘ timeline–Mask of Fear is deeply interested in the politics of people, of coalition building, of morals being reshaped or cast aside out of the perceived necessities of making a coherent movement.
All three pillars of Mask of Fear eventually intersect, but even though we know that at some point Bail, Mon, and Saw will all ostensibly be in alliance with each other for a time, what defines them most in this book is the very realistic sense that they are all individuals with similar, yet wildly different goals and beliefs. Yet Freed establishes a maturity in his writing and characterisation that isn’t afraid to mine those divides, and push away or pull together these characters, in unexpected ways.
Those main perspectives in the book all represent different facets of the Rebellion as we will come to know it. Mon still has faith in political systems and actions regardless of either their corruption in the waning days of the Republic or Palpatine’s usurpation of them. Bail is seen by others and occasionally by himself as being so blinded in exposing the truth about Order 66, that he might be foolish enough to believe just cracking the case would put Palpatine away forever (Freed never pushes Bail quite far enough into a direct parallel to how some people viewed Robert Mueller’s investigation into interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, but there’s certainly echoes of that there, just as there are echoes to contemporary U.S. politics throughout the book). Saw, while arguably the least-explored of the trio in this particular part of the trilogy, is already well into the process of his radicalization towards extremist action being the only feasible counterpoint to extreme authoritarianism, regardless of cost.
Mask of Fear is at its very best when it is about exploring these differing views, and coming to a point where they might be synthesized into a coalition of resistance. Palpatine may be a specter that lingers over the entirety of the book, but he is not a present, cackling villain for a group of heroes to face and defeat. The conflict is instead either internal as these political views and beliefs take hold, or about much smaller battles, acts that ultimately come down to the simple choice of whether or not to comply with a regime that has come rumbling into the corridors of power, tearing up established precedent along the way.
It is that latter feeling that will perhaps resonate with audiences the most, especially those anxious about the current state of the U.S.. While the parallels may feel particularly pointed reading this in the here and now, again, Freed is not writing from a point of precognition–and neither is his writing unsubtle enough where circumstances would demand that Mon Mothma proverbially turned to the reader and said “vote blue no matter who” to hammer a point home. The Mask of Fear is as much about America in 2025 as it is about the country as it was in 2016, as it was in 2001, as it was in the ’80s and ’70s–as it, or any other nation may be at any period in its future, grapples with the threat of authoritarians and oligarchs.
A lesser story may have simply gestured towards the current state of the world, played the proverbial “so this is how liberty dies” clip from Revenge of the Sith, and left it there, but Mask of Fear is far smarter than that. What Freed is exploring in this book, through the framework of Star Wars‘ own established history and political infrastructures, is ideas that have resonated throughout the franchise from the very beginning. In doing so through a matured lens–through characters that, while we know their eventual fates, are largely still early enough in their journeys to those fates they can be explored in fascinating depth–Freed weaves a story that is gripping beyond its parallels to the world outside our windows, but one that is still deeply enriched by them.
Most interestingly and most fittingly for this book then, both as the first in a trilogy and for its broader perspective of Star Wars‘ battle against fascism, Mask of Fear is not really a book that has a particular end. Threads conclude, certainly, but both we the audience and the story know that this is just the beginning of a movement decades in the making. There is no clear villain to be bested in this book, but instead an acknowledgement to be accepted: that resistance takes time, it takes building alliances, it takes the courage to stand for what you truly believe in in a world swept up in the dangerous allures of populist, authoritarian appeal, and that none of it is easy.
Star Wars does, of course, occasionally allow itself the luxurious fantasy of a singular and open evil to face down and defeat, and there is joy in that. But The Mask of Fear relishes in a world that, in the present moment, lacks that–and for all its dark shadows, it finds a great deal of light in reckoning that the fight must be fought anyway.
Star Wars: Reign of the Empire – The Mask of Fear hits shelves February 25. An advanced copy was provided for review.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
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