Star Wars: Light of the Jedi Review
Star Wars: Light of the Jedi by Charles Soule is the first adult novel in the new Star Wars: The High Republic franchise.
Set two hundred years before the Skywalker saga films, Light of the Jedi is the story of a group of Jedi that participate in a rescue mission in which an obstacle collides with the Legacy Run, a freighter carrying 9,000 passengers. Several more rescues are needed throughout the system and it becomes apparent that these “accidents” are not mere coincidences.
From the beginning this felt like a very different Star Wars story. Set centuries before the adventures of Luke Skywalker, this is a time when the Jedi are at their peak — they are at the height of their power, both mystical and political.
Taking place so far in the past of, there are very few familiar characters (Yoda , who is referenced rather quickly, for one). This made it a little difficult for me to orient myself in this world. The Jedi in the story have a familiarity but, even they seemed different to me.
I think the newness of the High Republic world, gave the writer, Charles Soule, freedom that writers of the original stories did not have. They had to fit into the context of a world that was built by George Lucas. The world of the High Republic is a blank page and this is where things fell flat for me. I am not new to Star Wars, but not having read any of the comics or short stories that set up the High Republic era, I think the world building in Light of the Jedi fell flat. There were many parts of this world that I enjoyed. I liked how the author gave the reader some nods to the Skywalker era to help navigate this new territory, but I needed more of that. While there was world building, it felt incomplete, especially with character development.
As a reader, I think there’s a difference between plot and story — plot is what the characters do and story is who they are. I love novels that have an exciting interesting plot. This book has that and I’m excited to see where it goes from here. This book needed more story. I wanted to know more about the characters. There were many new characters introduced in this novel — which is essential when it’s the first in series (especially one with the scope of The High Republic). But I felt I didn’t get to really know many characters. Many were there to drive the plot and then gone. I can only speculate that the author didn’t want to waste time developing characters that he didn’t intend to keep around. This device may occasionally work but, in this case, I think it just made it obvious who the “important” characters are, going forward. The characters that I became invested in were well-developed and I cannot wait to see their story progress.
