Vernestra Rwoh and her Padawan, Imri, are on a mission: save their friends from the Nihil! But external circumstances threaten the fate of a whole planet. Can Vernestra save her friends? Or will she learn something more valuable in the meantime? Read my review of The High Republic: Mission to Disaster!
As Phase I of the High Republic initiative comes to a close, early 2022 saw the release one last Del Rey adult novel (The Fallen Star) and Disney Press released both a middle grade and young adult novel (Midnight Horizon). The middle grade novel, Mission to Disaster, is written by Justina Ireland, who wrote the first middle grade novel in the series. Ireland’s first book focused on Vernestra Rwoh, the youngest Jedi Knight in the Order, and a mission in which she was put in waters way over her head. Over the course of the mission, Vernestra would take a Padawan, Imri, and meet two other important people: Avon Starros, daughter of Senator Ghirra Starros, and Honesty Weft, the son of the late Dalnan ambassador. This book returns to this group, essentially, bringing the series full circle. While this book has been out since January and is now seeing a physical release in March, I would still prefer to avoid spoilers. In light of this, I am really going to break this down into three bits: Vernestra’s story, Avon’s story, and the themes of the book.
The story essentially breaks into two major threads: Vernestra and co. on Dalna and Avon dealing with the Nihil. As you would expect, these stories overlap at the end of the book, but I don’t quite want to talk about that yet. The nice thing about these middle grade novels is that they have the chance to focus on a smaller main cast, as we see here. Splitting the story into two major threads allows both to breathe well, giving the story time to develop as well as giving our characters a platform to engage on. This is a huge change of pace for the initiative, which I’ve argued before is moving way too quickly as a whole and sometimes pulls the focus too far off the individual characters.
The first story I’ll look at is Vernestra’s. We’ve heard a lot about Vernestra’s upbringing as a Jedi, and the acclaim that she gathered in the Order since she became a Knight so early, but we were only kinda told about that for a long time. As the initiative went on, we got the chance to see more of her story, such as her introduction in IDW’s Annual, or her mission in Out of the Shadows. This book zooms back in on Vernestra, giving her more time in the spotlight. This book seemed to really hone in on her ability to be a Master and forces her to ask: what does it mean to be a great Jedi? Does it mean being able to save everybody? How does it affect being a Master to a new Padawan? In the course of their journey, they come across a few Jedi on Dalna, all of whom teach Vernestra how to be a better Jedi, Master, and most importantly, person. These lessons are both simple and profound: you can’t help everyone, nor can you just sit and watch things happen. Life, as the Force, is about balance. Adding these new characters to the team dynamic really helped give Vernestra good foils to bounce back and forth on, which I appreciated. In the last book, a few of the Jedi were almost antagonistic toward her, but I liked seeing Jedi encourage her and push her to be better.
Being that Vernestra’s story moves from the Young Adult novel to the Middle Grade novel, a bit of the nuance that we had in their relationship was inevitably going to melt away to suit the tone of the middle grade book. I felt like the biggest thing that I miss from her story was the way that she and Imri were learning to deal with his empathetic abilities. In Out of the Shadows, she really wondered if she had the ability to be a good Master for Imri, whose empathetic abilities were hard for him to control. After the events on the Gravity’s Heart and moving into this book, though, these skills have seemed to come mostly under control and the previous anxiety that they felt has mostly melted. Now, Vernestra can focus simply on being a good Master and teaching Imri how to be a good Jedi with jumps, flips, lightsaber skills, etc. These two are really unique in that we don’t see young Jedi put together with this sort of hierarchy, nor do we see this kind of anxiety coming from both Master and Apprentice, especially relating to their ability in the Force. I understand that this was more or less going to have to fall away, I miss it a bit. I’m not sure it can be entirely revisited in the future after the way it’s been wrapped here, but I still really enjoy their dynamic.
The second major storyline focuses on Avon Starros, who was kidnapped from Port Haileap. Ryan, the Head Butler of the Manor, really loved Avon from Test of Courage. I have to admit that I really didn’t. Her precociousness didn’t really land with me, but something really shifted in this book. If I had to put my finger on what changed, and I do, since I’m writing a review, I would say that the major change was that Avon got some agency in this book. Instead of being a young companion/foil to Vernestra, Avon gets the chance to really show who she is in this book when she’s kidnapped by the Nihil. In the last book, I felt like she played into too many tropes: annoying kid sidekick, brilliant inventor who makes a quirky machine that causes problems, etc. Thankfully, this book challenged her to grow in all of these areas.
Specifically, she gets to take a bit of a leadership role, and learns about the extent of her abilities and what it means to have them and how to use them well. She is not the only child to be kidnapped by the Nihil, and she quickly meets other kids in the Tempest. These children look to her to lead them from the start as she introduces plans that might free them. Introduced as foils are Kara Xoo, a Nihil scientist, and Nihil affiliated bounty hunter Deva Lompop from the War of the Bounty Hunters. Kara Xoo’s cold mind pushes Avon to use her scientific skills to develop weapons for the Nihil while Deva works to keep her in line. At the beginning of the book, Avon plays around with the kyber crystal that she stole from Imri when they were on Wevo together. Before her time with the Nihil, Avon is left mostly to herself and given free reign (essentially) to practice whatever she wants scientifically. But the Nihil really force her to combat this type of selfish inventing. Kara Xoo shows her what it looks like to continue to practice science without any moral compass. And Avon is forced to do this sort of unethical research. If she doesn’t stay in line, Avon will find herself in Deva’s stomach! These two villains aren’t fleshed out fully as their own characters, but they are fleshed out well as foils to Avon, forcing her to grow and learn. Where I was a little disappointed on Vernestra’s story, I found myself mostly happy with Avon’s. Avon is confronted with a chance to grow and a chance to really ask what it means to use your abilities well.
When the two stories meet, I felt like the climax was earned and they fit together well. The finale didn’t come at the cost of the themes of the book, which I’ll touch on below, nor did it catch me as much by surprise as the finale of Out of the Shadows. The book was well paced and Dalna really came alive to me in these books. The history between the Dalnans and the Jedi was super interested, and I’m really curious to see how this history is developed in Phase II!
Finally, the book was really consistently strong. Vernestra’s story really challenged her to ask: can you save everybody? And what are the limits one person can really push? When Vernestra sets off to rescue Avon, she’s pulled aside to help mitigate a crisis that threatens the livelihood of every Dalnan. We watch her, throughout the book, struggle to find a way to accomplish both. Avon’s story asks: just because you can, should you? Kara Xoo’s brilliant scientific mind really excites Avon, but she starts to realize what it means to be a scientist. Is every invention good? Should you always work for discovery when it can become so harmful? These themes are much needed ways to bolster the substance of the book and I was happy to see them here.
All in all, I found Mission to Disaster to be Justina’s strongest work in the initiative so far. Strong themes carry the book well, while solid characterization brings a breath of fresh air to the franchise. Pick this up if you haven’t yet. Especially when you remember that we’ve been teased that Dalna is the key to all of this.
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 | Midnight Horizon