The Nihil invade Lonisa City, where dignitaries and visitors have gathered to celebrate the first Republic Fair in years, beginning with knocking out communications through Crashpoint Tower. Padawans Ram and Lula, along with Zeen and the droid V-18, must work together and fight their way to the tower to restore communications to alert Starlight Beacon and allow the forces on the planet to communicate. This is an action-packed adventure, introducing new characters to the series. There seems to be more action and less story than the others. Ram, Lula, and Zeen each have their own issues to deal with and their own talents to share, making them welcome additions to the series.

Race to Crashpoint Tower van Daniel José Older (Last Shot, The High Republic Adventures), met illustraties van Petur Antonsson (A Test of Courage, The Great Jedi Rescue), is het tweede boek voor jonge lezers in de High Republic reeks. We volgen Jedi Padawans Ram Jomaram en Lula Talisola tijdens een Nihil aanval op de New Republic Fair op Valo.

Ram is een wat ongewone Padawan, hij is een introvert die liever in een garage aan speeders sleutelt dan dat hij tijd met andere levende wezens doorbrengt. In de High Republic zien we regelmatig dat Jedi een unieke connectie met de force hebben, Ram gebruikt de Force om te zien hoe dingen, vooral mechanische structuren, opgebouwd zijn. Zo kan hij bijvoorbeeld voelen waar een probleem in een speeder motor zit zonder deze fysiek uit elkaar te halen.

Lula kennen we uit nummers 1 tot en met 5 van The High Republic Adventures stripreeks, in Race to Crashpoint Tower komt ze samen met, vriendin en mede Force user, Zeen Mrala op de planeet Valo terecht en samen schieten ze daar Ram te hulp.

Wezens vanuit het hele sterrenstelsel zijn naar Valo gekomen voor de Republic Fair, maar terwijl Rams medepadawans bezig zijn met voorbereidingen voor de fair merkt Ram een beveiligingsalarm op bij de communicatietoren op Crashpoint Peak. Hij gaat met zijn droid, V-18, op onderzoek uit en komt erachter dat de Nihil de communicatietoren onbruikbaar gemaakt hebben als voorbereiding op een grootschalige aanval op het evenement. Het is aan Ram om de overige Jedi op de hoogte te brengen van de naderende aanval, maar dat is niet zo makkelijk als gehoopt.

Het boek is op jongere lezers gericht (8-12 jaar) waardoor het verhaal niet heel ingewikkeld is maar zeker niet oninteressant. Older begint met wat rustige introducties, maar zodra het verhaal eenmaal op gang komt krijgen de personages, en daarmee ook de lezer, geen pagina rust. Het verhaal vliegt in een razend tempo voorbij. De gebeurtenissen in het verhaal lopen parallel aan die van The Rising Storm van auteur Cavan Scott (ook te koop vanaf 29 juni 2021) en het is dan ook een leuke aanvulling op dat verhaal.

Lula en Zeen spelen een vrij grote rol in het verhaal en de gebeurtenissen van Race to Crashpoint Tower gebeuren direct na de gebeurtenissen van The High Republic Adventures #1-5, dus die comics gelezen hebben voor je aan dit boek begint is een goed idee, maar geen vereiste. Alles dat je over het tweetal moet weten wordt uitgelegd, maar de grotere achtergrond weten is wel een toevoeging die het lezen van de comics de moeite waard maakt.

Older zet met Race to Crashpoint Tower een leuk verhaal neer dat wat nieuwe en kortgeleden geïntroduceerde concepten in de Star Wars wereld verkent of wat dieper uitpluist. Ondanks het Young Reader label is het boek wat mij betreft vermakelijk voor lezers van alle leeftijden, al vliegen gevorderde lezers er uiteraard vrij vlot doorheen, maar laat dat je er zeker niet van weerhouden het boek een kans te geven.

The whole for the whole, each part for the role it plays. A mantra that Jedi Padawan Ram Jomaram keeps at the forefront of his mind as he finds himself in a race against time as he discovers the Nihil’s plans to crash the festivities at the Republic Fair. 

Race to Crashpoint Tower is a junior Star Wars novel, set just before the disastrous events of The Rising Storm on the planet Valo. 

