Phase III
of The High Republic begins with The Eye of Darkness and as a
novel it has a lot to do. Phase II being
a flashback means that while the reader will be more knowledgeable and
understanding of the Nihil and how they operate, they may not largely remember
all of the plot points of the first phase.
George Mann doesn’t really do that, instead making the crux of the novel
the one year later fallout of the destruction of Starlight Beacon. This doesn’t mean things are streamlined,
Mann is juggling several perspectives through the novel, several of which will
not be covered nearly as in depth in the review though to be fair, he is
incredibly successful at doing this.
What makes The Eye of Darkness work is just how well Mann is at making
the temporal setting feel incredibly oppressive. A year has passed, but a year shouldn’t feel
like such a long time for the High Republic as a society. The upended nature of society permeates every
page of the book, the Nihil have set up their own dominion in an Occlusion Zone,
there are Jedi and innocents trapped within the zone that are being persecuted
and hunted in various ways, and the bureaucracy of the High Republic doesn’t
actually know what to do with the threat.
Everything is scattered and practically every protagonist we follow from
previous installments in The High Republic is emotionally devastated in
some way, everyone has suffered some loss and are navigating how to pick up the
pieces.
At the
center of the novel is Marchion Ro, leader of the Nihil, the Eye of the Nihil if
we are using their titles. He is the one
emblazoned on the cover with yellow lightsaber and title dedicated to him and
that piece of artwork is a perfect encapsulation of who the character is. There is this utter ruthlessness to who he is
now that he and the Nihil have actually won and that Mann is giving time to
getting inside his head. In a lot of
ways it feels as if Mann saw the criticisms given towards the villains of the
sequel trilogy, and was insistent that we need to understand why Ro is so evil
in the way that he is and where he has come from. It’s also the logical acceleration of a lot
of the ideas behind the founding of the Nihil during Phase II, something that
helps justify the publishing decision to make that second phase a prequel while
Phase III is the more traditional sequel.
That also might be what is adding to the feeling that more time has
passed than a year, however, I feel that might actually be marginal because
that passage of time is integral to the way that Mann constructs his prose.
The prose
is most apparent with the multiple Jedi plotlines. Both Avar Kriss and Elzar Mann plotlines in
the novel. They are separate, but they
feed into each other quite well, but they are both incredibly damaged people in
the aftermath of the destruction of Starlight Beacon. Avar in particular through a lot of the first
two thirds of the novel is skulking around, trying her best to be a hero within
the Occlusion Zone in her own way. It’s
actually one of the few plot threads in the novel that feel close to levity, that
is the more swashbuckling science fiction serial tone that Star Wars was
largely founded upon (it’s also where Mann’s penchant for writing comic relief
characters comes through in the best way to assist with the levity). But don’t get me wrong, the oppressiveness of
the novel’s tone is still there. Both
Kriss and Mann are dealing with essentially depression that only resolves
itself at the end of a single chapter near the end of the novel in one line,
and yet that one line is incredibly satisfying, reading like a thesis for the
novel only further supported by the final chapter going into how there is still
a lot of work to be done even if the “victory” of the novel is clearly a
stopgap in a much larger story. Mann is
setting the tone and bringing hope back to the galaxy and the Republic, but
this isn’t a permanent victory. It’s
just a point where some people got to a point where they can take an active
role in resistance. Mann is taking
inspiration from the sequel trilogy, but he luckily isn’t taking directly from
that trilogy or the structure of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
Overall,
while it’s only the opening gambit of Phase III of The High Republic, in
terms of novels The Eye of Darkness is actually the strongest. Much of that is down to George Mann’s ability
to bring together so many disparate threads that mean the novel feels like part
of a bigger world and yet still having a satisfying arc for almost all of its
characters (I didn’t even mention the rather minor arc for Bell Zettifar). There’s a lot packed into its near 400 page
count, but it’s utterly compelling and lays the groundwork for what hopefully
will be a grand finale. 9/10.
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