It seems as if peace is on the horizon as delegates from Eiram and E’ronoh meet on Jedha to sign a treaty…but when the Path of the Open Hand is involved, will anything go to plan? Read my review of the physical and audio versions of George Mann’s The Battle of Jedha!
I’m going to start this review off on a different note than you might have expected: The Battle of Jedha is one of the first The High Republic books that truly and fully builds on you having read a lot of the books released in Phase II. It is a direct sequel to Zoraida Cordova’s Convergence, a novel I had very mixed feelings on. It builds very explicitly on things that happen in both Disney Press’ Path of Deceit and the Marvel Comic series The High Republic – Phase II and involves characters from Titan’s Tales of Enlightenment short stories in Star Wars Insider. And I, for one, am so happy to see it. One of my biggest critiques of Phase I was that each book was kinda-sorta sold on the premise that you could pick any book with the THR label up and read it on its own, which I personally didn’t think worked so well. The claim was that you could read it and understand…but you’d be missing out on the stuff that happened and characters you’d meet in adult novels, young adult and middle grade books, comics, short stories…you get the picture. I am happy The Battle of Jedha really leans into the continuity and builds explicitly on what came before.
But this leads me into one of my earliest critiques of the novel: the dialogue. When I originally listened to this story, I found a lot of the dialogue to be extremely expositional. There are scenes when some characters discuss something, only to have other characters discuss the same things in the next scene. The beginning hour is a lot of exposition, and the characters are really interested in getting the listener/reader caught up on recent events. Sometimes, the exposition seems to grind the story to a halt, but sometimes it works well enough. The difference is mostly whether or not characters having the discussion really need to be. One example is when three main characters of Convergence have a call to discuss the events of the book they all took place in. Other times, the exposition helps, as the audio drama medium doesn’t lend itself super well to filling out scenes, character expressions or thoughts, or even just building a picture of what’s going on as you’re listening/reading. In this case, I think I’m an equal critiquer: some of the dialogue reads extremely wooden, and some of it sounds extremely wooden out loud. Sometimes it’s the same line, sometimes it isn’t.
And, I want to be fair to the audio drama, so let me move to a short review of the story as an audio drama. I really don’t enjoy the medium, and that colors my listening experiences. Thankfully, The Battle of Jedha addressed most of my concerns about the medium, even though it wasn’t strong enough to make me come around on the medium as a whole. Sometimes, my problem with audio dramas are wide: generally, we can’t get very far into character’s heads, nor can we really *see* the world around us. Everything is limited to what the characters are saying to each other. In this case, I really do believe a narrator would be a huge help in terms of figuring out what’s going on and setting up scenes, saving the characters from some awkward lines of dialogue. Other times, especially during fight scenes, it is extremely hard to figure out what’s going on, as you hear something…but characters react to it with grunts or sounds. One battle, in the midst of a larger battle, falls fairly flat when you’re only listening to it because you can’t really tell what’s going on. (We’ll return to this shortly.)
But I do want to talk about ways that I think the audiodrama did some serious work in creating an enjoyable audio story. There are a few Star Wars specific critiques of previous audio dramas that I have, but thankfully, this one addresses them well. For one, both Dooku: Jedi Lost and The High Republic: Tempest Runner had a few too many character interactions with characters with similar voices. A discussion between Rael Averros, Qui-Gon Jinn, and Dooku is especially confusing when you only listen. Thankfully, Battle of Jedha carries a hugely diverse cast, and you’ll rarely confuse one character for another. There are two character names that are similar, but the context clues will keep them separate for you. Tempest Runner, in my opinion, had too many jumps in the plots and settings that made it hard to follow when simply listening. Thankfully Battle of Jedha is more straightforward and you’ll generally be able to keep up with the plot. I do want to comment that most of the voice actors were great, and the audio portions were really well done. Most voices sounded perfect for the characters from the start, and a lot more grew on me as time went on.
