Light of the Jedi

This was always going to be a tricky balancing act for a book - a beloved series resetting for a new era. Mostly Light of the Jedi succeeds in this. The Star Wars IP is one that is viciously fought over on what is canon and what is not. With the Disney reset most of the expanded universe went with it. Light of the Jedi is the first book from the ‘High Republic' era. This seems to be pre Old Republic in age, but the continuity is a little confusing when an IP has expanded this much. We have familiar worlds such as Coruscant featuring prominently in the politicking placing it firmly within the Star Wars universe. The major change is in the vast list of new characters. This is both a blessing and a curse in that it has left the author with a blank sheet, but also as this is the first book in this new era has meant a bit of an overload in names and themes. Only one familiar name (Yoda) is referenced in the book.

It is definitely important for Disney to move the franchise away from the George Lucas era so I can see this as an important step. The problem here is that so many characters have been introduced that it is hard for many of them to be particularly memorable. The base theme of an expanding republic coming into conflict with warlords and bandits works and it will be interesting to see how this era develops, but this book suffers a bit from being the first in this era. It is a setup for the future and on that level it works very well. As a standalone book, less well.

My reaction when I saw this book came out, when I got it, when I realized there's a ton of new characters introduced, and when I read the epilogue:


So....yeah, I'm stoked. STOKED, I tell you. I love Star Wars, I'm one of those hardcore fans, and Soule added to a beloved cult franchise rather than obscuring it (which is an anxiety of mine whenever I see something released that follows a popular series).

I generally like reading Star Wars books every now and then because the world is so iconic and vast that there's room to explore a lot of different facets of it without having to spend a ton of time on setting up the world. I was excited to try out a story set in an earlier era of Star Wars that was free of the weight of the Empire and all the characters from the movies.

This book was... fine? I mostly just found it a bit bland I think. There are a ton of characters and things going on, so I never really got attached to anything or anyone. A lot of it feels like suuuper stock-standard action too, early on several chapters end with a character being cut off mid-line by an explosion. There's some good stuff in here too though, I liked following a character that was uncertain of himself learning to become a Jedi and the hero that people expect him to be (which is also pretty standard, but works here mostly).

I would probably give this a completely neutral 2.5/5, but since I don't think I would actually recommend it to people I'll round it down to a 2. There are much better Star Wars books out there.