Star Wars High Republic Reviews #2

Hi this is King Video, coming back with this after too long. Today I will be reviewing Wave 2 of the Star Wars High Republic book and comics. Thanks to Disney’s PR team for the review copies of the novels. Before I start my reviews, I want to mention a couple of things I want from the High Republic. We need more Yoda-focused stories in the High Republic. I’d also like to see the Sith Lords of the High Republic enter in a big and clever way, even if they don’t face any Jedi and stay hidden in darkness, it would be neat to see them. Now I’m gonna quickly get into the reviews.

The Rising Storm

Written by Cavan Scott, The Rising Storm is the second major High Republic novel and it is a follow-up to Light of the Jedi. I’m glad that there is a continuous story between these novels, despite the different authors. Although when we get another Charles Soule novel it may be a more proper sequel to some of the arcs he established.

I like that much of The Rising Storm is a personal mental journey for the starving brother, Elzar Mann and his friend Stellan Gios.

I also like the character of Bell Zettifar who has much grief for his dead master.

I think this book relies a bit too much on the reader remembering information from Light of the Jedi. That book was really fun but I absolutely forgot everything that happened in the intervening few months between reading these two books.

The structure of this story has characters converging to a point later in the at the republic fair. It can be confusing to keep up with the characters at the beginning. Whereas Light of the Jedi has everything fall out from an inciting incident at the beginning with the great disaster.

It may not be fair to compare everything to Light of the Jedi, but as a direct follow up, it’s impossible to avoid comparison. This book does achieve great action scenes at the republic fair when it gets going and also has fulfilling emotional moments in the aftermath of that. The end of the novel reaches a chaotic and masterful crescendo.

Overall Rising Storm is not as well written as The Light of the Jedi, it doesn’t have any scenes that meet the epicness of the great disaster but it is a more eventful book, with more action throughout, the beginning takes a second to get going, the extended middle is action-packed and the main event of the story. The very end is truly epic and is more action but is distinct from the rest of the book with an epic “heist”.

I did greatly enjoy this book for its own merits. It has a really fun story that it takes you that has motivational themes that offer a great outlook. 

Race to Crashpoint Tower

This Middle Grade novel by Daniel José Older stars a Gearhead named Ram Jomaram. It also has secondary protagonist, Lula who is deeply connected to Older’s High Republic Adventures comic. In my opinion book is clearly missing context from Adventures, which I read after reading this book. I think that the first collected volume of Adventures should have been released before this book. But that’s on Disney, not Daniel José Older. I do love the interconnectivity of the High Republic and I think it is better viewed as the whole collective than each individual book. Which goes into how they’re being written and why I’m reviewing them in sets. 

This book features wonderful illustrations by Petur Antonsson in between chapters.

The two storylines with Ram and Lula have feel distant at first but they contrast each other well and ultimately have a powerful team-up.

All of these books give great explanation to the mindset and philosophy of the Jedi exploring concepts like their balance and pacifism. This one has some especially motivational moments with the young Jedi.

The parts with the Adventures crew is fun and intriguing, you love to see all these stories about the Jedi and Nihil and how other people interact with them.

I like the inclusion of the Drengir when most stories focus only on the Nihil. I hope to see more of Avar Kriss and the fight against the Drengir in The Fallen Star.

For real, this was pretty good young readers book and I appreciate these characters and will like to see them carry on.

Out of the Shadows

Justina Ireland’s Young Adult book, Out of the Shadows released a bit after the others and is the longest of the set.

These books always have a smuggler character that gets undermined by the more interesting stuff when you get Jedi chapters. But in this case Syl becomes a good point of view character to roast the Jedi later on, when they interact.

The Jedi themselves are really interesting. Vernestra Rwoh is probably my favorite character of the entire High Republic. Young Jedi like her really are their future and I would love to see these characters live on for years to come, eventually becoming powerful masters.

Imiri is kind of annoying though. I like Reath but he’s kind of just a side character in this book.

