A review by literatureladylena
Quest for the Hidden City by George Mann

3.0

In the Star Wars universe, the Jedi are an order of powerful force sensitive beings that dedicated their lives and their powers to do good by preserving life and creating peace. That's a generally good trait for the hero of a story, but it makes writing an exciting story harder because such a hero would never fight to kill, only to disarm, but they show off all their fighting skills this way. In the original trilogy, this issue was handled in two ways: The stormtroopers of the empire were put in full body armor, their humanity was shrouded, so it didn't feel so unethical for the viewer. That was a lazy and inconsistent solution. But when it came to the big bad of the series, Darth Vader, another approach was used. The films discussed if there is pure evil of if every person has the potential to be good or bad in them. Luke believed that there was still good in Darth Vader and he was right. So he didn't fight to kill, just to disarm, and Vader turned. It is a core aspect of Star Wars philosophy that there is no inherent evil. The High Republic handled this issue in a good way so far. The Jedi tried to fight the Nihil without killing, and when someone killed anyway, it was out of self defense or a dark moment of the Jedi. And now we have this book. Silandra Sho is a prime example of the philosophy that one should never fight to kill. It is shown in a fight against predatory beasts. She even fights with a shield instead of a saber whenever possible. But then there are these crystals which turn Katikoot into zombies and are a life form of some sort. Suddenly, these life forms are considered as inherently evil and killing is justified so the Jedi slaughter them en masse. That seems inconsistent to me and bothered me while reading.

But apart from that, I was a fun read. I liked the characters, especially Rooper and her dynamic with Silandra. And the worldbuilding is great, the twin worlds of Audabas and Gloam are a nice addition to the galaxy. And the political commentary is also great.