Hello everyone!
And man have I missed it.
Every once in a while I honestly feel like jumping into an X-wing and taking off, but it's not every single day that I'm in the mood for it. However, I've been pretty excited about the announcement that came from the Star Wars franchise regarding the direction they'd be taking their publishing efforts.
When someone mentions ANYTHING connected to the Republic - any version of it - I'm going to get excited.
So this entire new premise for the publishing group sounds like something that might go into a REALLY good place after they get over the initial hurdles.
And boy ... are there hurdles, let me tell you.
This new era for Star Wars books begins with Charles Soule's story, titled Light of the Jedi. Let's see what it's all about!
Now I've read and reviewed a fair number of Star Wars related books at this point in time, so I'll be linking the lot of them down below, but I will warn you that they all cover either the Old Republic, or the New One.
Conversely, in this new direction, we'll be taking a look at the High Republic, which is an era in the galaxy hundreds of years before The Phantom Menace and the Skywalker Saga, when there was relative peace throughout the systems, democracy seemed to function at a VERY high level, and the Jedi were at their peak, both in numbers and in knowledge. They were also VERY different from the Jedi we've come to know and love, because they often operate independently of the Temple - especially in the Outer Rim territories - and they don't always have to bow down entirely to the wishes of the Jedi Council.
Also, they're POWERFUL, yo. Like, seriously powerful.
But I digress.
We begin our story in hyperspace - as you do in Star Wars - where a once military captain is now in command of a transport ship taking passengers to the Outer Rim to carve a new existence there. Unfortunately for said ship, it runs into something in the hyperspace lane which shouldn't be there, and while managing to avoid direct collision with it, it can't withstand the movements and pressures, and tears apart, sending different chunks through the corridor ... and out into the galaxy.
If you've ever seen ANY Star Wars or Star Trek related thing, you'll know that this kind of travel is always tricky and needs to be carefully calculated, otherwise you could come out the other end in the middle of a star or planet or just plain explode.
So you can imagine how it goes when random pieces of the ship start popping up in places they're not supposed to be.
Naturally the Republic gets wind of it by the time some of the bigger ones hit several things, and when one of the primary food supply systems is threatened, they send out a distress signal to see if someone, anyone, is close enough to help.
Turns out, they are.
A ship carrying Jedi from an inspection of something along the Outer Rim (a Starlight Beacon, a large spaceship and relay station, marketplace, general gathering space, location of another Jedi Temple and all in all one of the Chancellor's Great Works that will bring connection and support to the Outer Rim) responds to the call and we get to see several Jedi in action then.
Especially as they also tap into the Force from elsewhere in the galaxy to aid the efforts of their brethren to save the population in the system there.
But we get to spend some time with Avar Kriss, Loden Greatstorm and his apprentice Bell, a Wookie apprentice, and a few others as they race against the clock to try and divert or somehow shoot the pieces coming out of hyperspace and racing to obliterate the planets and moons in the systems. Each Jedi brings something unique and powerful to the table along with their general expertise in the Force - most notably we see how every individual sees the Force differently, but we also see Loden chuck his apprentice out of a flying ship, promising more jumps like that to teach him how to land without splattering, and we see Avar Kriss connect all of them through the force so they basically know what's going on with the others while still able to do their own thing, thus communicating without words.
They manage to avert a complete disaster, but they also learn that it isn't actually some random space occurrence in the process, but rather parts of a ship raining down, so they begin investigating what happened to the ship itself. A special group is also put together to figure out where the rest of said ship will turn up, most importantly because they need the flight recorder (like any other air crash investigator, of course).
And this is where the fun begins.
Because our bad guys come hopping into the picture.
The Nihil are a group of marauders in the Outer Rim who operate independently of the Republic, manage to stay under the radar, and use a slightly different form of hyperspace travel called the Paths, something the Republic hasn't figured out yet, and doesn't during the course of this book. The Paths are lanes that aren't recorded in official hyperspace documents and allow the Nihil to pop up everywhere and nowhere at once.
They are led by a trio, a council of sorts, along with the Eye, who is some sort of humanoid being that gives them the Paths and is the only one who can see them - though he can't do so personally. See, he has this whizzened human woman who can sort of go into a trance and see it all, mapping it out for him, and he's keeping her alive when she should already be long dead (though he often wants to kill her himself for some inexplicable reason). So she's the one supplying the Nihil with these Paths, and when the Republic comes sniffing, they decide to try and get the flight recorder before the system does.
But it all starts going spectacularly wrong as one of the three leaders chooses the wrong planetary system to extort and blackmail (they're a sort of bounty hunter/warrior race that swear vengeance) which later comes to bite him as the joint task force of the Republic, the Jedi, AND these warriors come to wipe him out.