I do really like how this branches all the connections from the other books, with a character dealing with the aftermath of the Byne Guild and Reath Silas from Into the Dark and Vernestra Rwoh from Justina Ireland’s A Test of Courage.

I like that it takes place after the story from The Rising Storm instead of going simultaneous to it. Since it was released afterwards, it makes sense for it to take place afterwords and we can move past it.

I like the more interesting perspective from the Nihil and continuation of the story from Into the Dark with Reath’s problematic Nihil squeeze.

Some conflict is slightly exaggerated and inflated by the perceptions of the characters, through their internal monologue vs the actual narrative which doesn’t seem reflective of their descriptions. The book slightly inflates the stakes in this way. 

I liked vibing with the characters in this book. There was interesting themes and mental dilemmas including questions about hyperspace that are still intriguing and carry broad consequences for the Star Wars galaxy.

Tempest Runner

This is an audio drama written by Cavan Scott. It tells the story of one of the top commanders of the Nihil, Lourna Dee.

There is some dialogue that sounds stilted, especially in responses and pronunciation. But overall I think they did a good job conveying the experience and the story.

It’s cool to see the first major vocalization of the era and characters beyond the audiobooks, which I haven’t listened to and aren’t as big of a production.

There are some neat framing devices for the story with audio and Cavan Scott’s other audio drama Dooku Jedi Lost showed this as well.

Cool Lourna Dee origin, I respect her killing 

I like the fighting within the Nihil and the drama and the politics between the tempest runners.

Some parts are better than others, some are more annoying than others. But overall this is a good listen that I would recommend. Keep your ear on an audiobook and you might learn something.

Marvel comic vol 1

I don’t really have much to say about the volumes of the comics I read. But there is cool stuff going on. The first volume of the Marvel comic by Cavan Scott just feels more like a side story than a super eventful piece of the era. I really do like to see visualizations of these characters that I’ve read about though. Sskeer & Keeve Trennis are cool Jedi.

Adventures vol 1

Daniel Jose Older’s comic for younger readers is still a fun adventure for all ages. It has really wonderfully cartoonish art.

It’s pretty cool and they center characters that are major players in the era like Yoda and Marchion Ro. I like the story with the silly little padawans.

I should also mentions the newly announced video game set in the High Republic, Star Wars Eclipse. It looks like an epic mixture of high fantasy, Knights of the Old Republic, and Dune. The trailer has the makings of a really important and eventful story. I hope this game is set close enough to the books to feature some of those characters and interlink well. I like that the High Republic is branching out in other media. I would love a movie or tv series with these Jedi. 

All of that being said, the game’s developer, Quantic Dream hugely sucks as a company. They are extremely bigoted and toxic, especially the big boss man. They really should fire him and Disney shouldn’t have worked with him. Own this guy by making all the cool diverse high republic characters be epic queer icons in his game. 😎 

I don’t think it would help boycotting this thing. Didn’t work for EA and really change within companies is much more likely to come from within, i.e. employees going on strike and organizing. Public pressure can mount and Disney should also tell this guy and other toxic losers at that company to rot.

But anyway thanks for reading, I’m fully excited for the 3rd wave coming soon. Looks like it is going down for real out there. Now I go get the e-begging bag. 

I will low-key come back sometime. OD.

 

Stay connected.

For light and life.

Comics Review 2021

 2021 in review

Welcome back readers, I am once again going to be ranking my favorite of the comic book collections that I read this summer. I didn’t read too many compared to recent years but I have read quite a few still. So I will once again be doing a top ten list. Don’t read too much into the placement of each book on the list. This is just my subjective opinion. All of the books in this list are here because I enjoyed them very much. Shoutout to everyone who worked on these books! With out further a do, I’m doing the Oscars 5. Go.

10. House of El Vol. 1

By Claudia Gray (Writer), Eric Zawadski (Illustrator)

This is a very interesting book about the class divisions on the planet Krypton and the battles between the houses. There is a lot of cool stuff in here about brainwashing and avoiding the threat that is coming for them that is to destroy the planet. Big up to Claudia Gray once again for being an amazing writer.

