Book Review: Star Wars The High Republic: A Test of Courage

 

A test of courage is a short story about a newly promoted Jedi Knight named Venestra Rwoh, who is given her first assignment to supervise a young inventor on a luxury starliner that is traveling to a space station called Starlight Beacon, which was opened after the hyperspace disasters. She is unique in that she was promoted to a full Jedi knight at the age of fifteen., so she is powerful, but still has teenage insecurities, which I think makes her a more interesting character. The ship is sabotaged by the Nihil, who have been the main antagonists of the High Republic novels, and Venestra becomes stranded on a moon with a Jedi Padawan whose master was killed in the first encounter with the Nihil, a couple of civilians, and a droid. The group has to survive not only the dangers of the moon itself but the threat posed by the Nihil.

As most probably know, the junior novels and young-adult novels are really telling ancillary stories to the main adult novels. They generally introduce some different characters or involve a side-mission that is tied into the main story, in this case, the conflict with the Nihil but is not as involved as the adult novels get. To that end, this is a good, but not great story. It is definitely more of a kid's book, but that does not mean adults cannot enjoy it. There is a bit less violence in it than the "main" canon novels have but there is still a lot of action in it (relative to how long the book is). The author also finds a way to incorporate the dark side of the force without it being in the Jedi vs. Sith context that has been in most of the novels, tv series, and movies. The Nihil make for good bad guys that present a challenge to the Jedi without being force users themselves. The book is relatively short, just over 200 pages, so it makes for a fairly quick read. While I do not think it is a book that most are likely to read over and over, it is a good short story ancillary to the main storyline.