Light of the Jedi

Star Wars: Light of the Jedi by Charles Soule is the first adult novel in the new Star Wars: The High Republic franchise. This media franchise will encompass adult and YA novels, comic series, short stories and a television series to stream on Disney+.

Spoilers Ahead!

Set two hundred years before the Skywalker saga films, Light of the Jedi tells the story of a group of Jedi that are asked to participate in a rescue mission when an obstacle in a space lane collides with the Legacy Run, a freighter carrying 9,000 passengers. Several more rescues are needed throughout the system and it is quickly 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. They are respected as peace keepers throughout the galaxy.

Taking place so far in the past of the Star Wars universe, there are very few familiar characters (Yoda , who is referenced rather quickly, for one). This made it a little more difficult for me to orient myself in this world. We are presented with many species that are familiar, and the Jedi in the story have a familiarity but, even they seemed different to me.

The High Republic Jedi used tech but relied more on the mystical side of the force. One example of this are The Vector class ships. These are single or double passenger fighters, similar to the classic X-wings, that were built for and utilized by the Jedi order. Because they were built with the Jedi in mind, the Vector’s weapons system required the use of a light saber, acting as a key to engage the system. It also lacked shielding and other components that only a force-wielding pilot could compensate for.

I think the newness of the High Republic world, gave the writer, Charles Soule, freedom that writers of the original stories did not have. The original stories had to fit into the context of a world that was almost entirely built by George Lucas. For Soule, the world of the High Republic is quite literally a blank page and this is where things fell flat for me. I am not new to the world of Star Wars, but not having read any of the comics and 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 new world that I enjoyed. I liked how the author gave the reader some familiar “breadcrumbs” and nods to the Skywalker era to help navigate this new territory, but I needed more of that. I also felt 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 and this book has that. It’s fun. It’s exciting and I’m excited to see where the plot goes from here. For me this book needed more story. I wanted to know more about the individual characters. There were many new characters introduced in this novel – which is essential when it’s the first in a new series (especially one with the immense scope as The High Republic). But I felt I didn’t get to really know many of these characters. Many were also just there to drive the plot and then gone, so, I can only speculate that the author didn’t want to waste time developing characters that he didn’t intend to keep around for very long. This device may work occasionally but, in this case, I think it just made it blatantly obvious who the “important” characters are, going forward. The characters that I became invested in throughout the novel were well-developed and I cannot wait to see their story progress.

Overall I enjoyed the prose writing style. I liked meeting new characters, and I thought Light of the Jedi set up a fresh, interesting, new world that I am definitely interested in exploring further.

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