9. Star Wars: The Rise of Kylo Ren

By Charles Soule (Writer), Will Sliney (Illustrations)

This is a miniseries that is kind of an excellent legacy project as a continuation of Soule’s Darth Vader project and tells Kylo Ren's origin and gives more details about Luke’s Jedi temple and the knights of ten into canon. The story of Ben Solo and his downfall is told pretty well here and it has captivating characters and art.

8. X-Men/Fantastic Four: 4X

By Chip Zdarsky (Writer), Terry Dodson (Illustrations), Rachel Dodson (Illustrations)

Chip Z does it again! I mean come on, the fantastic four are ludicrous, like legit delusional, really stupid. I’m with the X-men 💯%, no, one bowsand percent. The fantastic four abuse children. Deluded no wayyy, son it made me mad and scream at these freaking meddlers. No wonder I never liked Richards. Absolutely compelling comics though.

7. Silver Surfer: Black

By Donny Cates (Writer), Tradd Moore (Illustrator), Dave Stewart (Colorist)

An awesome story through the crazy cosmic space surfing. Tradd Moore killed this beat with his giant powerful drawings. The colors Dave Stewart put down were just right enhancing it, it really pops off. The story of it is pretty cool and brings in the origin of the universe and the king in black.

6. King in Black

By Donny Cates (Writer), Ryan Stegman (Illustrator)

Speaking of the king in black, Stegman and Cates murdered this beat in the conclusion to their Venom saga with the symbiotic god Knull. He was the one who created Venom. This book goes hard in the paint. It truly is a very cool and metal book with lots of awesome moments for all the superheroes involved in this crazy world-threatening event. It is scary and it is rad as can be.

5. Black Hammer Vol. 1

By Jeff Lemire (Writer), Dean Ormston (Artist), Dave Stewart (Colorist)

The best sitcom since Seinfeld, except it’s a comic book. This one is a very fresh premise of superpowered people being trapped on a different dimension and their relationships with each other. It’s secret wars. Just kidding that was a reductive joke, it’s very different. It’s like an awesome show with fresh art and storytelling that blows you away out the wazoo crazy wonderful stuff. It is a actually quite a serious book and I can't recommend it enough.

4. The Mighty Thor Vols. 1-5

By Jason Aaron (Writer), Russell Dauterman (Illustrations)

This is basically an epic book. Yes I read God of Thunder on this list before, but this ones different. It’s basically Jane Foster becoming Thor and her struggles with that as she's dying of cancer. Basically the gods must be crazy bro. I really liked that this book is a personal story and a fantasy epic that goes all across the realms and the galaxy. It takes a long time to get to the war of the realms.

3. Black Widow Vol. 1

By Kelly Thompson (Writer), Elena Casagrande (Illustrations)

A crazy mystery that really pulls in different directions and can be a kind of touching book that makes you wonder what’s going on. It can be a good new beginning for Black Widow and one of the most compelling stories that make you want to keep reading and reading. Just reading one volume I knew that this had to be near the top of the list, that's hard to do.

2. Immortal Hulk Vols. 1-6

By Al Ewing (Writer), Joe Bennett (Illustrator)

Joe Bennett is a sick person but his art is also sickly disgusting and Ewing rolls this thing out of the park. Hulk smashes Earth and makes it all go green, destroying capitalism and stopping global warming. An inspiring and insightful story that goes much deeper than just the Hulk. This is a very well known and praised book. But I can't stress enough that it has a great story and  crazy stuff is always going down here. 

