Rant aside, as a story, I did thoroughly enjoy this. Tempest Runner Follows Lourna Dee’s childhood from being part of a noble family, to becoming a slave, being freed, then joining and rather quickly rising to the rank of Tempest Runner within the Nihil. If you haven’t read any of the High Republic books involving the Nihil, they are a marauder group who operate primarily in the outer rim. Their ranks are roughly as follows. The eye of the Storm is at the top, next down are the Tempest Runners of which there are only ever 3 because of their “rule of thirds”, each Tempest Runner is in charge of their own group of nihil referred to en masse as Tempests (comprised of Strikes, Clouds, and Storms). At a rather breakneck pace Lourna became a Storm to the Tempest Runner Pan Eyta. Almost as fast as she became his Storm, she found herself becoming a Tempest Runner of her own. All of this journey is given through flashbacks as in her current state, Lourna is (under a false name) in captivity of a Republic prison ship travelling across the galaxy working to rebuild places destroyed by the Nihil. Cavan Scott did a fantastic job at humanizing Lourna Dee without taking away from much of the terrifying presence she commands just about everywhere she goes. Lourna is forced to come to terms with her past, contemplate her future and what she really wants out of life, and in more ways than one deal with her past coming back to confront her.