Star Wars: The High Republic: Into the Light by: Claudia Gray

 

After three phases of The High Republic, Claudia Gray made me feel terrible when a rock with absolutely no dialogue but so much characterization sacrifices itself.  Geode as an integral crew of the Vessel has been in this publishing initiative since the beginning, almost out of place in Star Wars as a franchise while being presented as almost coming from the pen of the late great Douglas Adams.  Gray’s decision to end the character in self-sacrifice while being placed in the third act of Into the Light symbolizes an end of the young adult line, the entire novel swerving to an ending where the protagonists don’t win.  Gray ends the novel not on a downer, but a sense of growing up while the Nihil are still out there and the publishing initiative is coming to an end.  Geode’s death is a focusing of the novel to the destruction of a Thornseed, an artefact of the Sith, that when destroyed indicates a returning of the light to the galaxy.  The trouble there is that before this point, Gray had been building up that Into the Light would be about undoing the blight that had been spreading across the galaxy.  To Gray’s credit, there is very likely somebody higher up at Lucasfilm stopping her from resolving that plot in this novel, but the ever present threat of the blight is the drive behind the actions of the novel.  The Thornseed provides a last minute goal as it becomes clear that destroying the blight is not going to be what this book does.  That isn’t to say the Thornseed is not interesting, it’s essentially an evil terraforming device that makes plants evil which leads to some great scenes, it just feels like an extra addition pushing the trajectory of Into the Light away.

 

Claudia Gray, despite weakening the ending of the novel in this way, is still an excellent writer when it comes to character work.  Gray understands that the overarching story is in fact winding down.  Interestingly there is a lot of development for Burryaga and the Wookiees as a culture, examining how their experiences as Padawans to Jedi work differently.  Like Geode, Wookiees not speaking English means that there is not actually dialogue, but the planet Kashyyk being afflicted with the blight is one of those turning points where the book tonally becomes more real.  The blight throughout presents this larger than life threat, despite Marchion Ro wishing to show the galaxy he has it under his control to position himself as political savior it couldn’t be further from the truth.  Watching the Nihil slowly unravel themselves is particularly interesting, while Avon Starros deals with the real fear that if the Jedi unravel her safety is in danger, unknowingly being in a similar position to her mother.  This is largely as another addition to the idea of the galaxy being at war with something far bigger than itself.  The Thornseed represents things becoming too big, when it falls there is a sense of everything falling around it.  Seeing the Nihil internally begin to fall apart is one of those additions to the novel that create this sense of hope at its core, especially when considering how much of this book is also focused on Amadeo Azzazzo and Reath Silas, even if their respective character arcs while continued in this novel are on the downward trajectory towards resolution.  There is also the active effort to connect the book to more familiar Star Wars ideas: the Sith get several mentions throughout and there is something more present about the character of Yoda different from other books in The High Republic.

 

Overall, Into the Light while continuing to be good is a novel that reads as if something is missing.  The ending leaves you with this question of if there should be more, not in a way of a forthcoming sequel, but in a way that the ideas are gone.  The idea of the light returning as the villains become too big to keep their empire going.  It is a novel that is clearly the resolution to much of what had been setup and for the young adult line there is a satisfying conclusion for the characters even if the plot is still technically going by the end.  7/10.