Star Wars Jedi: Battle Scars
Cal Kestis has built a new life for himself with the crew of the Stinger Mantis. Together, Cal’s crew has brought down bounty hunters, defeated Inquisitors, and even evaded Darth Vader himself. More important, Merrin, Cere, Greez, and faithful droid BD-1 are the closest thing Cal has had to a family since the fall of the Jedi Order. Even as the galaxy’s future grows more uncertain by the day, with each blow struck against the Empire the Mantis crew grows more daring.
On what should be a routine mission, they meet a stormtrooper determined to chart her own course with the help of Cal and the crew. In exchange for help starting a new life, the Imperial deserter brings word of a powerful, potentially invaluable tool for their fight against the Empire. And even better, she can help them get to it. The only catch—pursuing it will bring them into the path of one of the Empire’s most dangerous servants, the Inquisitor known as the Fifth Brother.
Can the Imperial deserter truly be trusted? And while Cal and his friends have survived run-ins with the Inquisitors before, how many times can they evade the Empire before their luck runs out?
Author: Sam Maggs
Release date: Mar 07, 2023
ISBN: 9780593598603
Del Rey’s newest Star Wars release is Jedi: Battle Scars, an adult novel from Sam Maggs. This serves as Maggs’ debut Star Wars novel following some comic and short story contributions. The book details an adventure undertaken by the crew of the Mantis some time between the events of Jedi: Fallen Order and the upcoming Jedi: Survivor. When a stormtrooper surprises the crew by requesting help with her defection, they’re forced to decide whether they should aid her and how trustworthy their new ally is.
I’ve been heavily anticipating the return of Cal, Cere, Merrin, and Greez ever since I finished playing Jedi: Fallen Order in 2019 and I was a bit taken aback when promotional material for Survivor began implying that the team has more or less gone their separate ways in the time since the first game. While I’m sure they’ll all still have a role to play, I had been looking forward to seeing them together as a family after we spent so much time getting there in the first game and I was hesitant towards them splitting up offscreen.
Whether this is or isn’t the direction the game ends up going, Battle Scars made me much more content with this possibility. The novel delivers almost everything I had been waiting for from the actual sequel game over the last few years in terms of seeing these characters together and learning how they find their place in this changing galaxy. I’m happy the story truly feels like it belongs to all four of them in roughly equal measure, with the book letting us spend a decent amount of time inside each of their heads.
Merrin in particular gets the chance to shine in this book, which I had been wanting since the game set her up as such a compelling character. The book gives many answers about her and what it means to be a Nightsister in this era while allowing her to have a relationship that serves as the heart of the book. Cere is also taken in a very interesting direction that I’m eager to see play out more over time. Cal arguably feels the most relatively stagnant of the group, but that’s fair enough considering being the protagonist of both games gives him plenty of time to develop there and I still enjoyed the sense of bubbly optimism Maggs imbued him with.
In addition to satisfyingly following up on what was set up in the first game, I was pleased with how the book set the stage for what’s still to come. Though this is an adventure for the crew as a family, it also very organically expands upon the differences between what they each want and how those wants could come into conflict with each other. I do have a hard time imagining someone who hasn’t played the game getting as much from characters but it does attempt to recap when possible. Maggs is also very aware about the entirety of the game, down to a few sly jokes about its most popular memes.
I did enjoy the book’s attempts to finally bring some depth and backstory to the longstanding flat character of Fifth Brother, though his role in the story probably still ends up feeling the least developed and I think some more time spent on it could’ve improved the structure of the overall book.
Ultimately this is a very personal story with a very tight scope, though this likely works in its favor for developing the cast when it stands between two games that aim higher in terms of plot. The way Maggs managed to capture the voice of all four protagonists is an impressive achievement that can be difficult to achieve in tie-in fiction like this. No matter what Survivor brings us in the coming months, I am very happy to have gotten to spend this time with these characters.
Guest review by Numidian Prime. Find them @NumidianPrime