Books The High Republic: The Eye of Darkness by George Mann

Finished this one in two days, which should give done indication as to my personal reception of the opening to Phase 3:

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It was a long wait to get here, but as of right now I’d put this in a tie with Fallen Star for my favorite High Republic novel. Keeping the chapters short and shifting between characters previously established in phase 1 books and comics made me want to power through to the end to see what would happen to these characters. That feeling, along with some of the darker moments from this book, reminded me of the best parts of the New Jedi Order series, though I’m at a bit of a loss as to how the Nihil, which started out as a minor pirate gang, have gotten large enough to patrol their Occlusion Zone. As far as the Stormwall is concerned, that seems to be setting up for another novel, either in this cycle of the next.

I’m rooting for Avar and Elzar to rekindle more of a physical relationship. I’ve always preferred Jedi being allowed to have conventional romantic relationships like in Legends, which is why the post-Empire Jedi Order seemingly returning to a no attachments policy was disappointing (see Luke and Ahsoka)

The only negative I’ll give is the fact that Ghira is still alive. It seems incredible that mastermind Marchion would keep Ghira around when she serves purpose and is clearly trying to undermine him

 

Well, that is a great big start for Phase III.

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Desptite my initial concerns, I liked Marchion's portrayal here quite a lot. He fully embraced his nature of being a showman, and even though Ro has a creative crisis, he still has tricks up his sleeve. And, despite shades of him being unhinged, he is still rather level-headed and reasonable, definitely not a Kylo-level imprudence he showed in TRS, even him once again seeing his father's ghost (story point that I really disliked) is much more inriguing this time, since he also saw Marda's ghost as well. Even Marchion's unwillingness to transform the Nihil into a legitimate government is not a childish stubbornness, but a firm ideological position that compromise with the enemy, that is stronger in terms of infrastructure and economy, leads only to eventual absorption by it. Looking at USSR's fate, it is hard to argue with him. So, the expansion is the only way it this regard Marchion is more of a Trotskyist.

Smaller cast of characters is definetly The Eye of Darkness's biggest plus, inherited from Phase II novels. Porter's storyline was the most heartwarming, with him using the past to fight for the future. IMO, in case of Avar and Elzar it was so far their best portrayal in THR project, with them both struggling and feeling guilty, but still continuing to fight thank to emotional help from others, including droids. Althouh Azlin Rell was not subtle at all about him seeing himself in Mann, at that is not a good sign.

Regarding other improvements from Phase I novels - personal conflicts. Before characters from the side of the Republic mostly viewed the Nihil as faceless threat, with several exeptions (Reath vs Nan, Zeen vs Krix, eventually Avar and Keeve vs Lourna) that were sadly undeveloped. But now things had changed. Viess and Porter's confrontation was easily the best, thank to The Blade comic it had a decent background, and the age and experience of opponents made it even more interesting. Engle even respects the general, and it is clear why - she is smart, persistent and , in contrast to Lourna, lacks self-delusion. In Bell and Lina Soh's cases their adversaries also somewhat mirrored them, although to a lesser degree.
Action scenes were refreshingly short, but at the same time brutal, good contrast to some of the overlong and tedious battles from previous novels.

The biggest problem of the book is sadly the same one, that Phase II had in general - lack of bigger picture. The Nihil's actions should have had massive impact, especially after the expansion of the Stormwall that consumed territory from Utapau to Ryloth (it already seems like a scale of Mandalorian Wars) and almost consumed Eriadu (poor planet, it is not strange at all that after so many hardships it produced such person as Tarkin), but there is no particular reaction from various players in the Republic, there is even no senators from previous books to voice their concerns.
Portrayal of the attack on the Stormwall was rather strange, in some moments of the book this system seemed more like a energy wall in space (rather than interdictor stations, placed on hyperlines), like in the finale of Star Trek: Lower Decks season 4

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with Locarno having a suspiciously similar plan and rhetorics to Marchion's ones.

, plus focus on sounds of battle was rather distracting, even though the subject of sound in space in SW - is it real for characters in-universe or not - is old and tricky one.
Ro got himself even more cheat codes on new units, number of the Nihil should've already be dozens of millions to successfully control the territory this large, and collaborators and recruits are clearly not enogh to get this number. With Ryloth's rebels being a problem for both CIS and the Empire, it is not clear how the Nihil are going to control this planet.

Neutral moment, but this novel was rather chaste by THR standards, the only noticeable exceptions are Marchion and Ghirra's physical relationship seemingly being not only for the sake of manipulation from his side, and perversion of one of the Nihil playing an important role in the plot at one moment.

 

Also just as an aside they touch on it barely but

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in the messaging that Ro and co released as propaganda they paint themselves as much more anarchic communist. It’s only like a page, but it’s painted as a do your own thing for equality. The Nihil were of course very clearly Anarchists before they are still clearly anarchists but now they pretend to be something more which I like.

the political side of the Nihil has always interested me way more than than the religious side and how much Marchion did or did not believe in the path of the open hand. I wish politics was a slightly bigger focus in modern Star Wars than it is.

I think overall my only real problem with the book I wish there was more POV chapters from Marchion’s perspective. He’s by far the most interesting character in THR and that’s saying a lot as I really like Avar and Elzar as well as Porter

 

On the one hand, I agree, since Marchion is basically the protagonist of THR fighting the oppressing regime and destroying its main space station, on the other -

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him ordering to expand the Stormwall and acknowledging to Ghirra that he can not change his nature were impressive moments because of lack of his POV.

