Before I get into the actual review I would like to make a quick complaint. If The High Republic is going to be the name for all the Star Wars content occurring during the time of The High, perhaps one of the runs of books shouldn’t be called The High Republic. When I read this run of books, Amazon along with other sources listed it as a quadrilogy containing Light of The Jedi by Charles Soule, The Rising Storm by Cavan Scott, Tempest Runner by Cavan Scott, and The Fallen Star by Claudia Grey. At the Time of writing this review Tempest Runner has been removed as one of the books in this run, The Fallen Star was moved up to book 3 of 4, and a new book to be released on November 14^th, The Eye of Darkness by George Mann is in the fourth spot. Since Tempest Runner is no longer part of this run – I’m glad they did this because Tempest Runner is an audio drama and not a novel. Seriously, why would you mix media types in a run? – I will not be including it in this series review. As a whole I give this series a 9 out of 10 stars. It’s absolutely worth the read, and if you haven’t started any High Republic Books yet, I recommend starting with these.

Light of The Jedi – This sets up a rather large enemy to The Republic, a group of outer rim marauders known as The Nihil who take what they want, and leave death and destruction in their wake. The Nihil are some of the only if not the only people in the galaxy that have ships capable of jumping through space without using hyperspace lanes, and not needing to worry about the origin or destination point being too close to another ship or terrestrial body. Whether an unfortunate accident or masterfully laid plan, The Nihil start this book off by causing a ship to explode within hyperspace threatening dozens of systems as pieces of the ship leave hyperspace systems apart and have the speed and mass to annihilate civilizations within moments of being detected. A single mistake by the jedi here means billions of lives wiped out. The side story within this book introducing a padawan Bell Zettifar, and his master Loden Greatstorm among others do well setting up some of the main players and driving forces of the next books. It’s a gripping story that kept me at the edge of my seat and wanting to keep coming back for more. I found it difficult to put down at times which for me doesn’t happen often with books.

The Rising Storm – After the hyperspace disaster, heroic efforts of the jedi, and the construction of the Starlight Beacon, the Chancellor of the Republic Lina Soh sets up a celebration of the unity of the galaxy which all are invited to attend, the Republic Fair on the planet Valo. Intent on causing chaos and discrediting the notion of a safe, united galaxy, the Nihil attack the fair inflicting absolute carnage. Bell finds himself in great peril as he is mostly alone and at the center of one of the initial attacks, jedi master Elzar Mann struggles to keep his emotions in check and teeters on the brink of falling to the dark side, and jedi master Stellan Gios finds himself becoming the compassionate face of the entire Jedi Order. During these attacks the Nihil’s leader Marchion Ro is on his own escapade attempting to locate and unleash and ancient force referred to as “the Great Leveler.”

The Fallen Star – Disaster after disaster, the jedi find themselves continually dealing with the Nihil. As a result of the carnage unleashed by the Nihil, a task force of Jedi have been approved to hunt down and capture who they believe to be the leader of the Nihil, a decision which leaves many jedi questioning the direction the order is going. Starlight Beacon has only recently been completed, and has its ports opened to any and all travelers needing a safe place to flee to from the Nihil. Unfortunately for those aboard Starlight beacon, there are saboteurs on the station attempting to disable it, deadly cargo has been smuggled on board by careless and money hungry traders, and some of the docked ships are crewed by scoundrels who would love nothing more than to screw over a potential competitor of it means getting any advantage whatsoever.

I cannot wait to read The Eye of Darkness and see how (or if) the terror of the Nihil is brought to an end. In addition to an individual review I will include a synopsis and update my overall rating for this run here following the release of The Eye of Darkness.