1. Hawkeye Vols. 1-4 

By Matt Fraction (Writer), David Aja (Artist), Javier Pulido (Artist)

This the comic that stuck with me and felt me the most and it's far and away the best and most creative on this list. The most personal and emotional story. It really cemented Kate Bishop as an original gangster in the hierarchy of power in the Marvel Universe. Clint Barton is a sad boy but he got his own problems. I can’t wait for the Hawkeye show to be inspired by this one. I read the first two volumes a few years back and didn’t really feel them, I didn’t know what was up. Now I grew up and I do know. It’s 100% 🔥, not even just the action bro. Also I really enjoyed the third volume which just featured Kate Bishop in LA with West coast vibes and how all those stories converged in volume 4. There is some poetic stuff out here, bro. I also read the first volume of the follow-up by Jeff Lemire which is good and keeps up the awesome connection between Clint and Katie and Clint's past with his brother. But it doesn’t live up to this majestic book as much. The best thing I ever read maybe. Like just everything comes together so perfectly. 

Thank you for reading this nonsense and be well for the next one. Stay connected.

Thrawn Treason Review

Finally I have returned with my review of  Star Wars Thrawn Treason. And in the time between the release of this book and me reading and reviewing it, Timothy Zahn wrote a whole other trilogy about Thrawn’s time in the Chiss Ascendancy. I will eventually read those books, but this is most likely to be the last review I write of the Thrawn novels. 

Overall, I felt like there were some very epic parts in this book and the characters had some cool moments but it was lesser than the first two books.

When it got good, it got really good. This novel contains some of Thrawn’s best strategic deductions and the characters went hard at times. The calculated dialogue and politics of existing under the oppressive authoritarian code of the empire continue to be interesting and it’s wonderful to see Thrawn’s trolling and maneuvering around that.

Some of the story was very confusing military science fiction. I would really like someone to explain to me everything that happened, because I don't think you possibly can. But in the final hour of the book, it got to a point where the battle became simple and fun, wonderfully showing off Thrawn’s  conniving wits.

I learned that Thrawn is an expert exterminator and Krennic has simps. To expand on these things, the whole book is premised on Thrawn making a bet with Krennic. That if Thrawn can clear the Death Star supply lanes of creatures known as grollics, more funds will go to Project Stardust (The Death Star) or Thrawn’s TIE defender project. Tagging along with Thrawn through the whole book to “monitor”/spy on Thrawn for Krennic is Faro, a passionate defender and lackey of Krennic’s, down to having a copy of Krennic’s cape. Well, I don’t blame anyone for wanting to imitate Ben Mendehlson and his immaculate dialogue and style from Rogue One.

This book’s title and cover are somewhat misleading. The treason aspect doesn’t really apply as much to Thrawn as it does to other characters. Additionally Emperor Palpatine is hardly a focus of the book as the cover implies. 

At the end of the day, I would only really recommend Thrawn Treason if you are a big Thrawn fan and like Zahn's writing. 

Here’s a note that I liked: the dedications for each book in this Thrawn Trilogy.

More than anything, this book excites me more about the character of Thrawn and his likely upcoming appearances in the Ashoka series and possibly his own show.

That be all for today. So thanks for reading and stay connected.

Star Wars High Republic Reviews #1

Hello and welcome back to another installment on my blog. This installment I’m making well past my usual hiatus between the months of January and March because I’m a lazy bones so I have delayed this blog for five months due to COVID the same as the High Republic books were delayed. Nevertheless I will try to keep going with my blog since this year is the start of the Star Wars High Republic publishing initiative. Part one of phase one was released in January and February. I read all of it in December and January then wrote most of this post but my lazy bones couldn’t get the energy to finish it until right before part two of phase one comes out. I will be taking the time to review the three released books today and sometime in the future I will review part two. I have not gotten around to reading the comics but I will read them in trade and probably talk about in my next review. For the record, I accepted digital review copies of A Test of Courage and Into the Dark, but I can’t be bought off and I’ll always keep it real.

