– Slight Spoiler Review –
The Republic wants to celebrate its growing territory and the peace it ushered in – but the darkness cast by the Nihil get deeper as the true extent of their threat continues to be revealed. Read Chris’s review of The High Republic: The Rising Storm!
The Nihil have been defeated, and peace reigns across the galaxy! (Or have they been?) Chancellor Lina Soh sees no better opportunity to celebrate the Republic than now with an event called the Republic Fair! (Or is it really the best time to do so?)
Spinning from the events of the first wave of The High Republic material, The Rising Storm checks in on the galaxy a year after the events of the Great Hyperspace Disaster. The galaxy reels from the event, still on edge for possible Emergences, even so long after the Battle of Kur, and still sees pockets of Drengir afflicting planets across the Outer Rim. Despite all of this, the Jedi Order and Republic work together to create an event called the Republic Fair, hosted on a planet called Valo. On Valo, the best of the galaxy will be brought together as an exhibition showing the cultures and peoples of the galaxy. Exotic animals, delicacies, and advancements in technology will be displayed for the entire galaxy to see.
This, as you might imagine, brings out some of the skepticism of certain Republic planets. Is it the best time to really be creating such a massive target? The events of Into the Dark show that the Nihil really haven’t been defeated as soundly as was thought after the Battle of Kur. The Marvel comics series shows Avar Kriss and Starlight Beacon’s attempts to curtail a growing threat of Drengir, even as the Republic and Jedi Order are forced to create alliances with shady customers across the galaxy. This leads to a growing feeling of dread and gloom for the characters, and, honestly, the reader.
If there’s anything we know as readers, even the best laid plans of our heroes never truly go without a hitch. So, even the fact that a book was written about this event tips us off to the fact that *something* is going to happen at the Republic Fair. But Cavan takes this one step further, masterfully using foreshadowing to ramp the tension so high that the climax almost feels like a relief. Every time that we hear about another Nihil attack, meet a character, or hear about the Fair, we wonder if that is going to play into the climax of the novel. One scene features a firework, wherein both I as the reader and a character in the novel flinch, expecting it to be part of an attack/the climax. In this sense, Cavan creates an incredibly gripping novel, one that is hard to put down despite how uneasy you feel reading. It’s not often that I feel such visceral emotional reactions to books like this!
The growing tension helps the pace of the book zip along, even as it focuses on a few storylines. Generally, three or four stories are happening concurrently, and each chapter brings you from one event to another. Even if you may not click with one story, there’s plenty to keep your interest, especially as you try and see how all of the stories start to tie together in the climax of the novel. Some stories concurrently happen in another book, and a chapter or two introduces the other events from other sources. I have two small points here, though. First, I would love to see a novel zero in a little bit on a smaller cast. Both The Rising Storm and Light of the Jedi had fairly expansive casts, which is great in terms of really fleshing out an era, but it doesn’t give a lot of characters a lot of time in the spotlight. It also means that the stories zip between each other pretty frequently, with one character left with far less material than the others. Second, the way that the stories are interconnected (specifically here with Race to Crashpoint Tower), certain elements are introduced only to be solved in a different book. I absolutely love this sort of interconnectivity, but it does make them required reading, and almost requires them to be read in a certain order. The Rising Storm doesn’t suffer without Race, but it would mean buying another book is all.
Now, I don’t want my comment about the wide variety of characters, and my desire to see stories focus in a bit on some characters, to sound like a harsh indictment. As it stands, Cavan does a wonderful job of fleshing out some of the characters that he picks up. One such character is Bell Zettifar, who is dealing with the loss of his Master, Loden Greatstorm. His pain quickly becomes ours as we empathize with him, thanks to Cavan’s brilliant writing, and we easily join his emotional journey. A few other characters didn’t connect with me emotionally, but I still wound up liking them a lot as people, like Stellan Gios or Indeera Stokes. I think this speaks really well to Cavan’s ability to write characters: there are plenty to connect with, and even ones that I don’t connect with still end up being interesting enough to come alongside. I won’t say a ton about her, because she needs to be experienced and I think part of her enchantment comes from her part in the novel, but Ty Yorrick is an easy stand out character, and I can’t wait for her IDW mini-series.
The plotting and characters are really where this book stands out, but it wouldn’t be fair to write a review of a Cavan Scott work without mentioning how weird it is. (This is a good thing!) Cavan has such a brilliant mind toward worldbuilding, and he really makes his stories feel like they inhabit a lived-in universe. This was one of the highlights of Dooku: Jedi Lost, where planets and artifacts and books and people’s names were thrown around as if they knew what their significance, even if we don’t, is, and makes it feel like there’s a real history behind the stories. The Rising Storm is the same. I won’t say much, but one creature brought out the real xenozoologist in me!
And, finally, I wanted to talk about one more thing that was mercifully brought back in the era: politics! In the previous novel, Senator Noor was the political stand-in, reflecting on the economic state of the Republic in light of the Disaster. We also read about Eriadu and how it teamed with the Republic. In this novel, we see intrigue as one Senator stands as a fairly staunch opponent of Lina Soh. At the same time, the Republic is courting Togrutans into joining the government, with the Fair as the backdrop to this new relationship. There has truly been a dearth of politics in the franchise recently, and I for one am really excited to see it come back in such an exciting era.
All in all, The Rising Storm proves to be an extremely exciting novel, tense and well-written, gripping and full of personality and life. The era has yet to hit a low point, and I’m really excited to see where the series goes with this much momentum that it has already built.
You can follow Chris on Twitter @ChrisWerms, and of course, you can follow the Manor on Twitter @MynockManor and Instagram @mynockmanor!