Books The High Republic: Quest for Planet X by Tessa Gratton

Blackwell charge upfront or at the time of release...?

 

Pros and cons.

Preordered anyway. All three pending books.

 

X, vengeance, deceit

 

All these titles, I'm with Coop-

 

100%. I look at a book in the shop or on a webpage and genuinely have no idea what I’ve purchased.

 

Yup, it's Batuu again-

 

Finished listening to the audiobook version last night. It's fast-paced and most of it feels like a fun space adventure between young friends, which is a great vibe for a middle grade Star Wars novel that I think can be enjoyed by adults like myself as well. Tessa Gratton has a writing style that clicks well with me, and I appreciate how she kept the focus on some of the main characters that we had gotten familiar with in Quest for the Hidden City. This book felt like a true sequel and continuation of that and provided closure for a lot of those characters. So, in that way, I believe the overall arc of the middle grade novels for Phase II were more successful than the overall arc for the middle grade novels in Phase I simply because there was a more consistent cast of characters for readers to follow and a more interrelated plot for them to follow between the books.

My overall rating for this book would be a 4.5 out of 5. Rounding down to a 4 out of 5 on a site like Goodreads that doesn't allow half stars for one fairly significant structural issue with which I have a qualm. More detailed breakdown of my thoughts and rating is beneath the spoiler tag for those interested though be warned that the spoiler tag exists for a reason. That reason being "there be spoilers ahead" So read at your own risk beyond this point if you don't want to be spoiled.

Spoiler

-This book really made me fall in love with Rooper as a character. She has a wonderful spark and energy to her as a character, and she is very pure and noble at heart, and it is a pleasure for me to see her growing as a Jedi. The middle grade High Republic books have given me two of my favorite High Republic Jedi: Vernestra and now Rooper. So, for that alone I am super grateful for the middle grade reader books.

-Rooper's relationship with Silandra continues to be chef's kiss perfection. It's just so wholesome and heartwarming this feeling I get of Silandra being both Rooper's Master and mother at the same time.

-Sky is a charismatic character with more depth than I anticipated initially. It was cool to see how clever Sky could be and the traumas and complicated past Sky was dealing with emerge throughout the book. I also just thought it was nice to have a Graff who wasn't entirely evil and corrupt. It was just a good reminder that families are made up of individuals and rarely are all of those individuals evil.

-I do enjoy the frontier vibes that develop on Batuu in the early part of the book especially. It has a bit of a Wild West feeling when Rooper has to step in to save Sky.

-This era does feel like a technological step back from Phase 1, which I appreciate, in terms of the intense competition in hyerspace exploration which both feels like a Wild West type of venture and also clash between capitalistic greed of prospecting families like the Graffs and San Tekkas growing in wealth and the general good of the Republic in terms of whether hyperspace lanes should essentially be public property or private property with use rights for sale to the highest bidder.

-Also, the issue of unreliable communications because of communication buoys in space that could malfunction or be sabotaged was interesting and again showed how different this era was in terms of technology. So there is the sense that technology continued to evolve in Star Wars after this point, and this is truly an earlier era with earlier technology.

-I enjoyed the space adventure feeling most of the plot had.

-Felix's inclusion here was well-done in my opinion. He had an introduction chapter of his own for those who hadn't read Path of Deceit and we could see how his mission from the Mother to sabotage the communications buoys put him in conflict with Rooper. I also liked the dialogue between him and Rooper and the evolution of their relationship where violence wasn't the answer but rather a sort of mutual compromise and acceptance that they both are honoring and respecting the Force in their own ways. Negotiation rather than violence was the path to peace here. It also felt very realistic to me how Felix's beliefs about the Force didn't change entirely but he and the family he loves the most could be safely extracted from the Path cult and hopefully go onto a happy future as farmers. And I felt that he earned a happy ending by how he was willing to help fix the sabotage of the communication buoy. I just really like the handling of Felix's arc here. It felt very nuanced but in a way that could work even without the reader being familiar with Path of Deceit first.

-Interesting lore implications that the Levelers are from Planet X and the Path for sure has been there.

-I was kind of disappointed how quickly the goal of going to Planet X was completely abandoned in a book titled "The Quest for Planet X." I understand how the showdown on Dalna took priority over that for many of our characters especially once Silandra had ordered Rooper to go there, and obviously Rooper and crew were vital in resolving the communications issue around Dalna. However, I did think that after the situation on Dalna had been resolved, there might have been more interest in learning more about Planet X. Both the threats and potential assets that could be found there. Also, the fact that it is a Force nexus planet. You would think that alone would justify some Jedi researchSo, that is the structural issue that lowers my rating from a 5 to a 4.5.

-The Jedi do seem to defeat the Path on Dalna and the Levelers are basically just regarded as mythical monsters that are no longer a threat because the Path has been defeated, which I think is a short-sighted error in judgment on the Jedi's part that obviously comes back to haunt them by Phase 1 of the High Republic era. In that way, this middle grade book works well as a prequel to Phase I in that we see the Jedi are vaguely aware of the Leveler problem but they don't seem to understand too much about Levelers and don't bother to investigate them more once the Path are defeated. Kicking the can down the road for future Jedi to end up having to deal with in Phase 1.

-In that way, the happy ending for our characters in this book does feel earned and therefore sweet but also leaves that sense that unaddressed issues will end up causing problems for the Jedi and the Republic down the line. So, things may be sunny for our characters, but there are clouds on the horizon for future characters to deal with, which, again could be fairly fitting of this prequel type story. The Jedi of Phase II think they have solved the problem, but they haven't and that becomes a big issue for Jedi of Phase 1.

-I did love that Rooper asked Silandra for shield lessons at the end

-Sky finding resolution with the brother they had been in conflict with throughout the book was a nice touch as well. Especially since the resolution felt realistic and not to cheesy in my opinion.

-So, yeah, it felt like this book had quite a bit of payoff for characters I had come to care about while still providing insights into how mistakes made in this era had implications for Phase 1 era catastrophes and conflicts.

All in all, I would recommend this book to those who want a fun space adventure with some winning characters. It's a light, quick read that could definitely be a palate cleanser before, during, or after some of the heavier, more intense High Republic fare.

Happy reading to those who do pick this book up! May you feel as rewarded for doing so as I did

 

Try Hoopla- they have the middle grade books and they always include the illustrations.

 

I just finished this- pretty fun. Nothing special but it was a fun enough adventure with some good bits of conflict. Ironic though that Path of Vengeance was the book where we actually visited Planet X; the fungus planet was cool though.

And wouldn't you know, the Hoopla edition also lacked the illustrations. Guess I'm going for that Australian paperback.