Star Wars: Light of the Jedi by Charles Soule is the first book of two in The High Republic series. Set even before the events of Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, readers get to know of new Jedi heroes they may not have heard of before. I’m going to keep this review fairly short because there really isn’t that much to gloss over. While Light of the Jedi is not necessarily a disappointment as I still had some fun while reading it, it’s not what I would call a great entry into the Star Wars universe.

“Jedi fall off things a lot. You need to be ready.”

Indeera

The story here lacks a great deal of depth. The first part of the story when the characters had to deal with the oncoming crisis just took a bit too long. The point had already been established and I wished the author would have devoted more of that time to develop the characters instead. The second half when dealing with the Nihil also wasn’t that great. They really seemed like your average cookie cutter villains with once again, lack of depth for the most part. You take books in the franchise such as Master & Apprentice and Darth Plagueis and easily be able to tell that those two were shining beacons compared to Light of the Jedi’s faint glow. Obviously the books were written by different authors but my point is that you can clearly see the differences.

“Plans can fail, at any step along the way. I have a goal, and goals can be achieved in any number of ways.”

Marchion Ro

The Jedi’s of Avar Kriss, Bell Zattifar, Elzar Mann, Loden Greatstorm and others felt like you knew them, yet you really don’t. Not one of them really outshined the other and that led to all of them being just mediocre at the end. Seeing that Avar Kriss looks to be the lead character on the cover, I would have expected the author to get more in depth with her background, upbringing and the such but nothing of that sort was released. The Nihil’s were actually quite laughable at some points in the story. They had a thing going with how they acquired the necessary upper-hand against the Republic forces but it just felt a bit dull towards the end.

On the bright side, there were some pretty intense space battles. If however you were looking for great lightsaber action instead, you may be disappointed. While I’ll definitely be reading the second book of the series, I’m not necessarily counting down the days until it gets released.