The Coruscant Nights trilogy is a series of three books in Star Wars Legends, written by Michael Reaves, that follow the same core group of characters in the inter-trilogy era.
The first book, Coruscant Nights I: Jedi Twilight, is set two months after Revenge of the Sith. Two books were released in 2008, and the third was released in late January 2009. A standalone followup novel called The Last Jedi, a collaboration between Reaves and Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff, was released in February 2013. The Coruscant Nights name was originally attached to it but has since been removed. For sake of organization, it is included on this page entry.
Several characters from Reaves' and Steve Perry's MedStar Duology and Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter re-appear in this series, which follows Jax Pavan (Lorn Pavan's son), the droid I-5YQ, Den Dhur, Laranth Tarak, and Haninum Tyk Rhinann. The three novels have been released by the Science Fiction Book Club as a hardback three-in-one omnibus edition.
Books in the series:
- Jedi Twilight (June 2008)
- Street of Shadows (August 2008)
- Patterns of Force (January 2009)
- The Last Jedi (February 2013)
The first trilogy contains the following tropes:
Jax Pavan and I-5YQ
- Addictive Magic: An unusual variant—Dejah Duare, an empath, is attracted to Jax because of his strength in the Force. When she can't have him, she settles for his rival, who's strong in The Dark Side.
- Amplifier Artifact: Both the bota and the pyronium qualify as this, and serious effort goes into keeping them out of the hands of Vader.
- Assassin Outclassin': In one subplot in the second book, Captain Typho, Padme Amidala's bodyguard from Attack of the Clones, attempts to assassinate Darth Vader, thinking to avenge his former charge (and Anakin: he has no idea that Vader is Anakin, and even Vader says That Man Is Dead). Even ignoring that Vader has to still be around for the original trilogy, this goes exactly as well as you'd expect (it pretty much just puts him in a bad mood for a couple of days).
- Big Bad: Darth Vader serves as this for the series. Anakin Skywalker was a padawan alongside Jax Pavan, and who'd rather that link to his former life was as dead as the rest of the Jedi Order. Emperor Palpatine is the Bigger Bad - but it's explicitly pointed out that he's too big to be a target for the small band of proto-Rebels.
- Bodyguard Crush: Captain Typho was secretly in love with Padme Amidala during his time serving as her bodyguard in the prequel films. He knew she never felt the same way about him, but is still determined to avenge her death regardless.
- Bounty Hunter: Aurra Sing. While she's happy to take the payment, she admits to herself she'd have hunted down Jax for free, such is her love of killing Jedi.
- Broad Strokes: Where the books sat in continuity pre-Disney.
- The Butler Did It: To be exact, the butler droid committed the murder Jax investigates in the second book.
- The Chessmaster: The future Prince Xizor, currently a Vigo, is shown making his ascent through the ranks of the Black Sun Syndicate.
- Continuity Nod: The books are loaded with little-used Star Wars tidbits like the ISB and Inquisition. Jax Pavan is the son of Lorn Pavan from Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter, and many characters previously appeared in the MedStar Duology.
- Continuity Snarl: Even Piell, Nick Rostu dying, Barriss Offee, and other now-impossible elements show up in this book series (most of these being de-canonized by Star Wars: The Clone Wars episodes before the Disney takeover).
- Crapsack World: Corus... Er, Imperial Center. Get past the upper levels and it's hundred upon hundreds of stories of wretched conditions, gloom and misery, filled with billions upon billions of sentients living in fear of the totalitarian government and its army of Force sensitive enforcers who are answerable to no-one. Some areas of the underlevels are speculated to have gone without any maintenance for centuries, if not longer. And those are the areas that weren't carpet bombed into oblivion during the Clone Wars...
- Deadpan Snarker: I-Five, Den, Rhinann... I-Five has an advantage in the deadpan stakes as he's a droid.
- Dramatic Irony: Gregar Typho is determined to kill Darth Vader for the murder of his mistress Padme Amidala, and her Jedi protector Anakin Skywalker on Mustafar, not realizing Anakin is Vader.