If Justina Ireland’s A Test of Courage was your favorite book from the first phase of The High Republic, then you are bound to love Daniel José Older’s Race to Crashpoint Tower. With a cast composed primarily of Jedi Padawan, readers are treated to an adventure where the young characters are faced with serious situations and it makes for a truly fun read. We might even get to see a favorite from A Test of Courage in a new role. 

For fans of IDW’s The High Republic Adventures comic series, we finally get to see our beloved heroines Lula and Zeen brought to life in a book! As much as I love seeing their misadventures in the monthly issues, there was something special about reading their points of view in Race to Crashpoint Tower. 

The story is told in three parts centered around Ram and Lula’s points of view as they are thrown into the thick of things, fighting against not only the brutal Nihil assault but the fearsome and carnivorous Drengir. Yes, the very same Drengir we read about in Claudia Gray’s Into the Dark and seen in Cavan Scott’s Star Wars: The High Republic comic series at Marvel. I chuckled a number of times while reading the dialogue Older chose for the terrifying living — and hungry — plant. 

One thing that I love about Daniel José Older’s Star Wars tales is that there is always a concentrated effort to usher in diversity while making it effortlessly genuine. He doesn’t draw a circle around it and point it out, he makes it as natural as it is in our day-to-day lives. These characters not only exist, but they are fully fleshed-out characters that play an important part in the story. It’s one of the strongest parts of The High Republic-era. At long last, there are Star Wars characters that fans can see themselves in and they’re not silent background characters — they’re actually the main characters! It warms my heart to know that so many of my friends are finally seeing themselves and their experiences brought to life in their favorite franchise. 

You will not want to miss out on this High Republic-era novel. It’s fun, humorous, adventure-filled, filled with clever and endearing characters, and the perfect convergence of so many of the stories we’ve come to love over the past six months.

Star Wars is a lot of things. It’s full of action. It’s got big emotions and a lot of heart. It has characters that are relatable and that stand the test of time. Race to Crashpoint Tower by Daniel José Older has all of these things, but it also has something most Star Wars just doesn’t: it is laugh-out-loud funny.

I’m serious. I’m not the type to laugh at something if I’m reading it or watching it by myself. And yet, by the time I got to the end of this book, I had actual tears in my eyes - the good kind, thankfully. I shouldn’t have been so surprised. Daniel José Older has brought his characteristic kind of funny to the GFFA before, with 2018’s Last Shot and the more recent (and relevant) Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures comic series for IDW.

Race to Crashpoint Tower pulls off the remarkable feat of being inextricably linked to both the IDW High Republic Adventures series, and to The Rising Storm and yet somehow functions perfectly as a standalone novel for younger readers - and older readers too. See again: me with tears in my eyes.

The novel is set during the events of The Rising Storm, operating in such flawless parallel that the story overlaps in places, even though the main arcs are quite different. The novel follows Ram Jamaram, a Jedi Padawan from Valo with an interest in machinery and mechanics. When he receives word that Crashpoint Tower, the central comms tower for Lonisa City, has gone down, with no one else around to help, he takes it upon himself to fix it. Far from a simple mechanical issue, the tower is actually a key component of the Nihil’s plan to raid the Republic Fair and cause chaos, and Ram’s efforts to fix it have instead gotten him swept up in the larger adventure.

Our other point of view character is Lula Talisola, a Jedi Padawan straight out of the IDW comics who ends up on Valo along with her new close friend Zeen Mrala, a Force user who isn’t a formal Padawan. An investigation into the status of Zeen’s homeworld, destroyed in the fallout of the Great Disaster, leads the two of them along with the Jedi Master accompanying them, to Valo as well, to help wherever they are able.

The wonderful thing about Race to Crashpoint Tower, as well as the first middle grade High Republic novel, Justina Ireland’s A Test of Courage, is that the books are primarily about characters of an age, or slightly older than the intended reader. They are not adventures about adults being told to children, as the other Star Wars middle grade books are. These are books for kids, about kids, and that only makes them stronger.

Race to Crashpoint Tower is told from two points of view: Ram’s and Lula’s. Indirectly, we also get Zeen’s point of view. Three young Force users that are all about the same age, but each so different and distinct, that every reader will find a different one to gravitate towards and relate to.