Now, I would like to comment on the story as a printed, physical book. This would, if you’ve never experienced the story at all, be my recommended way of interacting with the story. While you’ll lose the great voice actors, and maybe some of the emotions that permeate the story, I felt like I enjoyed this story a LOT more while I was reading it. That scene I mentioned earlier, which fell flat when I was listening because I didn’t really know what was going on? Reading it felt like I was experiencing it for the first time, and it had a bigger impact on me while I was reading it. As a reader, rather than a listener, I also like having character names in front of me, and having the printed book helps me track with the story a lot better. It also cleared up a few questions I had, like “what’s going on here?” or “who is this character again?” After feeling let down by the audio drama, reading the physical copy of the book really changed my mind on the story and helped me enjoy it better.
Finally, I have a few thoughts on the story as is, regardless of the medium. The story expands the Battle of Jedha, a battle we’ve heard about since Phase I. A few hints and pictures were sprinkled in the wave – think Obi-Wan telling Luke about the Clone War in 1977, for context. After the build up of Phase II, the Jedi finally move to Jedha and we get to see what caused the battle and what, exactly, the battle contained. I do think the build-up, which is more or less two novels and a comic issue or two, didn’t really serve as a strong enough on-ramp to this battle. In a lot of ways, it ends as soon as it begins. After spending a lot of time building up the characters who inhabit the book, we move to the battle, which is sort of lost in the audio world. I think hearing the battle, and being lost and confused during the battle, also somewhat stole the rug from under the build-up. In this sense, I thought the book lacked some of the scale of previous books, which was a bit of a let-down.
I do think that it would be unfair to leave out one important detail: stuff happens “on-screen” that simply is not resolved within the run-time or pages of this book. A few stories are mentioned in passing, or are featured, but then the focus moves completely away from them and we’re left to wonder what happened. Of course, THR fans have come to expect this, and are ready to read the other stories in other mediums to see how they resolve. To get the whole story, as in, to literally get the entire story of the Battle of Jedha and to see the resolution of events that are mentioned, you’ll at least have to pick up Marvel’s The High Republic – Phase II and Dark Horse’s The High Republic Adventures – Phase II (which is unfortunately nowhere near timeline-wise with the Battle due to massive publishing delays on Dark Horse’s side). Maybe at the end of the Phase, when publishing delays have hampered the story no longer, I will have a better view on the battle. As of now, it’s a bit anti-climactic and unfinished.
One thing the book did really well was building up some of the characters. I really enjoyed Quest for the Hidden City, but you might have realized I didn’t spend a ton of time talking about new Jedi Silandra Sho. The shield-wielding Jedi is now one of my favorites in the Phase, and a lot of it does come from The Battle of Jedha, but most of it comes from a scene near the end. Of course, I won’t tell you which scene this was, but she and another character have an extremely interesting conversation, one that made me appreciate both quite a bit. Another character who came out of the book more well-rounded, in my opinion, is the Mother of the Path of the Open Hand. Giving her a lot more screen time, this story really makes me appreciate her character quite a bit more as a leader, as a quick-thinker, as a threat to the Jedi. I want to give a special shout out to January LeVoy, who delivered a killer take on the Mother, one that I’ll hear when I read her dialogue in future novels.
In conclusion, The Battle of Jedha sits at an odd place for me. My first impression of the story isn’t a good one, as it was delivered in a medium that doesn’t vibe with me and told in a way that didn’t seem to fit the context for the story, either in scale or in scope. The second impression is a bit better, one that leaves me thinking more positively than not for the story, but I wouldn’t say is a stellar impression. It is an important one for the Phase, so you’ll definitely want to pick it up, and you’ll mostly enjoy what you hear, but I’m personally ready to move back to regular prose novels in THR.
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DISCLOSURE: I received a copy of this novel from the publisher at no charge in order to provide an early review. However, this did not affect the overall review content. All opinions are my own.