Regarding Boolan and his experiments - Children of the Storm sound like a very interesting concept, with finally an organization with a non Force-sensitive leadership using an enslaved Force-users as warriors.

 

On Ro

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I like his slightly unhinged nature. It’s not so unhinged that he’s an idiot or makes obvious mistakes. It’s just the right balance. Plus it’s nice overall to have a villian who isn’t authoritarian the opposite frankly. He wants pure chaos for the sake of chaos. Every man his own king he could give a **** what anyone else does minus the Jedi

 

Regarding the

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balance - Ro outright confessed that he wants to become a god, but still managed to do it without looking like a complete lunatic, since he acknowledged his mortality and his goal is rather becoming a legendary figure - the one who defeated the Jedi -that will be remembered by future generations.

 

It’s like that saying your first death is when you actually die. Your second death is when your name is uttered for the last time

 

Also about Game of Thrones possible parallels -

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Arathab Fal was surprisingly revealed to be a member of the Nihil's elite and even the most devoted of them, despite him helping traitor Uttersond in Phase I. My guess is that he was captured after events of Trail Of Shadows and turned into a Mountain-like obedient supersoldier by Boolan.

 

Just into the first few pages of Chapter 14 now and just have to ask....

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What is wrong with both Porter and Avar? They are Jedi Masters...you would think they would be smarter than they are being shown. Both of them are mentioned as trying to get Nihil ships. Porter to travel in and Avar is attempting to steal a transport. But instead of making a run for it once they get the ships they are going to stick around in the O.Z.? You would think they would understand getting a Path Drive to the Republic would do the most harm to the Nihil. Not sticking around and fighting one small battle after the other.

 

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I mean jedi aren't good at looking at the big picture, which I like as a flaw. Help who you can right now, is a common light side stance.

 

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Yeah, she is initially more focused on achieving smaller successes in helping ordinary folk to prove herself worthy in her own eyes.

Regarding scav droids -

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seems like their work will be portrayed in

Spoiler: vol 3 issue #4

In Phase I they were just a replacement for buzz droids, but in Phase III they became somewhat ridiculously powerful - they are fast enough to catch up with a ship and their swarms are everywhere - even with a mention of the Nihil using a new center of manufacturing, it still seems rather strange, they are basically sentinels from The Matrix trilogy now.

 

It was a great book, one of the best in the series. Others have already covered its (many) pluses and (minor) minuses, so I will not expand on it.
I incidentally caught a small factual error on page 254, Chapter 41 of the Kindle edition, where

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Nib Assek is listed as alive and piloting a Vector, and we know that she died on Starlight Beacon (a fact referenced earlier in the same book).

Apologies, if someone has already reported this. I hope it will help @DarthInternous and Del Rey to correct it in the digital edition and any future reprints.

 

Its already corrected in the digital (and for future reprints). But thank you for the heads up.

 

Oh keep your book! It's a collectors item now.

 

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Wonder if Shadows of Starlight #3 is going to include a more detailed look on Veter's capture and well as Melis Shryke's appearance, her description from the book is not very detailed.

 

Eh, I wouldn't go that far. But you do now have a very cool artifact to help further "prove" that your copy is a first edition / first printing, as future printings (starting with the second) won't have that error. There's a long list of books where you can look up how to spot the first/first by certain typos or other printing errors that were later fixed.

 

I really liked this one. Great character development for Avar Kriss especially. She wasn't given a lot of focus in Phase One, where she was largely a supporting character, and I think it did her a lot of good to get focus in a novel versus comic appearances.

 

Reminds me of how in Lords of the Sith it says Sixes instead of Fives when Vader is remembering some of the clones that served under him. Still made me chuckle when I reread that book.

 

Agree, plus her view on the Force is better described in the form of novel.

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Wonder if Azlin will try to influence her as well.

 

While reading, I couldn’t help but compare Marchy March to Sheev:

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Marchy March attempts his presumed takeover in the open, while Sheev did it in the shadows, in secret.

Jerks!

 

Seems to me that Ro incorporated some of EU Palpatine's features that are absent in NU Canon -

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sexual activity, quite an active one
daddy issues as one of the primary initial motivations for becoming an evil overlord, but at the same time narrative of "being evil from the birth" and having no opportunity to elude becoming a monster.

 

What's fascinating about Marchion is that he's essentially the culmination of Evereni resentment and survival.

Because of how they had to survive, they became ruthless survivalists, deceivers and killers. They don't perceive anything wrong with that, it's just a fact, as a result their relationship with the galaxy is one of them having been violently resisted. They almost see themselves as unjustly persecuted. To top it off, the Ro line is from the one Evereni that was on a different trajectory until her cult affiliation pushed her down the same path all the Evereni before her trod. And Marchion is like the apotheosis of that.

He has a kind of nebulous generational resentment and revenge mentality, while also being completely self-centered.

I find it really interesting how The High Republic is playing out Lucas's them of selfishness vs selflessness not through competing Force-users but through non-Force-users(the Nihil) versus the Republic and the Jedi as embodying selflessness.

 

What I find fascinating about him is his singular unrelenting vision of.. what, exactly?! And that's one of the reasons why I keep reading!