There’s something
really scrappy about Defy the Storm.
It’s the first young adult novel for Phase III of Star Wars: The High
Republic, and it does something that is particularly interesting. It’s Star Wars doing young adult
dystopian fiction. Specifically what Tessa
Gratton and Justina Ireland are doing is to write a novel that is reflecting
the particular boom of the 2010s after the publishing and rise in popularity of
Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games.
Defy the Storm is about doing just that, a group of characters at
very different places in the galaxy far, far away defying the Nihil occupation
in a way specifically tailored to a younger audience. This particularly finds itself in the approach
taken by Gratton and Ireland in the adult characters. Throughout the novel there is this general
sense of our young protagonists being largely ignored and treated like
children. Particularly the choice to
open the novel by introducing the reader to Avon Starros, the daughter of a
diplomat who has capitulated to the Nihil for her own personal gain. Avon knows what her mother is doing is not
only wrong, but also is very much an attempt for survival and betterment of
themselves, but at her first opportunity, after being attacked by a member of
the Nihil, escapes. That isn’t actually the
inciting incident for Avon as a character, it just allows the opportunity for
her escape from the Nihil. Mirroring her
is Xylan Graf, a man forced to affiliate with the Nihil who is equally
attempting to find his own way out from behind the Stormwall, it’s something
that has been done and he’s determined to see it done again. They’re paired throughout much of the novel,
Gratton and Ireland putting their opposite personalities on display throughout.
The oddity
of Defy the Storm for me is that the summary attempts to position
Vernestra Rwoh as the protagonist of the novel, while Gratton and Ireland spend
much of the novel shifting perspective between every character. The title is one that lends itself to an
ensemble style of storytelling, something that improves the book greatly
because so much is setup. This is the
first in a line after all, but where Gratton and Ireland seem to gel the best
is the character work. Young adult
fiction as a genre does have the mindset of characters for the young reader to
latch onto, but with all of the switching there is something for each character
to largely latch onto. It’s particularly
interesting since most of the characters are new protagonists, not continuing a
lot of the plots of Phase I, at least in this novel, as The Eye of Darkness
did. This is not a bad thing, one running
thread of Star Wars is about how old ideas are often just that, old, and
in need of change. Ironic considering
the general state of the franchise post-2017, but that is besides the
point. Defy the Storm also puts
one particular change for the Nihil front and center, and with that the
Nameless as an almost more direct threat.
The Nameless as a concept has been in The High Republic as a publishing
initiative, they were in the last novel Gratton and Ireland co-wrote. But here there is almost a sense that this is
a particular threat for this group of characters to understand and by the end
potentially defeat.
Overall, Defy
the Storm at least in terms of what The High Republic is, cements Tessa
Gratton and Justina Ireland as the most interesting writers. Individually and working together there hasn’t
been a novel that hasn’t at the very least been interesting. Defy the Storm reads like a launching
pad for the line in the best way, character examination as a way to explore a
republic on what may be its last legs.
There is this sense of tragedy on the horizon, following that silly
George Lucas quote, you know the one, about history. And yet Gratton and Ireland just make you
root for these characters although its clear that things are about to fall
apart. Perhaps it’s a little overstuffed
in places, but then again that’s what a lot of Star Wars expanded
universe media tends to do. 8/10.
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