Light of the Jedi by Charles SouleMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I really enjoyed this opening entry into the new Star Wars era. All new characters and stories, it is wide open. In some ways, maybe too wide-open. By that, I mean it puts the creators in a tough bind. Go too far in a new direction and get criticized for not being 'Star Wars' enough. Stay with the standard tropes and motifs of the Skywalker era and get criticized for not being new. I think Soule's book is probably a bit too much in the latter category--though some of that is because I thought the High Republic era was 1000 years before the Skywalker era. It seemed odd that the technology and lore was so familiar. But it's actually about 200 years earlier, so that makes more sense.
It is exciting to be introduced to a bunch of new Jedi with some different ways of using the Force. On the downside, with so many characters, there isn't a lot of character development. There is a lot of promise with several of the characters.
I won't say much about the antagonists of the novel to avoid spoilers, but I like what Soule is doing with them. It is both different but also not unfamiliar.
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