Gratton, Tessa
About the Author:
Tessa Gratton lives in Kansas, USA with her wife.
AVERAGE REVIEW SCORE:
2 out of 5
(1 book)
Star Wars: The High Republic - Quest For Planet X
382 BBY. Part of the second wave of The High Republic Phase Two, this book is also a follow-up to George Mann's 'Quest for the Hidden City'. As tensions rise between the Jedi and the Path of the Open Hand, Jedi Padawan Rooper Nitani is convinced to join the brash young explorers Dass Leffbruk and Sky Graf in their quest to seek out the near-mythical Planet X.
So yeah, this book is a sequel in the second wave of stories from the second phase of the High Republic publishing programme and all of that is baggage that this story never really manages to shed. I enjoyed 'Quest for the Hidden City' due to its feel of being a classic-style standalone adventure and this book could easily have built upon that foundation. Unfortunately, due to the terrible way the High Republic programme has been planned, this book never feels like it stands on its own and is constantly relying on story beats that are told elsewhere. For example, Rooper's Master Silandra being missing is a major element of the story here, but the details of why she's missing are told in a different story and then she just turns up again without any explanation. It's clearly a cynical marketing ploy to get you to buy all of the High Republic stuff, but when it's variously released as comics, YA books, audio dramas and novels, the assumption that you can keep up with it all is, frankly, obnoxious.
So what we get here, really, is half a story. The half we get is perfectly fine but is definitely a little on the safe side. All of the main characters are all somewhat unbelievably open about their feelings and the overarching message is that they all miss their families. It's not a bad sentiment to make the core of the story, but it's also not terribly deep. In fact, none of the characters feels terribly deep either and since, once you cut out all the oblique references to other High Republic stories, all you're left with is four characters chatting on a spaceship, having them not be terribly deep isn't very engaging.
A fine, if somewhat mediocre, Star Wars story that is largely spoiled by the publishing initiative that it's a minor cog in.
2 out of 5
Collaborations & Anthologies:
Star Wars: Stories Of Jedi And Sith (here)
Read more...
Star Wars (here)