The second of these goes after the flight recorder but ends up in a fight with the Republic and hightails it out of there to then be sent on a recovery mission which has been happening while all this is going on (by all this I mean the investigation, the building of a massive sort of navigation computer to predict where the pieces will pop out again, and then this little side-plot).
On a random mining planet, a rich family from Alderaan is doing its thing, away from the riches and luxury, when the Nihil come to grab them for ransom, sending Loden and Bell after them in a rescue mission. The mission SORT OF succeeds - both the children and the mother are secure, and Bell learns the trick of falling out of high places, earning his position as Jedi Knight - but Loden is captured by the Nihil and brought to the Eye, who we know by this point has taken over the entire organization.
See, he was the one who sent the ship that originally almost collided at the beginning of the book to start off this entire chain reaction, and he actually didn't want the rich family, but to see if he could catch a Jedi. And now he has, sticking Loden into a cell with other prisoners who are being tortured.
In the meantime, the Republic mourns its losses and holds the opening ceremony for the Starlight Beacon, which even Yoda attends (yes, our favourite green hobgoblin IS already around at this time), thinking they've destroyed the Nihil and can now move on in peace.
But readers know the Nihil are far from destroyed - and one Jedi, Ezra Mann, gets a horrible, horrible vision right at the end of the book (after we're led to understand he and Avar Kriss have a romantic history together) showing that the Jedi will be fleeing from something in fear.
THE END.
Or, to be continued, actually.
SO.
Where to begin?
When it was announced that there would be a new series of books coming out, covering the era of the High Republic, I was STOKED. For one, unlike most (or at least many) Star Wars fans out there, I'm a Prequels fan and prefer them over the Originals (yes, yes, I'm an uncultered swine of the first order, did we get it out of our system now? Yes? Fantastic, let's move along), mostly because I really enjoyed the setting of the Old Republic. It seemed vast, but it was organized with the Senate and all, the Jedi were fairly high numbered (even if in obvious decline) and there was just SO MUCH.
Also a young Obi-Wan, but, I digress.
So another setting where the Republic is even BETTER, I signed up. I jumped on this bandwagon.
And it came crashing to a staggering halt.
Now, I will say, I enjoyed the read for what it was, and the story in itself is fairly non complicated: the Chancellor is building her Starlight Beacon, she wants to expand into the Outer Rim and get it covered more than it is, but then something happens that spreads disaster through a portion of it and the Jedi spring into action, large numbers of them, something we've never really seen before - and even Yoda pops in as cameo! Then we realize there's a bad guy behind this all and there's more to come later, and while the first disaster is averted, the real trial is only just beginning with one captive Jedi and the rest looking towards the Beacon as a sign of hope.
And a deadly vision at the end showing that the Jedi will know fear.
That, in itself, isn't anything new, and the execution is what we'll be talking about.
Because ... it leaves something to be desired, even though I enjoyed reading about the different Jedi and their personalities.
Here's the thing, Soule went in like GRRM in his ASOFIAF books, in which each chapter is from a different perspective, but it does usually connect back to the narrative of the previous one and bumps it on further. But that's a tricky thing to do and is complicated even with GRRM already, and here was no different, because we're introduced to a BUNCH of new characters, names popping out everywhere, a whole lot of action, and instead of feeling like the whole thing flows, even if the narrative IS connected, it still seems choppy. I didn't understand what was bothering me until I noticed someone mentioned this might be better suited for a comic book - at which point it made total sense, because IT IS SO TRUE. It's like clips out of a comic, jumping through image squares.
Then, pushing that aside, there's the entire problem of the book, which is that when a ship fractures in hyperspace, fragments then start showering out of there all over, an interesting exercise in physics, but then we get to the bad guys, the Nihil. And let me tell you ... that was a disappointment. The Eye is supposedly this grey-skinned person with fully black eyes (or something along those lines) and ... yeah, I've heard of a similar one.
Blue skin, red eyes. Diabolical. Even though I was meh about the Thrawn trilogy, Thrawn actually looks like a decent and compelling villain in contrast to these guys, who seem to be a marauding band and for some reason, the thousands of Jedi can't overcome them. You have to understand, the Nihil don't have any special powers - any Jedi should be able to sense them through the Force.
I'm also iffy about this sudden new way of travelling, jumping through hyperspace, which negates all we know in SW lore, and retcons what's been done in the timelines of the Old Republic, the Empire, and the New Republic. Would Palpatine not have used the knowledge if he had it? He sure as hell would have. So I don't know how this will play out and that no one knows about it later, which I'm on the fence about as a rule, because even if the Nihil DO get destroyed, and the Republic and Jedi get their hands on the Paths and declare them too dangerous ... they still would have been somewhere in the archives, right?
