Star Wars: The High Republic: Light of the Jedi by Charles Soule was released back in January and I read it with a book club. It was fun to dissect the book at a deeper level than I would have if I had just read it on my own. And it was that book that launched my quest to read all of the Star Wars canon novelizations, which I will be blogging about here on this blog and talking about over on my YouTube channel.
Note: It’s been ore than a few months since I finished reading this book so I know that I will have forgotten quite a lot, but I am going to do my best to hit the important stuff.
As the first book in the High Republic era, I really do think that Charles Soule did an AMAZING job creating this era of the Star Wars galaxy. This is truly something that we have yet to see and Soule had a lot of creative freedom going in. I wasn’t sure what to expect, and I think a part of me thought that I didn’t want to see stories from this era. However, after reading Light of the Jedi, I am completely IN FOR THE RIDE.
The way this book sets the stage for this era is great. We see many different characters and locations introduced, we see a clear villain/issue that needs to be addressed, and the stakes at risk are clearly marked. For fans of Star Wars, the world has already been built, but the introduction of new planets, planes, and an older form of the jedi order bring us directly into this story.
One thing I really loved was how this book read like a movie. I felt like I was sitting in the theater staring up at another great Star Wars epic on the big screen. That largely, I think, has to do with the way Soule incorporated the countdown to The Great Disaster. The stakes were high and the scenes ran smoothly as we saw each character playing their part.
I also loved learning about the Nihil and watching their story develop as well. Usually, the villain of a Star Wars story is a member of the Sith or is The Empire, or the First Order. It was interesting to see this rogue pirate group as the biggest threat to the galaxy.