This, like everything else about the book, is not limited to younger readers either. As a former gifted kid, there’s something that hits very close to home about Lula striving to be the best of the best, exceptional at a young age, only for her to step out in the world and realize just how many people strive for the same. I see a lot of myself in her, as she starts down the path of knowing that being good at what you do, and being “special” is not a one-and-only kind of deal. As cliche as it sounds, everyone is special in their own way, there’s nothing wrong with that, and a lot of kids (and yes, adults) need to hear that too.

But what is a good adventure story without antagonists, and this story has all kinds. Or two kinds anyway. We have the Nihil, of course, who are the instigators for the catastrophe at the Republic Fair. But then there are the Drengir. The sentient plants who make very memorable appearances in Claudia Gray’s Into the Dark and in the Marvel comics run. But where in those they are sinister, mysterious and terrifying, here they have been given the kind of lighter treatment that I think they need to make them age-appropriate. They still pose a threat, but not in a way that’s likely to give younger readers nightmares. And because it’s Daniel José Older writing, this is right about the time the tears of mirth started rolling down my face.

Also important and worth mentioning before wrapping this up is Daniel José Older’s continued striving for inclusion in the most subtle and incidental of ways. Lula and Zeen are accompanied on their mission by Kantam Sy, a nonbinary Jedi Master. Lula sleeps with her hair wrapped in silk. It’s details like this that make a far away galaxy feel that much closer to home in all the right ways.

I’ve said it in my other reviews and I’ll say it again now. If you are an adult on the fence about reading a book ostensibly aimed at 12 year olds, you need to get over yourself and read this. If nothing else I’ve said will convince you, then consider this. We’re already seeing how interconnected these stories are, and I will be very surprised if certain plot nuggets that Daniel José Older snuck into this story don’t pay off down the line in a big way.

Book 2 of "The High Republic" Middle Reader Books - See bottom of review for suggested High Republic Reading Timeline

Review for NetGalley ARC

"Race to Crashpoint Tower" written by Daniel José Older was written for middle readers, ages 8-12, and it is set in the High Republic Era of the Star Wars Universe following the events of "The Great Disaster" around 200 years before the "The Phantom Menace". This book is preceeded by Justina Ireland's "A Test of Courage" and IDW's "The High Republic Adventures" 1-5. If the readers are avid Star Wars fans who must read everything in an order, it should follow Cavan Scott's "The Rising Storm" (See suggested reading order below).

This book in the series follows Padawan Ram Jomaram and his droid V-18 on the planet Valo as the Valons prepare for the arrival of visitors for the Republic Fair. It has many cameo appearances from the other High Republic publications, and as with all THR stories, there is an attack by the Nihil and even Drengir. Ram seems to be the only one who recognizes the threat, and it becomes his responsibility to notify the Starlight Beacon and call for reinforcements before all chaos ensues.

For middle readers, this is a fantastic story. It is fast-paced and straightforward, the characters are well developed, and the villains are to be feared without causing pre-teen nightmares. For those who have read the other THR stories, they will be pleased by Older's use of known characters and the way he overlaps them into the meta-narrative.

The High Republic Suggested Reading Timeline:
- Starlight: Go Together, Part 1 by Charles Soule (SW Insider 199 Short Story)
- Light of the Jedi by Charles Soule
- The High Republic (Marvel) 1
- Starlight: Go Together, Part 2 by Charles Soule (SW Insider 200 Short Story)
- A Test of Courage by Justina Ireland
- Into the Dark by Claudia Gray
- The High Republic (Marvel) 2-6
- The High Republic Adventures (IDW) 1-5
- Starlight: First Duty, Parts 1 and 2 by Cavan Scott (SW Insider 201-202 Short Story)
- Starlight: Hidden Danger by Justina Ireland (SW Insider 203 Short Story)
- The Rising Storm by Cavan Scott
- Race to Crashpoint Tower by Daniel José Older

Thanks to NetGalley & Disney Publishing Worldwide for the early copy in exchange for a full review. Actual rating is 3.5/5 stars.

Full review coming soon!