– Spoiler Review –
Out of the Shadows, the second young adult novel in The High Republic, carries the Nihil into (literally) uncharted territory, pushing certain Jedi into areas that will challenge them and grow them…and push them to team up with people they’d never expect! Join me as I share my review of The High Republic: Out of the Shadows.
I went into Out of the Shadows knowing almost nothing about the plot, and only vaguely knowing certain characters would be involved. This is probably, really, one of the books that I went into with the fewest expectations as set by the pre-release material. If anything, any hype I had for the book was given simply because it said The High Republic by the title card. Thankfully, the book mostly impressed, but I had some fairly big critiques, so I might just hop on into the review, since I know it’ll go very long.
One thing that I appreciated from Ireland’s first The High Republic book, A Test of Courage, was the way that the narrative took some time to slow down and deal with harder topics like grief and trauma. Honesty Weft and Imri Cantaros both lost father figures in the beginning of the book, and it showed us how they affected the characters directly. Out of the Shadows took this time, as well, showing how Vernestra changed since the events of Valo. Sure, she had been through a lot, but you don’t survive the events of the Republic Fair without a lot of trauma, both physically and emotionally. Thankfully, OotS treats all of the characters’ traumas with respect, showing how they process through them and showing the effect of these terrible events on them. Imri is affected as well, but we’re told more of what happened to him than shown, like we are with Vernestra.
This really leads into one of the core strengths of Out of the Shadows: certain characters are extremely well-rounded, and we learn a lot about them as characters. Vernestra is given a lot of depth, as we see what she is like post-Valo, and her struggles as she leans into being Imri’s Jedi Master. It’s not an easy process and Vernestra starts to worry that she’s not cut out for the job. (Even better that some characters gently challenge her, as well, in a way that most of the time doesn’t feel condescending.) I felt before we were told Vernestra is a great Jedi, but OotS really does a good job of showing how she’s a great Jedi. She’s also a complex character and she decides to hold back from revealing two fairly major secrets in the book, which sets up some exciting tensions and stories in the future.
Other characters are given some interesting dimensions, but I can’t say that I feel like everyone was given a lot of time to develop fully. (This does not mean they’re abandoned – I’d be surprised if most of these characters didn’t return, honestly.) Imri’s changed status – as someone who drew too deeply on the Dark Side and as a newly re-Mastered Padawan – opens up a lot of exploration of his character and his Jedi powers. As we saw before, but is now expanded upon a great deal, Imri’s Force sensitivity makes him a great Force-empowered empath. This is a fairly unique, or uncommon, type of Force power, so I loved seeing it developed in OotS and seeing what unique challenges it provides. The combination of Vernestra and Imri will be one I am very interested in following later.
Speaking of pairs, I wanted to talk a while about Sylvestri Yarrow and Jordanna Sparkburn. Syl, as she’s called throughout Out of the Shadows, is one of the main characters, and presents a really interesting perspective as a non-Jedi character. She’s a freighter pilot, doing her best to survive in the galaxy after the dissolution of the Byne Guild after the destruction of the Legacy Run and Affie’s major expose on their secrets. She’s been aged and toughened by a harsh galaxy and presents a fairly cynical view of it at the age of 19. We’re also introduced to Jordanna Sparkburn, a protector on an Outer Rim planet who has come into contact frequently with both Nihil and Drengir forces. Both share a dislike for the Jedi, for fairly similar reasons, and both seem to have been shaped by a galaxy out to get them.
They are also exes, who separated after…not the best of circumstances. It’s a classic story: one wants to see the wider galaxy, but the other has a strong sense of duty to her home. This ends in them splitting, leaving both heartbroken and both, essentially, alone. I write this summary in this order for a reason: unlike a lot of books where romance is a key factor in the story, OotS presents Jordanna and Syl as characters first, then as love interests. This allows them to stand alone, as they don’t spend the entire story together. This allows both characters to be defined by their own character traits, their own experiences, and their own desires. The story does push them together, but it feels like there are two people, not just two tropes, coming together to fall (back) in love with one another. My biggest disconnect with books happens when characters are introduced only as romantic roles – I commend Ireland for writing strong characters first and romantic partners second.
That being said, I did feel a bit too separated from the romantic storyline, as a lot of it was built on their history, a history that we don’t really see a lot of. One of my biggest pet peeves in fiction is when tensions and conflicts are built on events we didn’t see and end up not experiencing. (One example I pull is Pretty Little Liars, where a five-year story gap re-introduces us to characters in contexts brand new and relationships we never saw and expected us to fill in the gaps with our imaginations.) A lot of the tension between Jordanna and Syl is built on their experiences before they broke up, and the break up itself, something I didn’t experience. This sort of leaves me feeling like an outsider, especially since we’re mostly only told about their experiences. Now, this context may work for some people – certainly, people with messy break-ups can obviously import their own experiences and feelings into this situation. I just wish I experienced a bit of their past together, considering the tension in OotS comes from a shared history that I wasn’t in. I left the novel feeling more like an outsider-looking-in than I felt like a full part of their coming together.
That being said, I was very interested in their present relationship. It is built less on long conversations and their history together, but based more on meaningful glances, terse words shared at the wrong time, and fleeting moments. We don’t have, or share, their emotional history, so I don’t always feel much when I hear their shared history, but I do cheer when they move closer together in the present. The story pulls on a lot of the young adult threads you’d expect from a young adult story, obviously, but little of it feels clichéd. By the time the characters come together, I am genuinely happy to see them come together and let Syl have a replacement for a family-member lost throughout the rest of the story.
