Star Wars: The High Republic: The Fallen Star
The tragic events of the Republic Fair have galvanized the galaxy. The Jedi and the Republic have gone on the offensive to stop the marauding NIHIL. With these vicious raiders all but defeated, Jedi Master AVAR KRISS has her sights set on LOURNA DEE, the supposed Eye of the Nihil, and has undertaken a mission to capture her once and for all.
But unbeknownst to the Jedi, the true leader of the Nihil, the in- sidious MARCHION RO, is about to launch an attack on the Jedi and the Republic, on a scale not seen in centuries. If he succeeds, the Nihil will be triumphant, and the light of the Jedi will go dark.
Only the brave Jedi Knights of STARLIGHT BEACON stand in his way, but even they may not be enough against Ro and the ancient enemy that’s about to be unleashed….
Author: Claudia Gray
Cover artist: Yihyoung Li
Release date: January 4, 2022
Pages: 352
ISBN: 9780593355398
The Fallen Star, the grand finale to the first phase of The High Republic, has now been released, finally giving fans the answer to the question “what happens when the light of the Jedi goes dark?” The book is written by fan-favorite author Claudia Gray, who previously wrote Into the Dark in the initiative’s first wave. Its story is set almost entirely on the Starlight Beacon, the shining symbol of hope during The High Republic, as the station and the Jedi on board face an attack by Nihil infiltrators.
The scope of the book is much tighter than I was expecting for the big climax to this phase of stories. It doesn’t have too many conclusions to ongoing storylines or answers to the big mysteries. The narrow focus can work really well for developing the characters that the novel focuses on, but it can also be a little jarring considering how the previous novels dealt with showing the larger story and the effect it has on the wider galaxy. The lack of answers regarding some specific questions bothered me a bit more on my first read but recent announcements have made me feel better about it now that I think I understand their plans better. I’m willing to give them some more time before I start to feel like the answers are being dragged out too much.
I’ve seen some reactions that the book doesn’t work very well for people who haven’t kept up with the entire line, which surprised me a little because I didn’t feel that way while I was reading. Maybe I’m biased because I have kept up with everything, but I thought the trilogy of novels so far did a surprisingly decent job of keeping coherent storylines between them and working on their own without any of the other books or comics. Characters like Elzar, Stellan, Bell, and even Marchion have had their arcs mostly contained to the novels, and in many instances the transition between authors has felt seamless. The Elzar/Stellan/Avar trio shined in particular for me, and they felt well-suited to Gray’s writing. That said, there are some exceptions to this rule, with one or two characters in this book feeling very disconnected from where they were under other writers (Ghirra Starros being an example that stood out to me).
This book certainly delivers on its marketing promises of many characters not making it out alive, which surprisingly ends up being one of my biggest criticisms. The way the deaths are executed felt more unsatisfying and repetitive than I expected in a lot of cases, with characters I was invested in suddenly dropping in a manner that felt anticlimactic. This does have the effect of it truly feeling like nobody is safe and the book has justifications for it in-universe, but it still felt frustrating as a reader to see characters go out like that.
In general, it felt like the middle of the book had a number of contrivances and instances of characters making poor decisions in order to preserve the disaster. As with the deaths, there are attempts to explain this, but these explanations didn’t hold up for me with every example, and it can hurt the suspense in what is supposed to be a very suspenseful story.
Despite my problems with those aspects, I did think the book managed to pull together for a very strong ending. None of the problems I had earlier hurt the climax, which left a strong impression. The big developments at the end worked for me more than a lot of what had come before and left me as excited to see where this story goes as I had been going into the book.
Overall, this book did disappoint me a bit compared to my expectations based on both the past The High Republic novels and Gray’s previous work. My standards are high for these books, even at its worst I did still have more fun reading it than many other Star Wars books, but I know Gray is capable of writing something even more emotional and satisfying than this was. Problems aside, I did enjoy the book, and I’m still very invested in what the writers have come up with. If anything, the thing that I’m most sad about is how long a wait it’ll be until we see this story continue!
Guest review by @NumidianPrime
- Hardcover Book
- Gray, Claudia (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 368 Pages - 01/04/2022 (Publication Date) - Random House Worlds (Publisher)
