Books The High Republic: The Fallen Star by Claudia Gray

Ok. Create a YouTube channel and start giving details out about how Avar Kris takes over the entire Galaxy, opens up a time portal and goes and kills Aphra, and finally travels to Ach-To and makes mad passionate love to Luke Skywalker and then dumps him and that is why Luke is so grumpy.

 

Mine will arrive tomorrow, but I won’t be able to read it till the New Year!


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Star Wars: The High Republic: The Fallen Star

This is a good book. Of the three hardbacks published by Del Rey, however, it is easily weakest and it is the weakest due to self-inflicted wounds.

Those self-inflicted are partly the sheer spoilage of its own plot but also an assumption of reader knowledge that might ot be so. Of the first, I cannot recall another book that so spoils its own story in advance of publication. From the title alone, which has multiple meanings, it might be suspected that it is a cunning misdirection. The actual book cover's back quote adds to this. Then SW' own Twitter feed threw out an alternate, special edition cover that blows all other meanings away and confirms that yes, exactly what will you think will happen in this book does happen.

Despite this Claudia Gray is very skilled at depicting horrible things happening to good beings, as evidenced by Bloodline. So it proves here. There are a good few deaths, no I'm not saying who as this book works so much better when you don't know stuff. Minor spoiler:

Spoiler

It also effectively deepends the mystery unleashed at the end of The Rising Storm, but that also remains frustratingly vague and unresolved.

The other weakness is this: The first wave of High Republic products were very smart at enabling readers to pick and choose without adverse impact if a story was not looked at, the second wave went sharply in the other direction with entire major plot pieces in comics, for which trades were not released for. It made for a more confusing experience. This start of the third wave is going more in the direction established by the second and it means certain developments will vary greatly in their impact for the the reader. They will still work, but only at a basic level, whereas the full picture gives the far greater effect. Nor am I convinced there is sufficient signposting to easily get all the pieces - which is a shame.

Ultimately, what makes its work are its heroes. Its villains are becoming weaker as the story goes on, sure, they're petty, vicios, cruel and violent but they lack that fundamental factor that makes for a great villain. All that the Nihil do here is done by sneak attacks, they are, to borrow a Klingon line, without honour. (Not that Klingons are that good at living up to their own claims.) There is a strategy to how things play out, but the chances the Nihil have in an actual war with the Republic? Zero. Asymmetrical activity is their only card.

There are some minor surprises here, but in the main this book is built around one single event and only that event in a way its predecessors were not. If anything I'm looking forward more to the accompanying other age targeted books, as for those far less is known about and with the big, obvious event out of the way they are freed up to do more interesting stories.

 

Thanks @Jedi Ben Yeah I just get the single issues of the comics so it doesn't really bother me but I understand that it would be frustrating for trade readers. I could tell while reading the issue of Trail of Shadows released this week that they were setting the pieces in place for this book to happen and I'm sure some events from the comic will be talked about in the book. And it would be a bit confusing for people waiting for the Trade to come out.

Think I am going to avoid this thread until I finish the book.

 

Since it's already happened with Rising Storm, I know I'll get all the pieces and it'll be fine.

I want to listen to Tempest Runner with the scriptbook in March too. It does still work out of order.

On this one I wish they'd gone with a far less obvious title and not practically spoiled the book.

 

Sounds like you haven't wolfed your copy.... yet.

 

Well, you can't read TR - it's a 6 hour audio. Script book due March 2022.

But, having read this without listening to it, there's minor spoilage of it but that's all.

 

https://gizmodo.com/a-jedi-faces-true-horror-in-a-look-inside-the-latest-hi-1848261329

Spoiler

Star Wars: The High Republic may barely be a year old now, but already its golden age is crumbling apart, setting the stage for the long decline of the Jedi and Republic we eventually see the tail end of in the prequel trilogy. Get a look at what horrors the Jedi will face in the latest novel, The Fallen Star, in this exclusive preview from io9!

“Anyone’s who’s had a look at the cover art for The Fallen Star knows—the crises our Jedi face in this book are serious. Deadly serious. I’m not going to lie: there will be casualties,” Claudia Gray, one of the main team of writers behind The High Republic and the author of this latest pivotal chapter, told io9 over email. “This is the part where I should say that I regret causing readers pain, but let’s face it... I LOVE it. Not because I’m a sadist, but because every writer hopes that readers will be deeply involved with their characters, and because these are the events The High Republic has been leading up to for a while, and the stakes have to be that high.”

The Fallen Star begins the third phase of The High Republic’s debut chapter, preparing the forces of the Republic and the Jedi Order—uneasily thrust out of their role of explorers into military leaders, even hundreds of years before the Clone War that would lay them low—for battle against the sinister pirates of the Nihil. Emboldened by their attacks on the Republic’s diplomatic, celebratory fair during the events of The Rising Storm, the Nihil are backed by a deadly new weapon uncovered by their leader, Marchion Ro—one that has the horrifying ability to wrest the Force itself from a Jedi.

“For a while now, Marchion Ro’s secret weapon has been emerging, bit by bit, from the shadows (both literally and figuratively)—and that process takes a major step forward in The Fallen Star,” Gray teased. “What is it that can separate a Jedi from the Force? The Jedi have no idea—and no way to fight it.”

Get a taste of the terror that awaits the Jedi—and one master in particular, Indeera Stokes—in an excerpt from The Fallen Star below, making its debut on io9!

 

What the hell is wrong with LFL's PR for this book? They're revealing everything that makes it a good read while weakening it. At this rate there'll be no surprises left by 4 Jan.

 

Im guessing the Phase 2 wave 1 revea l/ announcements on jan 4 will completely spoil it

 

Sadly, you're probably right. The book doesn't deserve this treatment.

 

Light of the Jedi hit #2 on the USA Today's charts. They are trying to make this book hit #1.

I haven't opened up a single spoiler tag in this thread and I 'aint going to until I'm done with it.

 

If only that were sufficient spoiler protection, sadly you probably need to be far more wary on this one.

Don't recall it being like this before.

 

I haven't read any of the previews or anything. I know that (obvious spoiler)

Spoiler

Starlight Beacon is getting destroyed because it's on the book cover, which was bound to happen at some point during THR,

but other than that, nothing.

 

Keep doing exactly that.

 

Here is the best way to avoid Star Wars spoilers. Play Skyrim.

 

And it has its own brand of Storm(cloaks).

 

See this is why I don't like the structure of the High Republic story, honestly i kinda wish they followed the NJO route which is just follow a single group throughout a long wave of Stores instead of doing all this jumping around. It just makes me not wanna read these even more.

 

That would be a lot harder than this 'loose connectivity', it would take more time for writing and editing and more coordination between authors. NJO was hard work, this is less so. It also allows them to hit more demographics.

Not read what pray tell?

 

I'm not much of a reader these days and I generally prefer my Star Wars on screen or in video game format so I can watch on Youtube.

Audibooks help a little but even then I'm not that consistent with sticking with them that much.

I love the era of the High Republic but i'm a character person first and foremost and i really don't have any characters I feel connected with in anyway and that i would wanna follow on a adventure with.

 

I honestly think it is cool that each demographic has their specific characters to follow who are all on their own journey largely only connected by the major events that happen.

NJO was mainly just for adult readers. Here the YA crowd and even the young reader crowd will be able to follow along with the story. And there also was no comic with the NJO. Giving the High Republic a visual element has added a lot to it.