Wordsmith's Anvil

  Image Credit: Bit Reactor Star Wars is on a roll lately.     I know that may seem like a tough pill to swallow for those who have been down on it since The Rise of Skywalker , but facts are facts. Whether it's in book s, television , or gaming , the folks at Lucasfilm have found a niche that will help to drag them out of the proverbial muck.     Star Wars: Zero Company starts us off in the boots of Hawks, a grizzled veteran who just wants to get this mercenary gig off to the right start. After a cut-short career in the Republic military, Hawks went into the private sector with the only skills that he (or she, if you prefer) excelled in. Combat.     Down on their luck, Hawks and the members of Zero Company are desperate to get out from under the heel of Gorga the Hutt... Do Hutts have heels? I suppose not. They're just trying to get the gargantuan weight of crushing debt off of them. Maybe that's better. In order to do so, Hawks is willing to bend one...

Image credit: Disney Making my way through The High Republic books has been an amazing side quest in recent months. Not only is it really cool to be reading Star Wars novels again, but the fact that they're canon makes it all the more satisfying. The stories are well-crafted, thought provoking, and provide substance that is truly lacking in anything Star Wars has released in film format since Rogue One . My main query as I began this venture was whether or not the Young Adult novels would be able to hold a candle to the nitty-gritty displayed in the likes of Convergence or Cataclysm .     The two books in question today are the novels Path of Deceit and Path of Vengeance. While these books are written by different authors, Tessa Gratton and Justina Ireland for Deceit and Cavan Scott for Vengeance , most of the characters are the same.     Path of Deceit has us following Jedi Knight Zallah Macri and her Padawan Kevmo Zink. This pair has been tasked with pathfinder-t...

Images Credit: Disney & Yihyoung Li Woo. It's been a minute since I've read a Star Wars novel, and even longer since it's been one that has actually been considered canon. Most of the stuff that's been churned out over the decades has just been shuffled to Star Wars's "Legends" section, a sort of catch-all that looks at things more like a reimagining than anything. That is not the case with the books of The High Republic .     The High Republic effort by Disney includes books, audio dramas, comics, graphic novels, video games, a children's show, and a more adult-centric show that completely flopped. Whether or not that show flopped due to its content or due to the heavy review bombing that happened is perhaps up for debate, but I'm not going to discuss that in this particular post. I'll focus instead on the first two stories set in this era.      In an even longer time ago in that same galaxy we've come to know and love... Convergence s...