Review: Imperator, by Jason Anspach and Nick Cole

The unstoppable team of Anspach and Cole deliver a truly rare thing with Imperator, a prequel that is actually good.

The story

Confession time, this is actually the first book of the Galaxy’s Edge world that I had ever read. As such, it did take me a little time to get into the book. I had no idea what a Goth Sullus or Legion were when I started reading and certainly the authors relied at least a bit on prior knowledge of and investment in the main character and the universe as a whole. However, once I realized I was reading a prequel, the pieces fell into place and I was hooked.

The story is primarily told through a series of flashbacks from the point of view of one Casper Sullivan, jumping back and forth between his early encounters with the Savages, the once rich and powerful who left earth before the invention of faster than light travel, and the Dark Wanderer, his wanderings on a forgotten planet that holds the secret to the Wanderer’s strange power, and training sessions with a person known only as ‘the Master.’ The combined effect is show how a man is transformed from an heroic officer into a galactic dictator with a lust for power.

As the story unfolds, the reader is initially given hope that maybe Casper isn’t walking down that path on purpose, that maybe he will turn away, that maybe he doesn’t become the ruthless Goth Sullus after all. That hope fades, especially over the course of the flashbacks to the Dark Wanderer and his attraction to the power, and the training sessions with the Master. Before the sessions are done, the transformation is complete.

The characters

Being a prequel focused on how one man came to be the kind of predator he once fought against, there are not many characters, meaning that Casper/Goth has to carry the book almost entirely by himself. Fortunately, Cole and Anspach are able take even readers new to this world and bring them into the mind of the most deadly person in the galaxy. Even better they do it without making you think Sullus is justified in becoming what he is. He’s sympathetic in that you can see why he makes the choices he does but not in the modern sense of regarding him as someone who is just misunderstood and needed a couple more hugs growing up. As soon as he saw the otherworldly power of the prophetess, his lust for power and control awoke, a lust that in the end would claim even his best friend.

It was that exposure to power and his unnaturally long life (thanks to experiments conducted on him by the Savages) that gave Casper the opportunity to become Goth Sullus. Perhaps that is the real tragedy of his character. Without either one of those he would never have lived to master the Crux, a power much like the Force, and take over the galaxy. He would most likely have died a good man fighting against the forces of chaos. It prompts the question ‘with unlimited life and power, what would you do?’

There are of course a handful of side characters, most notably TK-111 a psychopathic war droid from an earlier time who is basically Alfred if he were a trigger happy genocidal maniac.

And I would be remiss if I left out Urmo, the strange little creature that appears not long after Casper crashes on the extra-galactic planet he’d spent many hundreds of years searching for. At first, he seems to be barely intelligent, able only to utter the word “Urmo” over and over. As the trek towards the temple Casper is searching for continues, the reader will begin to realize that Urmo just might be something else entirely. If you find yourself thinking about how Yoda first appeared to Luke, you’ll be on the right track.

The world

Anspach and Cole have clearly put a lot of thought into the backstory of Galaxy’s Edge. After Earth has been rendered little more than wasteland with no real hope of ever getting better, the glitterati left, taking off in giant, generational ships that would eventually reach near the speed of light. However, they are not the ones who settled the galaxy. That privilege went to the motivated, the entrepreneurs, the risk takers.

Shortly after the beautiful people abandoned Earth, hyperdrive was invented and the designs distributed for free. Anyone with the motivation and the available parts could build a ship and head out to the stars. By the time, contact was reestablished with the generational ships, a loose Republic was already forming. The reunion was not a happy one though. The generational ships has descended into madness, turning their inhabitants into creatures straight out of Bioshock.

That backstory haunts the pages of Imperator as his experiences with the Savages are part of Casper’s motivation to take the Wanderer’s power for his own. Yet, that is not all the world building that is done. Through Casper’s eyes, we learn that the Republic is plagued with the corruption that is endemic to all major bureaucracies. Naturally, the immortal Casper thinks he’s the only one that can fix it.

There hints of a larger and older galaxy as well. Throughout the worlds discovered by Earth’s far flung children are strange pyramids built by a civilization known only as the Ancients. And there is the vast graveyard of strange ships Casper discovers at the temple. Ships from places he couldn’t begin to identify, other travelers seeking the same power as he.

The politics

The consistent thread in Imperator is that all systems of politics fail in the end. The Republic is falling to corruption, the hedonistic oligarchy of the generation ships became insane hell pits, the libertarian playground of the early galactic civilization found it necessary to band together to communicate, trade, and eventually fight off the Savages. The politics can best be summed by the notion that politics and economics won’t save you and the quest for power will make you a monster.

Content warning

Definitely some disturbing deaths and concepts are brought up throughout the story. It’s a solid PG-13 rating.

Who is it for?

Galaxy’s Edge is basically for fans of Star Wars who don’t like what Disney has done to it. Especially if you enjoyed Star Wars and the EU before The New Jedi Order, this is for you.

Why read it?

Imperator is the back story to the most deadly man in the galaxy and it has certainly hooked me. I’m looking forward to getting into the rest of the Galaxy’s Edge universe.