– Non-Spoiler and Spoiler Review –
Arriving alongside the adult novel Light of the Jedi, Justina Ireland’s middle-grade novel A Test of Courage helps kick off and expand the nascent The High Republic era! Following one of the youngest Jedi Knights, Vernestra Rwoh, on what starts as a routine babysitting mission of a Senator’s tinkering daughter, Avon Starros, that quickly turns into a tricky survivalist story, A Test of Courage is an excellent read, as it makes the new era accessible to more readers, and despite a smaller focus, offers important details to help build out the larger picture.
I know a lot of people, including me before, look past a book if it has the moniker of middle-grade attached to it, but from the numerous ones I’ve read now, including two of Justina Ireland’s (Spark of the Resistance and this one), they often surprise with the depth of their content, feeling more like all-ages reader material since even as an adult it’s thoroughly engaging and complex, which is even better for the younger readers as it will challenge them and keep them engaged as well. A Test of Courage is one part of the much larger The High Republic initiative, a series of novels and comics charting a story set 200 years before the prequel films (The Phantom Menance), and despite its smaller focus, it still manages to capture the era and what’s all happening in the rest of the galaxy, meaning one wouldn’t be lost checking out other material if they hadn’t read Light of the Jedi as well. The aforementioned adult book does get a little grisly at parts, so a middle-age reader might not be suitable for it, but they won’t be left in the dark if they only read AToC; they do have the option of a young reader’s retelling of LotJ from Cavan Scott called The Great Jedi Rescue (out January 5), while the all-ages on-going series The High Republic Adventures from IDW (beginning February 21), will be a great place to let middle-age readers continue enjoying the era until the next middle-grade novel drops in June.
Now let’s dive into the nitty-gritty of what makes AToC such a great book! It all starts with the main pair of the book, Vernestra “Vern” Rwoh and Avon Starros, as while the remaining cast are great in their own ways too, these two form the core of novel and offer great interactions and unique viewpoints to the situation unfolding around them. For Vern, she’s the youngest Jedi to be Knighted in quite some time, so when she’s given the babysitting job over Avon on their trip to Starlight Beacon’s (a Republic and Jedi station built in the Outer Rim to bring the rest of the galaxy into the Republic’s fold) commencement ceremony, she’s obviously disappointed it’s her first assignment, but she’s not too prideful as to know it’s just as important as any job they could assign her. As things quickly fall apart, with their ship attacked (unbeknownst to them at first) by the Nihil, a group of marauders who instill fear across the Outer Rim as they please, disappearing and appearing seemingly at will, Vern steps up to the challenges ahead of them, doing her best to get their surviving group to work together to survive a hostile planet. She has her faults, but she’s willing to admit she needs to learn more, though having the Master Jedi who was along with them perish certainly causes her to put all her training, and recent Knighting, to the ultimate test. What I enjoyed most about her was seeing a very young Jedi Knight, on their own, dealing with their own deficiencies and giving it their best shot, especially with the trouble not being a big war or battle, but rather stuff like survival and keeping a Jedi Padawan from slipping into their anger over their Master’s death. It’s refreshing to have a younger, teenage character in a prominent role, as Vern still has much to learn, but how much she does know and can do on her own shows how the Jedi of The High Republic era differ from those in the prequel era, as they actually have the time to learn tons of skills, instead of being shipped off into a war, and are often in the field helping any and all types of problems, not just those of galactic importance. She’s calm, capable, and willing to learn still and how she stills with a problem child like Avon and later Imri shows how mature she is for her age, which makes the ending for her all the more interesting and important for her development.
Then there’s tinkerer extraordinaire Avon Starros, my favorite of the novel and maybe of the initiative so far (which is only two books at this point, but still!). I initially was excited for her character due to her being a distant relative of Sana Starros, the grudge-holding, no-nonsense bounty hunting ex of Doctor Chelli Aphra, and while the potential connections and story about how they go from a clan of Senators to bounty hunters has its first strokes painted here, Avon is memorable regardless of a familiar name. She’s a snarky, often getting into trouble as she attempts to solve her latest technological ideas, and angry at her mother for banishing her to the middle of nowhere, though how and why she’s stuck out in Port Haileap is an important character reveal of its own. One of the biggest reasons Avon stuck out so much was Ireland’s writing of her point-of-view, as it feels like the mind of an inventor, a scientific mind, as she always considers things as a problem that needs a solution, and no matter the problem, she’s always eager to understand how to deal with it; it’s an excellent way to differentiate the POVs and is easily the strongest, most unique one in the book. Her antics are intriguing throughout, like how she’s adjusted J-6’s programming, her bodyguard nanny droid, which leads to tons of humor, while her obsession with something that she finally gets her hands on by the end has a very big potential connection to the stories we already know; in fact, both of these above tinkerings could be fodder for bigger stories/connections later in the initiative and will likely tie into what happens to the larger Starros clan (check out the spoiler section below where I dive a lot more into those implications!). In the end, Ireland infuses Avon with tons of infectious humor throughout, especially with her matter-of-fact thinking and talking, even when dealing with the feelings of others, and she should be a favorite for many, I imagine.