Overall, this was an okay read, but it has so many problems and loopholes and holes in general, I'm wary of what's to come.
And don't tell me that it's THAT easy to catch and keep a Jedi subdued. Freaking Moff Gideon had to shackle a little Baby Yoda with special cuffs to make sure he behaved, but I didn't see anything of the sort mentioned about Greatstorm, and he actually used the Force against the Eye but is apparently being worn down by ... people screaming in the other cell?
Where to begin?
When it was announced that there would be a new series of books coming out, covering the era of the High Republic, I was STOKED. For one, unlike most (or at least many) Star Wars fans out there, I'm a Prequels fan and prefer them over the Originals (yes, yes, I'm an uncultered swine of the first order, did we get it out of our system now? Yes? Fantastic, let's move along), mostly because I really enjoyed the setting of the Old Republic. It seemed vast, but it was organized with the Senate and all, the Jedi were fairly high numbered (even if in obvious decline) and there was just SO MUCH.
Also a young Obi-Wan, but, I digress.
So another setting where the Republic is even BETTER, I signed up. I jumped on this bandwagon.
And it came crashing to a staggering halt.
Now, I will say, I enjoyed the read for what it was, and the story in itself is fairly non complicated: the Chancellor is building her Starlight Beacon, she wants to expand into the Outer Rim and get it covered more than it is, but then something happens that spreads disaster through a portion of it and the Jedi spring into action, large numbers of them, something we've never really seen before - and even Yoda pops in as cameo! Then we realize there's a bad guy behind this all and there's more to come later, and while the first disaster is averted, the real trial is only just beginning with one captive Jedi and the rest looking towards the Beacon as a sign of hope.
And a deadly vision at the end showing that the Jedi will know fear.
That, in itself, isn't anything new, and the execution is what we'll be talking about.
Because ... it leaves something to be desired, even though I enjoyed reading about the different Jedi and their personalities.
Here's the thing, Soule went in like GRRM in his ASOFIAF books, in which each chapter is from a different perspective, but it does usually connect back to the narrative of the previous one and bumps it on further. But that's a tricky thing to do and is complicated even with GRRM already, and here was no different, because we're introduced to a BUNCH of new characters, names popping out everywhere, a whole lot of action, and instead of feeling like the whole thing flows, even if the narrative IS connected, it still seems choppy. I didn't understand what was bothering me until I noticed someone mentioned this might be better suited for a comic book - at which point it made total sense, because IT IS SO TRUE. It's like clips out of a comic, jumping through image squares.
Then, pushing that aside, there's the entire problem of the book, which is that when a ship fractures in hyperspace, fragments then start showering out of there all over, an interesting exercise in physics, but then we get to the bad guys, the Nihil. And let me tell you ... that was a disappointment. The Eye is supposedly this grey-skinned person with fully black eyes (or something along those lines) and ... yeah, I've heard of a similar one.
Blue skin, red eyes. Diabolical. Even though I was meh about the Thrawn trilogy, Thrawn actually looks like a decent and compelling villain in contrast to these guys, who seem to be a marauding band and for some reason, the thousands of Jedi can't overcome them. You have to understand, the Nihil don't have any special powers - any Jedi should be able to sense them through the Force.
I'm also iffy about this sudden new way of travelling, jumping through hyperspace, which negates all we know in SW lore, and retcons what's been done in the timelines of the Old Republic, the Empire, and the New Republic. Would Palpatine not have used the knowledge if he had it? He sure as hell would have. So I don't know how this will play out and that no one knows about it later, which I'm on the fence about as a rule, because even if the Nihil DO get destroyed, and the Republic and Jedi get their hands on the Paths and declare them too dangerous ... they still would have been somewhere in the archives, right?
Overall, this was an okay read, but it has so many problems and loopholes and holes in general, I'm wary of what's to come.
And don't tell me that it's THAT easy to catch and keep a Jedi subdued. Freaking Moff Gideon had to shackle a little Baby Yoda with special cuffs to make sure he behaved, but I didn't see anything of the sort mentioned about Greatstorm, and he actually used the Force against the Eye but is apparently being worn down by ... people screaming in the other cell?
Okay. We have a bunch of Jedi, at their peak apparently, and some non-Force user can subdue them without even using Force-binding shackles.
Right. I'm sure THAT's believable.
Right. I'm sure THAT's believable.
We'll see how the rest of this series unfolds, but so far, not the most inspiring beginning.
xx
*image not mine
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