- The Dreaded / The Juggernaut: How Darth Vader is depicted.
- Evil Former Friend: Vader to Jax.
- Femme Fatale: Dejah Duare, a Zeltron empath capable of emitting pheromones to exploit the moods of others. She doesn't much care that everyone knows she does these things; She's good enough at it that she usually gets her way regardless.
- Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Jax and Laranth form an odd duo of this type: he's a conventional lightsaber-wielding Jedi, while she's a Gray Paladin, a semi-heretical splinter sect that prefers blasters (she goes Guns Akimbo with DL-44 heavy pistols, the same type favored by Han Solo).
- Half the Man He Used to Be: Happens to someone who attacks Aurra Sing. He just has time to look surprised before the two halves hit the floor.
- Hero of Another Story: The Gray Paladin Jedi sect spent years training themselves to become minimally reliant on the Force and use weapons besides lightsabers. Two dozen of their members on Coruscant alone survive Order 66 and play a major, offscreen, role in evacuating the survivors of the Jedi Temple. Those two dozen become the backbone of a resistance movement against the Empire on its capital planet. Jax Pavan notes that they have an advantage over their fellow Jedi in avoiding the notice of Palpatine and his Inquisitors due to being able to blend in better with ordinary civilians. Nonetheless, only one Gray Paladin, Laranth Tarak, appears in person or gets a name note .
- Hold Your Hippogriffs: Den Dhur notes that trying to find Jax Pavan is “Like looking for a needle in a sleestax .”
- Improbable Aiming Skills: Laranth can shoot blaster bolts out of the air - Jedi training helps. I-Five rarely misses with his lasers, either, but he's a droid with targeting software.
- I Just Want to Be Special: Rhinann, a Muggle obsessed with the Force, wants to use the bota to give himself Force-sensitivity.
- Just a Machine: How Jax initially thinks of I-Five. He eventually realizes he's wrong.
- The Mafia: Black Sun.
- Remember the New Guy?: Jax Pavan was Anakin's best friend in the Jedi Order who we never saw interact with him before he became Darth Vader.
- Series Continuity Error: Enforced. There's occasional dating errors. The series was planned to take place closer to A New Hope than Revenge of the Sith, but
Executive Meddling happened and the edit pass missed a few spots. - Shout-Out:
- Dejah Duare is named after two different Edgar Rice Burroughs heroines: Dejah Thoris of Mars and Duare of Venus.
- Appearance of a policeman called Pol Haus might be a reference to detective Polhaus ‘’from The Maltese Falcon’’.
- At one point, Haus gives the order to "Round up the usual species". Really, the trilogy makes a lot of shout-outs to Film Noir and detective movies in general.
- That Man Is Dead: Darth Vader says this of Anakin Skywalker after mortally wounding Captain Typho when the latter tries and fails miserably to assassinate him.
- Underground Railroad: Coruscant's Whiplash resistance movement forms shortly after Order 66 to smuggle dissident politicians, civilian Jedi Temple employees, and the odd surviving Jedi farther away from the planets carrying out the Empire's purges.
- Unwanted Harem: Downplayed. Dejah Duare and Laranth Tarak are both attracted to Jax (the former wanting to experience the Force through him via her empathic abilities, the latter being his Unlucky Childhood Friend), but he isn't interested in a relationship with either of them (he's shocked when he discovers Laranth's feelings for him, because he doesn't think of her that way at all).
- Villain Decay: Averted with Darth Vader. He's depicted as utterly unstoppable.
The Last Jedi contains the following tropes:
- Blood Magic: The secrets of Darth Ramage's holocron can only be unlocked by drenching it in the freshly-spilt blood of a sentient being, as Jax discovers.
- Brought Down to Normal: Jax learns many powerful Sith techniques but loses them at the end.
- Continuity Porn: This book resolves many of the continuity issues with Star Wars: The Clone Wars, makes use of the Dathomir witches, stars Inquisitors, and also includes Mandalorians.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: For all of Jax' talents, he knows that fighting Vader will amount to this.
- Stuffed In A Fridge: Laranth.