A Test of Courage

So first off we have a middle grade book A Test of Courage by Justina Ireland that I did quite enjoy it I think it’s probably more interesting than most than most younger reader Star Wars books. One of the interesting things about it is the discussion force in some of the deeper things they are involved in during this book. My favorite character in this book was character by the name of Vernestra Rwoh, a young Jedi Knight.  I think it definitely is separated from the high republic anyways but it also has many Easter eggs in reference to the larger galaxy that I was appreciated and intrigued by them I I don’t think it’s a bad first option especially if you’re like a kid or something . The interesting bits I’d say it was the discussion at the arc of some characters in the book particularly in Jedi characters with her like it something visit Greif and the dark side of the force and everything in the climax of the book you could say it ended a bit abruptly yet I think that this book is set up some potential follow ups that I do believe are happening, overall I think it was a very good book not my favorite but not bad at all.

Into the Dark

Let’s go, we got her next one, Into the Dark by Claudia Gray pretty good book again. Just from the young adult book genre, it lives up to its name it goes into the dark. I don’t want to say too much but like they deal with a darker tone on a more personal level. They’re more generous and humane to the villains, the Nihl. They are more junior Nihl than in light of the Jedi ends up being. But it just it makes me want to explore them more and when I read in Light of the Jedi I found that that worked there. But there’s some cool Jedi stuff in here about characters are called wayseekers and the pattern one named Reath Sylis who must learn the ways of the Jedi and the way they have to feel the power of the force of every Jedi who ever lived and that’s pretty cool. Overall I liked the main story and had a pretty intriguing mystery and characters, at the start of the book it was a bit could they jump between all the perspectives but by the end of it I was like that’s pretty cool. They also had some good themes in this one with with the Jedi lessons and a sort of an arc between Master and Apprentice and this for Claudia Gray about going up against like slavery and indentured servants and it’s in the dark side of the private industry in the Star Wars universe so you got that and this book is not my favorite of hers but she is one of the Star Wars writers. But it’s definitely a good book and I would say that I enjoyed very much.

Light of the Jedi

All right onto Light of the Jedi by Charles Soule and I should’ve read this one first but old Walt wouldn’t give me a copy. Though it was a very enjoyable book it’s a proper novel and Charles Soules first Star Wars novel. I know his comics are top-tier and so is this book. He doesn’t disappoint, it is one of the best Star Wars novels at least in the very high tiers of canon. I think that there are some arguable flaws in this book that might prevent it from being the greatest but it really really excels in many other ways. Foremost of those being a Soules writing and storytelling, he somehow manages to make every little detail of the story in the universe so interesting. It really does feel like the start of a new era of Star Wars and like a very fleshed out world yet a world that’s familiar and unfamiliar at the same time from what we’ve seen before it feels like a like a movie and important in the way that not many recent books have been. It really raises the stakes, just knowing that anything could happen here. But now one of the major flaws the lack of a central character necessarily to this book and while there are character arcs they’re relatively minor. But I’ll grant that this is the start of a series of books so that could definitely change down the road. Although there wasn’t a true protagonist, changing perspectives between the large cast was pretty easy to go through in this book and it always had me excited. Some of my favorite characters and I’m very glad he fleshed them all out and was so interesting was the Nihl specifically their leader Marchion Ro and he was very mysterious with many secrets up his sleeve that I think he will definitely pose a very good threat to the Jedi.  Potentially, one of the best villains Star Wars has. I will say that some of the Jedi in the story are very good specifically probably Avar Kriss. Unfortunately Charles Soule is not writing the next High Republic novel. Now hold on, it’s Cavan Scott’s The Rising Storm, I’m a big fan of Cavan Scott’s Dooku audio drama and I’m excited to read this novel. I would presume that Charles Soule is going to be writing a Star Wars novel soon probably called Quest of the Jedi as there have been phases announced of the High Republic, the first of which being the title of his first novel so you can assume that his next novels would follow the title of the phases and then that would complete the main arc of the High Republic in forming a trilogy of novels for him and I hope it does. So yes I’m very excited to see where all the characters go from here and what he does next with them in his writing so yeah this is it absolutely superb book one of the best I’ve seen in this era of the wars in the stars.

Will I be back this year? Who knows, it still feels like February to me (even if it were this post would still be late.) Now I’m going to finally publish this and go e-beg Disney for review copies of the next set of books. Thanks for reading and stay connected.