The Starbird Files

  The Queen’s Bloom - Zoraida Córdova   Everyone’s favorite Phase II character (except mine), Axel Greylark is the focus of the first story of the anthology, and he is at university causing trouble and skiving off work using his status (there’s a surprise!). Despite this, he takes time to make friends with the lower paid staff and even helps a janitor with money - do I like Axel now? When a swish party is attacked by a gang of thieves Axel has a telling first meeting with a pivotal person a character in his life. The most interesting part of the story for me was meeting Axel’s father Lexxir who was clearly a very good influence on his son, and shows just how much his death would affect Axel in the future. 🌕🌕🌕🌘🌑 /5 A Closed Fist Has No Claws - Tessa Gratton The second story sees Marda Ro traveling the galaxy, looking for more Evereni, all the while gathering followers and feeding the occasional Jedi to the Leveler. She finds Evereni twins on the planet Siquay, and a possib...

  Path of Vengeance by Cavan Scott REVIEW   *Spoiler Heavy* The final book of Phase II, although I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the second part of Project Luminous, going into Path of Vengeance I did feel that it had a lot of heavy lifting to do to show why this detour 150 years in the past was needed. But if anyone could pull it off it’s Cavan Scott. While the comics and books of phase I were interlinked and part of one story, this phase has taken this to a whole new level with books overlapping, seeing the same events from different angles and perspectives. Path of Vengeance takes place during the Battle of Jedha through Cataclysm, bringing together characters from Path of Deceit and the High Republic comics, as well as references to the middle grade books. If you were wondering where Marda was in Cataclysm, the answer was right here. Clinging desperately to her beliefs despite all evidence to the contrary, she is the most devoted earnest follower of the Path, which leads her to ta...

Anticipation for me was high, not because I was expecting a lot of announcements (I wasn’t), but because I’ve been to two Celebrations before and had a great time but it was just me & my wife, Debra. This time around I was going to know a bunch of people because of Star Wars Sessions as well as folks from Instagram. On Thursday I went to the ExCel, probably too early to meet Sessions people. But it was fun to hang around and soak up the atmosphere, there were some cosplayers, people going in to collect their badges. Met up with my friend Jimmy from Kansas, then Matt & Luke from SWS, Luke aka One Quarter Portion aka the King of Wales, and others before we headed to Seven Dials Market to meet more people and eat. It was a fun appetizer to the weekend to come. The Session crew at Seven Dials Market Day One I arrived at about 9am and joined the queue for admission at 10am, I pulled out my copy of Cataclysm and immediately someone started talking to me about the High Republic. This ...

Tempest Runner Audio Drama by Cavan Scott This was my first Star Wars audio drama experience (thank you Audible free trial!), and I really enjoyed having a new Star War story in a different medium. The sound effects, music and voice cast really brought the story to life, compared to where I have struggled with audiobooks in the past. The only drawback I found was it could be somewhat difficult to remember who new characters were, as their names were repeated less than in a written book. Tempest Runner is the story of what happens to Lourna Dee after the events of The Rising Storm, and tells her backstory through flashbacks from various points in her life,   and Lourna is now my low key crush of the High Republic era! Lourna is captured following an attack on a communications outpost, but is able to deceive her Jedi captors calling herself Sal Krost. Through flashbacks we learn that she is the daughter of a privileged Twi’lek family, tricked into betraying her family and sold into s...

Welcome to a new style of review for comics, let me know what you think. In Issues 7 through 9 of the Marvel High Republic series by Cavan Scott we get the end of the first arc and the start of the second, with the focus switching from the Drengir to the Nihil, and Keeve Trennis tested further still. Issue 7 Writer: Cavan Scott    Art: P. Noto, G. Jeanty, K. Story, A. Leoni After the events of issue 6 I expected that we would be going to the Drengir home world in this chapter, and 7 really seems to slow the pace of the story down. Instead we focus on Keeve who is suffering from the after effects of her connection to the Drengir. When she meditates she has visions of them and a Sith - Darth Krall, which begs the question why? Could he have something to do with the creation of the    Drengir or their defeat? Could he be one of the lost twenty? It’s certainly a mystery that is not answered at this moment in time. Keeve is fighting the Nihil on Chortose, an agricultural ...