Joining Vern and Avon on their adventure to a dangerous moon, after surviving the destruction of their ship headed to Starlight Beacon, are Jedi Padawan Imri Cantaros and the Dalnan Ambassador’s son, Honesty Weft. Both lose their parental figures in the ship’s destruction, Imri his Jedi Master Douglas and Honesty his father, the Dalnan Ambassador, a planet considering whether or not to join the Republic. Ireland handles their emotional responses to the losses rather well, giving their teenage reactions more depth than one would expect beyond simple words and feelings, and how they feed into each other’s reactions leads to some surprising and compelling moments in the story. This is the Jedi Order at its height and it seems not many or any have fallen to the dark side in some time, so Imri’s slowly building rage and anger, and if Vern can stop it before it gets to far, is a nice change of pace for brushes with the dark side, as it’s not an intended consequence someone set in motion, but just a young Jedi’s struggle and Vern’s willingness to listen and help.
Due to the smaller focus, we only meet 3 or so operatives of the Nihil, the marauders caught up in the Republic’s expansion into the Outer Rim and the Jedi/Republic response to the Legacy Run disaster. Even when we do have time with the two Nihil involved, Klinith and Gwishi, with the destruction of the ship Vern and Co. are on, it’s a little too short to get the depth of their plans or ideas, though when our heroes find them trapped on the same moon with them, the conversation they overhear between the two Nihil helps flesh out the villains of the era a bit for younger readers who won’t be reading LotJ. It’s a good amount, but it felt like we could’ve had more, though the conflicts that arise for our main crew were ultimately more important so I understand the focus being there. The burden to explore the Nihil in totality isn’t on AToC, though the epilogue handily establishes their larger threat, so in the end we get enough to give any age reader a better understanding of their capabilities and the hardships ahead for the galaxy. As I mentioned in my Light of the Jedi review, there has been concern regarding the Nihil’s seemingly non-human only membership and the implications of having the “other” of the galaxy being the only face of the enemy, but both LotJ and AToC include human members, with one featured in AToC’s Nihil presence. The galaxy doesn’t seem to be concerned about the make-up of the group, rather its actions, but having so few humans at this point means this development will be one to watch, though how the authors present the Nihil so far, including humans within their numbers, has helped alleviate some of those concerns.
A really neat addition to AToC are the illustrations by Petur Antonsson, who also provides the book’s cover. The drawings are simple in what they depict, but the clean, comic style are a delight to the eyes. My favorite one is the final one, which I can’t get into due to spoilers, while I also really liked Antonsson’s take on Vern’s lightwhip.* I really hope he returns in the following middle-grade novels, but if you plan on checking out young reader’s The Great Jedi Rescue, you’ll get more of his work!
Alright, here come some SPOILERS!
CLICK BELOW if you really want to dive into spoiler territory…
Here are a few other things:
- We have a page dedicated to The High Republic, which is where you’ll find all our reviews, news articles, and a list of what content is yet to come. I’ll cover that below, but you can always refer to our THR page in the future!
- Prior to The High Republic’s release, hints and teases were hidden across the canon and we’ve complied as many Easter Eggs as we could find or recognize!
- After A Test of Courage, there are plenty of The High Republic stories to enjoy! Also releasing today, January 5, are: Light of the Jedi, the adult novel from Charles Soule, and I have a review up of that already as well!; The Great Jedi Rescue, written by Cavan Scott, is a young readers retelling of LotJ. On January 6, the first issue of Scott’s The High Republic comic from Marvel releases, and is a monthly on-going from there. Claudia Gray’s young adult novel Into the Dark drops February 2, which I’m currently reading and will have a review for on release day. And Daniel José Older’s The High Republic Adventures from IDW comics arrives on February 21, and will be a monthly on-going as well. Further out, June 29 sees the release of the second adult novel, The Rising Storm, by Scott.
- Much further beyond that, there’s of course the upcoming TV show The Acolyte, set at the end of the era, which seems to be about 50 years or so before The Phantom Menace (so 150 years after LotJ), according to a video about an upcoming Chinese specific novel for The High Republic, with no word if other audiences will get a chance to read it.
- Also, check out the new content revealed in January 4’s livestream launch, including where we’ll see Avon, Vern, and Ireland’s writing in the future of THR.
- *Vern has a lightwhip! This was revealed from an excerpt before the book’s release, but I do find it interesting the design came to her from the Force itself…I see why it was useful to her here, but I’ll be curious to see how/why it could be useful in the future of the series. Also, the details about how the design was useful to the Jedi in combating Forbidden Forms in the Sith War, and its usage by Nightsisters during this era, are an intriguing expansion on what could’ve been a simple recanonization.
- If you’re still on the fence about this or other The High Republic works, make sure to check out the free Sampler!
The High Republic – A Test of Courage, written by Justina Ireland, is another fantastic option for readers to explore the new era, as it both stands alone from Light of the Jedi and covers enough of the larger story for readers to grasp what’s going on in the era, while its quick but exciting adventure, excellent new characters in the likes of Avon Starros and Vernestra Rwoh, and character explorations make for an excellent read for fans of all ages.
+ Avon Starros is a breakout star
+ Vern makes for a compelling younger Jedi willing to learn
+ Great pace, humor, and intriguing situations the kids find themselves in
+ Illustrations by Petur Antonsson
– Nihil taking a backseat dulls some of their threat
Ryan is Mynock Manor’s Head Butler. You can follow him on Twitter @BrushYourTeeth. You can follow the website on Twitter @MynockManor and Instagram @mynockmanor.
DISCLOSURE: I received a copy of this book from the publisher at no charge in order to provide a review. However, this did not affect the overall review content. All opinions are my own.