The High Republic: Midnight Horizon
Two hundred years before the events of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, in the era of the glorious High Republic, the Jedi are the guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy!
After a series of staggering losses, the Republic seems to finally have the villainous Nihil marauders on the run, and it looks like there’s light at the end of the tunnel. Until word comes of a suspected Nihil attack on the industrial cosmopolitan world of Corellia, right in the Galactic Core.
Sent to investigate are Jedi Masters Cohmac Vitus and Kantam Sy, along with Padawans Reath Silas and Ram Jomaram, all fighting their own private battles after months of unrelenting danger. On Corellia, Reath and Ram encounter a brazen young security specialist named Crash, whose friend was one of the victims of the Nihil attack, and they team up with her to infiltrate Corellia’s elite while the Masters pursue more diplomatic avenues. But going undercover with Crash is more dangerous than anyone expected, even as Ram pulls in his friend Zeen to help with an elaborate ruse involving a galactic pop star.
But what they uncover on Corellia turns out to be just one part of a greater plan, one that could lead the Jedi to their most stunning defeat yet….
Author: Daniel José Older
Release date: February 1, 2022
Pages: 352
ISBN: 9781368060677
Closing out the novel side of The High Republic phase one is its latest young adult release, Midnight Horizon from Daniel José Older. Older’s first young adult Star Wars book, it picks up threads from his other stories and the previous young adult novels to follow a team of Jedi on a mission to Corellia to investigate a possible Nihil presence on the planet. With the help of some new friends, they unearth a plan that could prove disastrous for the Republic if they aren’t able to stop it.
I’ve been enjoying Older’s stories for a while now, especially his work on Trail of Shadows and The High Republic Adventures, but I still wasn’t prepared for quite how much I ended up enjoying this book. Older has a gift for writing some of these characters that makes them so endearing and human, and makes it easy to get invested in following them on this ride. Most of the characters come from introductions in previous stories but each of them get their arcs furthered in new ways that only deepen my interest in them.
Consequently, I don’t think it’s too surprising to say that readers who haven’t followed those previous stories in other mediums might not get as much out of some of the book’s resolutions for various character arcs and storylines. That aside, I do think the book has a strong enough self-contained narrative of its own that would make it enjoyable even for someone coming in without the same amount of context. Having read all of the other stories just serves to heighten how satisfying the book’s best moments are.
The biggest standpoint in the cast for me was probably Kantam Sy, who I wasn’t expecting to see fleshed out to this degree. Their flashbacks tell a lovely story that culminates in a perfect ending to the book which I didn’t see coming but looking back feels like it couldn’t have gone any other way. The themes of the story about attachment and love, paralleled in the present day with Zeen and Lula, are perfectly Star Wars and have stuck with me since I finished it.
Some of the other biggest standouts were Ram and Reath, two characters that I hadn’t expected to be paired together. Their friendship was immediately fun (only becoming more fun with the addition of Crash) and I really enjoyed the way they supported each other through their different struggles. I was very happy with how the book ultimately gave closure to Reath’s character arc and made the three young adult novels feel like a true trilogy despite having three very different stories written by three different authors. Reath’s ending shows the rich payoff that’s already starting to come from following the characters of this era through different stories, and I can only imagine how much that will increase with time.
At first glance, the story seems a bit disconnected from the rest of this wave of The High Republic, but as the book approaches its climax the pieces begin to fall into place and I was very happy with the closure it ended up bringing to all of phase one. The seeds laid for the next phase make me excited to jump back in the timeline, but I’m even more excited to eventually return to these characters.
Overall, Midnight Horizon was just about everything I could ask for from a High Republic book and really a Star Wars book in general. It easily ranks among my favorites so far, and it’s only made me enjoy this overall initiative even more. Phase one has been a great journey and I can’t wait to see where these writers take us next.
Guest review written by Numidian Prime.
- Hardcover Book
- Older, Daniel José (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 496 Pages - 02/01/2022 (Publication Date) - Random House/Star Wars (Publisher)
