Book Review – Ram Jomaram and Friends Confront the Nihil in “Star Wars: The High Republic – Escape from Valo”

Next week will see the release of Star Wars: The High Republic – Escape from Valo, the first middle-grade novel in Phase III of Lucasfilm’s ambitious multi-platform publishing initiative. I received an advance copy of the book and below are my spoiler-light synopsis and thoughts on this release.

It’s been clear to me for a while now that my perception of what the Jedi Order is and how its members (even the younger ones) behave is very different from author Daniel José Older’s. In my humble estimation as a Star Wars fan, George Lucas envisioned the Jedi as warrior-monks who essentially take vows of near-chastity, tranquil serenity, and transcendental meditativeness for life, only springing into action to use their martial-arts prowess and Force-wielding abilities for defense and to protect those in need of assistance. This is not a way of life that I agree with or would want to follow by any means, but it still is what it is (and has been for 45+ years) as a fictional construct. Older’s Jedi characters are aware of these guidelines, as they often come up in conversation between characters in his writing, but these characters frequently choose to ignore them as well, almost always without any real consequence.

These kids frolic and play and make frequent quips and hug and emote and have crushes on each other. In that way, Older’s young Jedi behave (to me) more like real-world adolescents than they do anything recognizably Jedi. This is the core quandary that I find myself facing every time I pick up one of Daniel José Older’s books or comics in The High Republic series. Even after a few years of consuming his work for my own job I’m still struggling with it, but I imagine those who have an easier time getting past this issue find his writing more agreeable. All this came up again thanks to Older’s new middle-grade novel Star Wars: The High Republic – Escape from Valo, which he co-wrote with Alyssa Wong of the recent Star Wars: Doctor Aphra comic books. I do think the addition of Wong’s talents tempered Older’s instincts a little bit, but in reading this book I still felt like something was off about the way characters behave on a base level.

Escape from Valo is the story of Jedi Padawan Ram Jomaram, who has traveled back to his titular home planet in the wake of the space station Starlight Beacon’s destruction, to protect Lonisa City and its people from the occupying forces of the Nihil. Posing as the vigilante “The Scarlet Skull,” Ram steadfastly watches over his broken city and regularly attempts to contact the Republic-controlled side of the galaxy, which has been barricaded off from the Occlusion Zone thanks to the Nihil’s impenetrable Stormwall. In this process, he comes across a trio of Jedi Initiates (older than a youngling, younger than a Padawan) who are barely surviving by hiding in an abandoned zoo– loyal readers of The High Republic will remember this location from The Rising Storm and Race to Crashpoint Tower. And when these four young Jedi encounter a snarky, non-binary pirate tween named Zyle on a mission to recover valuable supplies from a sunken Republic research vessel, their already-embattled lives become even more fraught with peril. It’s a fun enough premise that ties in well– thematically and story-wise– with other titles in this initiative, though at nearly 400 pages in length it feels like a lot to get through for its target audience of 8-to-12-year-olds.

One of the other fundamental tenets of the Jedi Order is the prohibition of attachment, which you’ll remember having been dealt with plenty in the Star Wars prequel trilogy. And Older and Wong do deal with it here as well, in a way that is, admittedly, rather thoughtful and analytical as to the intent of Lucas’s revered source material. Those introspective revelations by one of the central characters, which come near the climax of this book, had me second-thinking my critical approach to these middle-grade novels and what they might mean to a younger generation of Star Wars fans. The unabashedly emotional way these kids behave may not ring authentic to me when it comes to what I know about the Jedi, but that interpretation might also be helping Older, Wong, and their readers come to grips with the point Lucas was trying to make by setting the rules of the Jedi Order in the first place.

Those ruminations aside, I can say that this book will likely be warmly embraced by those who have enjoyed the authors’ other works, those who have come to love the eternally tinkering Ram Jomaram as a character, and those who may be seeking more (always welcome) LGBTQ+ representation in A Galaxy Far, Far Away. Plus, there are some intriguing new twists introduced among the villainous Nihil and their ranks, like the sullen Umbaran teenage scientist Niv Drendow Apruk, who brings with him a ferocious pet that will also be familiar to those paying attention. I did enjoy those parts of the novel, and I can say the rest wasn’t really for me while acknowledging that it will probably be for somebody.

Star Wars: The High Republic – Escape from Valo will be released on Tuesday, January 30th, but is available right now for pre-order.