I would’ve loved to see Reath Silas and Cohmac Vitus given a bit more characterization in Out of the Shadows. I absolutely fell in love with Reath when he was introduced in Gray’s Into the Dark, so I was excited to see him come back. We learn he’s a lot different than the Reath that we met a year ago, but again, we’re mostly told that and we don’t see it a lot. I would’ve loved to see Reath’s changes shown, but maybe that would require a book/comic that covers the year gap between the release of the Drengir and the events of Valo. I know that The Rising Storm also featured characters after a large time gap, but I think this is a little different. Stellan Gios does change between the Battle of Kur and the Attack on Valo, but I still feel like most of his major developments came “on-page”, and we didn’t miss a lot that was pressing to the novel in that gap year. I do think Reath’s character change was important and substantial, and affected how he acted in this book, so it was an important gap to fill in, I think. More than that: I really love Reath Silas
Moving away from the characters, one thing I really appreciated seeing again was a bit of politics. We learn the San Tekka family and the Graf family, both legacy Star Wars canon families, are involved in a lot of political drama and space exploration. We’re at a point in galactic history where the hyperspace routes are still being mapped – despite their hampering by the explosion of the Legacy Run – and the Grafs and San Tekkas lead the charge in mapping them out. Xylan Graf, one of the main characters in the book, is working to secure some part of space to continue to hone the Graf explorations. One major obstacle here is Senator Starros, who has her own corporate interests and secrets to protect. After the intense backlash to the politics in the Prequels, it seemed as if the franchise backed off a bit from using political storylines. I am thankful to see that this era is not ashamed to take advantage of the timing and explore these areas.
I do also want to comment on the use of legacy last names, since there are a few in the book: Graf, San Tekka, Starros. 200 years before the Invasion of Naboo, seeing familiar character names run the risk of being pretty annoying, I think. The Old Republic novels used some last names wayyy before the movies, which strained believability just too much for me. Thankfully, these legacy characters are used well, in a setting that really expands the background we know of them in the Skywalker Saga. The story of the Grafs, who were created by Cavan Scott, another Luminous author, and the San Tekkas, developed in The Force Awakens, really speak to where we find them in the Clone Wars era. We know that the Grafs are space explorers, as we saw in the Adventures in Wild Space series, and we meet Lor San Tekka as the one who travels with Luke to map out Ahch-To. The one that hasn’t quite connected – but we’re anxious to see how – is how Senator Starros’s story becomes the story of Sana Starros. These are the types of connections we should see: how do legacies become established in the past to get to the characters we know now?
There’s also a handful of other things I don’t want to spend a lot of time talking about, but at least want to mention. Ireland’s cast of side characters is great, with a few really interesting aliens, including a non-binary, non-humanoid Jedi that I really liked. Ireland does a good job of leaning into some of the franchise’s weirder elements, and takes advantage of that in developing some of these Jedi. I also appreciated how Ireland doesn’t shy away from painting pictures of her characters, giving us a lot of visual details to fill out the characters we don’t know very well. She’s also very descriptive in describing clothes and outfits, which made me laugh in ways that other books have not done.
Moving from the highlights, there were a few things that I wish were given a bit more time to develop. One critique I might hold to OotS and A Test of Courage, as you might’ve guessed so far, is that there is a lot of telling, rather than showing. I’ve mentioned a few places on top, but we’re also told a lot about some funnier aspects, like Stellan and Vernestra being bad pilots, that I’d love to have seen the stories. Reath and Cohmac’s changes are told, but not shown as much.
One of these is that the pacing felt a bit off for me. Maybe it was the expectations I brought into it, but I felt like the climax of the story came really late into the book. One of the stories that I haven’t even mentioned is the story of a superweapon being developed by the Nihil. This story is addressed as a side story – maybe should’ve been my first hint to read it differently. This story is much more focused on characters than it is on events, so reading it in that light might help the pacing feel a bit better.
I also felt like there were a few major reveals – story wise, not necessarily lore wise – that needed a bit more time to develop. Characters long thought dead appear to a lot less fanfare than I might’ve expected. After layers of dense betrayals and plots, it all comes unraveled fairly quickly, too. A few more pages, or maybe some earlier reveals, might’ve given some story aspects time to breathe. One reveal went absolutely untouched, which was severely disappointing to me. One of the major reveals in the book is when Reath’s story and the Nihil story, told through the POV of Nan, from Into the Dark, meets up. Despite the history shared between Nan and Reath, the book doesn’t really do anything with their meeting, instead pushing them together to pull them apart just as quickly. We don’t see the way that it affects Reath, nor do we see the way that it affects Nan. Really, you wouldn’t know they had much history had Reath not conveniently thought about her a few times. Had we never entered Reath’s head, we’d not have known. This was a really disappointing dropped thread for me, so I hope someone else can pick it up on the way.
In total, I mostly liked Out of the Shadows both times that I read it before my review. The characterization on a few of the leads is really strong, and I really appreciated that the strong romantic storyline was not ONLY a romance, but a realistic and enjoyable way to see two characters interact. In terms of setting up future stories, I think this book is a really good stepping stone to see where the next couple stories go. I only wish to see a little more of characters’ developments as they happen rather than being simply told.
You can follow Chris on Twitter @ChrisWerms, and of course, you can follow the Manor on Twitter @MynockManor!
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