The second phase of The High Republic continues in George Mann’s Quest for the Hidden City. This is Mann’s first full length novel for Star Wars. His previous works include Myths & Fables, Dark Legends and the Life Day Treasury. Mann’s writing feels right at home in novel form, capturing the Star Wars cadence well.
150 years before the events of Light of the Jedi, the galaxy is a much wilder place. Pathfinders still work tirelessly to find new hyperspace paths into the Outer Rim. When a Pathfinder’s communications droid is found drifting in space, the Jedi dispatch Jedi Knight Silandra Sho and her Padawan Rooper Nitani to investigate. This leads them to a very interesting system with two planets that orbit one another, while orbiting a star. One of the planets looks pristine and the other looks like a brown ball of smog in space.
Mann has some interesting themes in the book, the foremost is the idea of hubris. The Katikoot people on the beautiful world of Aubadas have mined their twin planet of Gloam to ruin. They have done so even with the knowledge that their resources are not endless, nor is the mineral they use, actually safe. On top of this, there are those willing to exploit the energy crisis on Aubadas regardless the cost to anyone as long as they get rich. The themes are timeless but unfortunately they do feel quite blatant, where more subtlety would have been better.
Like Path of Deceit, Quest for the Hidden City suffers from the same problem, the story is just not captivating enough. Oh the tale is fine but there seems to be little connection to the first phase of The High Republic which will leave readers wondering what the point of these stories are. Quest for the Hidden City is rated 2.75 out of 5 stars.
This review was completed using a copy of Quest for the Hidden City provided by Disney Lucasfilm Press.
