Star Wars The High Republic: Into the Dark

Claudia Gray writes a far more entertaining and easier to follow novel than the opener of the series, Light of the Jedi, with really fun characters, a great story that manages to be lengthy without overstaying its welcome, and really nice insights on this new era without it feeling like an onslaught.

More consistent than the last book, the highs didn't hit as hard, however, and there are still a few characters I have little interest in - Orla and Cohmac, namely.

Reath Silas is a really good character, I loved Affie, Leox, and the iconic Geode. The cast of characters is mostly wonderful, all interesting and fun.

Gray is a really tight writer. Everything feels purposeful. It's a damn good story with little to no filler. She absolutely takes the Stover approach of not saying any more than is needed.

But with the small little, not really ‘issues', but things that could be better, it still wasn't a total knockout for me. We're still in the early setting up stages of the big event, and we're lucky they got Claudia to write what could've easily been a really simple do-over of introducing the High Republic.