– Spoiler-Free Review –
The Jedi believe that the Nihil are – again – on the run! But when weird things happen on Corellia, are the villainous marauders far behind? Read Chris’s review on Midnight Horizon!
Daniel José Older is quickly becoming one of my favorite Star Wars authors. Specifically, in The High Republic I was instantly enamored with his work in IDW’s The High Republic Adventures, but he quickly showed quite a bit of range in writing the middle grade book Race to Crashpoint Tower and now a young adult novel. One of Older’s most important touches, in my opinion, is how he always has an easily identifiable theme within his books. This makes sure that the plot has some overarching meaning and not just “events happen”. This means that all of the characters have an identifiable character arc and not just “these people were here”. (I think both of these hypothetical critiques are fairly leveled at other books in the THR series.)
Fans of The High Republic Adventures will be overjoyed to learn that Midnight Horizon effectively operates as the prose capstone to the mini-series in a few ways: the characters’ emotional and personal arcs were started in the series; the events were set up in the series; and the series contains the book’s extremely high energy. These ideas will serve as the backbone of the review because otherwise, there would be so much to discuss!
First, the characters’ emotional and personal arcs. One thing that I appreciated really early in this book is that each character had a clear emotional conflict that was laid out in the opening few chapters of the book. Lula Talisola wrestles with the emotional weight of what it means to be a Jedi – and what that means you might have to give up. Zeen Mirala wrestles with the depth of what she’s gotten into since joining Starlight Beacon…or whom she has gotten into with. Reath Silas and Ram Jamoram pair nicely as Padawans trying to find their emotional core in a galaxy of death and danger. Even Masters Kantam Sy and Cohmac Vitus have to process what being a Jedi means to them. I could go on and on, as there are still more characters with emotional journeys in this book (an impressive feat on its own). I could EASILY go on and on about the details here – some are very exciting, like seeing Reath actually be a teenager a bit with kids his own age, while some are extremely emotional, like Zeen – but I don’t want to turn this into a spoiler review.
All of that to say this: this book succeeds on so many levels of crafting an intimate novel, one where characters are personally invested in each other and personally invested in the plot of the novel. The High Republic has fallen into the trap before where events override individual character stories, but this novel keeps the balance more level. The novel bounces between groups of characters and I think I was happy to see the next POV chapter, no matter who it was. Some novels, like the Wheel of Time or Stormlight Archive, have you bouncing between three POVs, but you would rather they spent more time in one or the other (less on Shallan, more on Navani!), but I didn’t feel that here. I would’ve been equally happy with one more chapter on the given POV or been happy if it switched to either of the others. This speaks extremely well to the novel here, and it means that I found myself enjoying it the entire way through.
I also don’t want to go into spoilers – even though other sources have, by this time, already spoken of one of the relationships, but I’d be remiss as a reviewer to not note the depth of new dimensions of representation here. Older pushes the representation bar a lot higher than it has been before with this novel in surprising ways. (One relationship I did not see coming, but to discuss the context would rob, I think, a big part of the story’s emotional beats. Sorry! Better just read the novel to see the multi-faceted relationships and representations!) As someone who doesn’t generally connect with most romantic storylines, I was afraid such a focus on relational beats would be lost on me, but I was drawn into the emotional levels of these relationships. Generally, I was pleasantly surprised by how deep the characters’ emotional journeys were and the depth to which we plumbed the relational lives of these characters.
Second, I do want to discuss, far more briefly, that this story was set up in the IDW series, but it read fine on its own. I criticized The Fallen Star for relying too heavily on both consuming everything already and your plans to consume the remainder of Phase I, but I don’t think that criticism would be well-leveled here. There is quite a bit of background for all of the characters, both Jedi and Nihil, in the IDW series, but I thought that you could get to know these characters well if you only read the book. The subterfuge on Corellia is both set up in the novel and ties into the events of the destruction of Starlight enough that you wouldn’t need the comics or novel to fully buy-in. I thought that this book did uniquely well in being tied in well with other books without needing them. (But, oh wow, the depth you will get from this book if you have already read everything else!)
Third, this book takes the energy level of the IDW series and translates it directly into prose. The IDW all-ages series runs at a mile a minute, quick reads with emotional depth. But since it focuses on younger teenagers, the Gen-Z/young Millennial energy is high. Lots of quips, lots of jokes, lots of slang-y language. I almost got tired trying to keep up with this book’s energy at times! But I definitely commend Older’s ability to write such a high energy book. It is a YA novel, after all!
There really would be a lot more to talk about this book once more people have had the chance to read it. I think most readers will enjoy it a lot, and most readers might be surprised by how much they find out there is to discuss. But, for the sake of a non-spoiler review, I will simply say this much: Older’s energetic novel is a fast-paced, yet emotionally rich, adventure story with a surprising range of character depth and relational dimensions that will excite any fan of THR or SW, setting the stage for far more explosive and intimate stories in the future.
You can follow Chris on Twitter @ChrisWerms, and of course, you can follow the Manor on Twitter @MynockManor!
DISCLOSURE: I received a copy of this novel 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.
Chris’s The High Republic Reviews:
Phase 1, Wave 1 | The Rising Storm | Race to Crashpoint Tower | Out of the Shadows | Tempest Runner | The Fallen Star