Into the Dark by Claudia Gray
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
**4.5-stars rounded up**
Into the Dark is a 2021-Canon release set within the era of The High Republic; known as the golden age of the Jedi.
The events in the three recent High Republic books all take place concurrently in the year 232 BBY.
As you discover in this novel, this is the year of the Great Disaster, an event that caused numerous ships galaxy-wide to be suddenly launched out of hyperspace.
It also destroyed moons and created a great amount of debris causing further problems for ships and navigators.
To be clear, the events in this book take place before any previous media you may have watched or read.
We’re talking all new Star Wars goodness! Now with that little bit of timeline info out of the way, let’s get into the review, shall we?
Jedi Padawan, Reath Silas, dreams of days spent pouring through the archives versus deep space adventures. He’s comfortable in Coruscant, known to be the center of the Core System and home to the Jedi Temple.
When his Master, Jora Malli, gets assigned to the new space station, the Starlight Beacon, in the Outer Rim territories, he has to go with. An assignment he’s not happy about.
Malli takes off early, leaving Silas to travel aboard The Vessel, a civilian transport ship, with three other Jedi: Master Cohmac Vitus, Orla Jareni and Dez Rydan.
The only other passengers aboard The Vessel include its Captain, Leox Gyasi, Co-Pilot, Affie Hollow, and Navigator, Geode.
It’s during their journey to Starlight Beacon that the aforementioned Great Disaster occurs, virtually ejecting them from the hyperspace channels and stranding them in deep space.
As you can imagine, that’s not good.
The group discovers an ancient space station, the Amaxine, that seems to be abandoned. Unfortunately for the intrepid crew and passengers of The Vessel, they aren’t the only ones to discover the station and not everyone is friendly.
Making matters worse, the dilapidated Station may not be as abandoned as it appears.
Claudia Gray, surprising no one, did an exceptional job bringing this story to life.
It was an absolute joy to read and learn about this earlier era of Star Wars history. The characters were incredibly well done. I loved their interactions with one another and getting to read from all of their perspectives.
My favorite character was obviously Geode. If you read the book, you will quickly discover why. He was the best and I loved every scene that he was in.
There is a ton, a ton, a ton of action, with some very serious baddies that need to be stopped. A lot of the action focuses on some ancient idols that were discovered on the station, thought to have been left there by the Sith.
I would highly recommend this story to any Star Wars fan, or really even someone who is just looking to get into the books. This is the literal beginning. What better place to start?
Thank you so much to the publisher, Disney LucasFilms, for providing me with a copy of this to read and review. It was one of my most anticipated releases of the year and it did not disappoint!
I cannot wait to pick up the rest of The High Republic materials!