Now that the dust has settled on both Star Wars Celebration 2023 and the third season of The Mandalorian, I’ve started to catch up on some Star Wars books that were released over the past few weeks.
The first of these is Star Wars: The High Republic – Quest for Planet X, which is the final middle-grade novel in Phase II of Lucasfilm’s ambitious multi-platform initiative, and was released at the beginning of April.
The High Republic – Quest for Planet X, written by author Tessa Gratton (who co-wrote last year’s excellent young-adult book Star Wars: The High Republic – Path of Deceit) is a follow-up, of sorts, to the previous middle grade novel in the series, Quest for the Hidden City by George Mann. It begins by reuniting the characters of Jedi Padawan Rooper Nitani and young prospector Dass Leffbruk on the planet Batuu from the themed land Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Disney Parks on both American coasts. Batuu (and its main settlement of Black Spire Outpost) doesn’t play too big of a role in this story however, as it is mostly used as a jumping-off point at the very beginning and a location for the denouement to take place at the end. Instead, Rooper and Dass somewhat reluctantly team up with Sky Graf, a non-binary member of the wealthy Graf clan, who are also well-known hyperspace prospectors. Sky has stolen their brother’s ship and intends to enter into a competition called the Hyperspace Chase, which will allow them to pursue the goal of tracking down the legendary Planet X– where Dass had once visited with his father Spence– and potentially discover what happened to Sky’s own father. Along the way, Sky, Dass, and Rooper encounter a number of obstacles in their path, from competing prospectors to Sky’s brother Helis (who really just wants to reclaim his ship and protect his sibling from getting into too much trouble), to the usual dangers to be found in and around the Star Wars galaxy.
It’s a fun adventure from the start, but things get even more interesting and complicated when the crew thwarts a plan by the Force cult known as the Path of the Open Hand to commandeer their ship, taking one of its members as a hostage / prisoner. Together these four characters must learn how to get along long enough to make it to the other end of their journey, though that particular path does get diverted on more than a few occasions. That brings me to my only real critique of Quest for Planet X, and I feel like I can say this since the book’s already been out for a couple weeks: the plot meanders and spins its wheels to the point where the main cast of characters quite literally lose track of their ultimate goals. To be fair, that’s definitely part of the point of the novel, as they all have to learn to accept the hand they’re dealt and go where the Force takes them, but it’s also frustrating that the very title of the book (major SPOILER alert) never actually pays off. Rooper eventually gets sidetracked by following in the footsteps of her missing Jedi master, and the rest of the gang is sorta guilted into going along with her, which leads to an intersection with the story of Lydia Kang’s terrific recent “adult” novel Star Wars: The High Republic – Cataclysm. Gratton is a good writer who’s proven herself beyond capable of generating empathetic characters, compelling situations, and well-choreographed action in A Galaxy Far Far Away, though as a reader I could tell she was aiming this entry at younger audiences of fans. That makes perfect sense, as like I said it’s intended to be middle-grade. But if I, a 40-something-year-old dude, was left disappointed that a book with “Planet X” in the title never got around to visiting Planet X, I’m guessing the targeted demographic might feel the same way.
Star Wars: The High Republic – Quest for Planet X is available now wherever books are sold.