Hello friends, and happy weekend!

(Some spoilery things ahead!)

I finished The High Republic novel Convergence, by Zoraida Cordova. I enjoyed it and am looking forward to its counterpart and sequel, Cataclysm, coming out in April of next year. It concerns the two planets Eiram and E’ronoh, which have been at war with each other for years. Jedi Knight Gella Natai is part of a Jedi delegation to help broker a peace treaty between the two worlds. She is helped in this mission by the two heirs, Xiri A’lbaran of E’ronoh and Phantu-Zenn of Eiram. Added to the mix is Axel Greylark, son of one of the Chancellors of the Republic, who has a troubled past and is sent there by his mother to report back to her. These four young people form a friendship as they embark on a mission to spread word of the treaty and the marriage that will take place between Xiri and Phantu-Zenn; they hope their union will bring peace to their war-weary worlds. However, not everyone wants peace and the mission is threatened from without as well as within.

Xiri and Phantu-Zenn are pretty straight-forward: they are both determined to forge peace between their worlds, and are willing to work together to do it. Gella, for her part, was assigned to this mission on the heels of a failed Pathfinder mission, where members of her team were killed or injured. She is unsure of her place in the Order, has doubts about herself as a team player, but is dedicated to the Force and the success of this mission.

Axel Greylark is the most interesting character in the book, and also the most inscrutable. He comes off as a scoundrel: an insouciant, selfish, jaded charmer, with gambling debts and a price on his head. But we also know there’s a wounded little boy inside, hiding his pain from his father’s death years ago, an accident which involved some Jedi. Ever since, he’s been hostile and mistrusting of Jedi. Of course, over the course of the book, he falls for Gella, but he’s far too complicated to change for the better because of this. He wants to; but feels it’s far too late for him, as he’s involved in some fairly murderous doings, among other things.

The saga of Eiram and E’ronoh continue in the audiobook releasing soon called The Battle of Jedha. I don’t care for audiobooks, but I have pre-ordered the print format of the book that will release in February, as I feel fairly invested in this story. And it’s Jedha, which, ever since Rogue One, has intrigued me immensely. I want to know more about it, and about the various Force religions. It’s why I’ve picked up Guardians of the Whills again, a short novel about Chirrut Imwe and Baze Malbus on Jedha. I’ll write more about that one next week.

Anyway, I also received and read the Obi-Wan Kenobi comic the other night. As I’ve mentioned many times before, I’m not much into comics, but every once in a while one comes out that I feel moved to read. This is one of them, as Obi-Wan is probably my favorite character in Star Wars right now. The comic concerns Obi-Wan in exile on Tatooine in his later years, probably quite close to the time of A New Hope. A sandstorm is coming, and he writes a few stories about his past in his journal to pass the time. The five stories span his lifetime, from a youngling, to Padawan to Qui-Gon Jinn, to Clone Wars General, to his mentoring of Anakin, and finally as Old Ben on Tatooine. The subtitle of the comic is “The Purpose of a Jedi”, and these stories examine that very question, as well as prepare him for his lonely exile on Tatooine. As a youngling, he must learn to rely on himself; as a Padawan, he learns to find the light in the darkness; in the Clone Wars, he truly ponders the purpose of a Jedi in war-time, which is always to help others and to choose life, even among death; in a mission with Anakin, he learns to hold on to that purpose even when it’s clear that constant war can consume others; and in the last story, he shows the incredible compassion he’s attained over the years, helping a Stormtrooper attacked by Tuskens.

The comic doesn’t add anything of great import to the canon; it’s more of a character-driven story, exploring Obi-Wan’s state of mind and what he’s learned over the years of being a Jedi. As an Obi-Wan fan, I found it very satisfying.

Also in books, I’ve been continuing my reading of Fairy Tale, by Stephen King. It’s a fun and entertaining book, about a teenage boy and his dog visiting a parallel world that is overcome by evil. I’ll probably finish it this week and write more about it next week.

Reading Stephen King got me in the mood to watch a King movie, and so I watched Doctor Sleep, the sequel to The Shining. I read The Shining years ago, and of course watched the Stanley Kubrick film with Jack Nicholson. This story concerns the adult Dan Torrance, and his life after the horrific events at the Overlook Hotel (and stars our very own Ewan McGregor as the adult Dan). So as a kid, little Danny swore he’d never touch alcohol, after seeing it destroy his father. Well, that didn’t go as planned, and he spends most of his young adult life as an alcoholic. He hits rock bottom, and ends up in a New Hampshire town where he finds help from a man named Billy, who leads him to Alcoholics Anonymous. He gets clean and spends eight years working as an orderly in a nursing home. Through his special abilities (the shining), he helps people pass on to the other side. Because of this, the residents call him “Doctor Sleep.” He turns his life around and has found a rewarding way to use his “shine.”

But.

Of course, there’s trouble. A group called the True Knot is stalking people, children in particular, who have the shining, even if they don’t know it. They kidnap and slowly kill these people, in order to “eat” their “steam”–fear and pain causes them to emit a sort of mist that is a manifestation of their power, and when the group inhales it, it “feeds” them. It causes them to live long lives.

Dan comes to know a 12-year-old girl named Abra who is very powerful in the shining. The group finds out about her existence and wants her. Dan becomes involved in helping her, but in doing so, he needs to confront his past and the (literal) ghosts that haunt him.

I don’t think this movie did very well at the box office, but I was certainly entertained for 2+ hours. I may read the book, once I finish Fairy Tale.

Lastly, I came across a trailer for a movie coming out next March:

I never knew I needed an Adam Driver time-travel sci-fi Jurassic Park kind of movie, but here we are. I’ll definitely be watching that one!

That’s about it this week. What’s been entertaining you? Let me know in the comments and we’ll talk about it!

P.S.–I saw that the Phase One High Republic YA novels will be coming out in a boxed set soon with new covers:

If I had a bottomless budget, I’d get this, because I love the new covers. I’ll wishlist it, lol.