The final book in the first phase of The High Republic, The Fallen Star picks up with Marchion Ro’s plan to completely wipe out the Jedi, and undermine the Republic throughout the Outer Rim. Synchronous raids across seemingly insignificant planets drive a host of injured refugees to Starlight Beacon, which is currently in orbit at Eiram assisting with a relief project there. A further Nihil attack against a remote Jedi temple is seen as proof of the uncoordinated death throes of the Nihil organisation, which was believed destroyed following the Republic Fair.
However, Marchion Ro has secretly dispatched a team of saboteurs to Starlight Beacon, and soon the full extent of the Nihil is shown as the space station is blasted in two, with catastrophic results. While Avar Kriss had pursued the Nihil and believed herself to have found The Eye, Lourna Dee, Stellan Gios took over the mantle of Marshal of Starlight Beacon. However, he is almost entirely unprepared for the catastrophe that befalls them all, even when Elzar Mann returns from his exile to help with the relief effort.
As if the physical damage to the station wasn’t enough, the Nihil have also released at least one of the leveler creatures aboard, which causes significant problems for the Jedi as they find themselves unable to concentrate and growing in fear. The creature kills three Jedi Knights, and the disaster continues to take its toll on our heroes, with Stellan paying the ultimate price when the Beacon crashes on the surface.
I have been enjoying the High Republic series so far, but I did feel as though this book fell a bit flat. It is almost exclusively set on Starlight Beacon, which feels less like the plush advert for Republic splendour that it seemed to be in Light of the Jedi, and instead more like the Death Star, only somehow less exciting. The disaster-movie atmosphere, though, was great –just when we think our heroes are going to pull through, something else goes horribly wrong and stuff. I’m not a sadist, but I did like the fact that it really came across like a huge disaster, much more so than the Hyperspace Disaster that kicked off the series, actually.
Of course, this hyper-focus on the Beacon really felt like it worked to the novel’s detriment, as it felt quite claustrophobic, and I did feel the same as those trapped aboard in the cargo bay, trying to get off. Stellan, the man of action from the second book, is now struck down with the weight of responsibility and, when he does encounter the leveler briefly, it sends him catatonic for a portion of the book. I was surprised by that decision, although it did give Elzar the nudge he needed to take on some responsibility. That all being said, however, I did find myself wishing that Avar was back – she headlined the first book, and then seemed to just disappear in the subsequent instalments. Maybe she has been featured in other books, as I haven’t yet taken the time to discover those, but I thought it a bit strange that she wasn’t more heavily featured, as I really liked her character.
There’s a navigator called Geode, who is basically a rock. Weird, but it’s a huge and weird galaxy, so fair enough. I was surprised at how far this was taken, though, given that it seems everybody except Elzar accepts him as being a sentient being, who gives “a stony expression” or whose “silence said it all” and stuff. It was bordering on silly, though I guess on the whole it was kinda funny. Among those pilots trapped in the cargo bay, there’s a petty and venal guy who tries to rile his fellows up against the Jedi, intending to blast their way through the cargo bay doors etc. I hated him, and it took me a while to realise that actually, I hated him because the situation was written so well – of course, there’s always that one guy who thinks they know what’s best and ends up getting the group in trouble. It’s classic disaster movie stuff.
However, we get very little else besides the goings on on board the space station, and it does get a bit boring after a while. I read half of this book in one day when I was on the train to London and back, but then took a week to finish it as it just felt like a bit of a chore. I think we could have done with getting a bit more variety, even if it was from following some of the people in the top half of the station with Avar. It all just seems to get a bit boring after a while, for all that it’s a disaster book and should be exciting as we root for the heroes to pull through.
I also wasn’t a fan of the ending. We only followed three saboteurs aboard the Beacon, yet Marchion Ro sent seven? And the final pages that feature his address to the galaxy… I’m struggling to keep up, but I just don’t understand why he wants to eliminate the Jedi. I don’t get it, as the Nihil are a raiding force – is he trying to keep the Republic out of the Rim to ensure free raiding forever? He seems to want to rule the galaxy, but that seemed to come out of nowhere. I don’t understand him, he seems to be doing all this for the sake of being the antagonist – we haven’t yet got the twirl of the moustache with an evil sneer, but it’s not far off.
Now, I seem to be falling into something of a hater on Claudia Gray, which I’m not actively trying to do, but I’ve not really been a big fan of a lot of her books now. I mean, Bloodline is still one of my all-time favourite Star Wars books, and so whenever I read a book by her, I’m always that little bit disappointed that it doesn’t match up. I think it might be in part due to the hype she gets in the Facebook group that I’m in, though I think I have seen more general disinterest in this book, to be fair.
I think a lot of my complaints aren’t necessarily to be aimed at Claudia though, as it strikes me this is how LFL wants to tell stories right now – minimal exposition, maximum action. Who cares why anybody does anything, so long as what they are doing is exciting to watch/read?! Marchion Ro might be a cardboard villain because he isn’t allowed to be developed this early, given that we’ve been told of two more phases of the High Republic still to come.
I went into this one expecting it to be the conclusion to the trilogy, but it ended up more like the start of something. If we’d had maybe a hundred more pages of exposition at the start, then kicked off the series with this, it might have landed better. It’s not terrible, it’s just a bit unsatisfying.
Okay, so maybe I’m getting a bit too harsh here… I know that I’ve only read the three main novels in this series so far, and there are still the three YA novels, and three middle-grade novels, before we even start on the comic books. Maybe I’m missing out on something that would actually link things together… we shall see, I guess!!
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