Spring of the High Republic: Quarter Wrap Up and Looking Ahead - and Thank you!

It's gonna be Star Wars central here for the next 3 months, y'all.

Another 3 months have slipped by me and I am once again excited to start the new cycle of content. While the last 3 months were unstructured, I plan to inject my usual formula into my content preparedness. The High Republic corner of Star Wars is going to be big come June with The Acolyte hitting Disney+ and obviously, I’m excited.

But before we get to that, let me highlight a few things from the last 3 months.

Firstly, thank you to all the new followers and subscribers! My Substack continues to grow and not even a year into this, I have gained plenty of traction.

I started my podcast for this Substack in the Fall and we are also making moves in that department. While I have guest speakers here and there, I want to thank

Mitchel

for being my cohost. He always takes the time to record with me and plays the games I ask him to. Thank you, Mitch! You’re the real one.

Here are a few highlights from the last 3 months.

• The Delisting of Spec Ops - this is one of those moments that scared me into returning to buying physical copies of games in the new age. Mitch and I did a podcast, too, before I wrote this and the timing is borderline hilarious.

• The Shadow Warrior Novels from 1997 - Jerry Oltion returned to discuss his contributions to the Shadow Warrior novels which are based on the PC game of the same name. Jerry is also responsible for one part of the Unreal novels as well.

• I INTERVIEWED KELLY GAY - a huge highlight for me. I have adored and respected Gay’s work for years. Also the new Halo novel, Epitaph, is outstanding for fans.

• I wrote a nostalgic post about The Phantom Menace - lots of people liked this one! Thank you!

While the first 3 months of this year were scattered with my content, I’m looking forward to providing more of a roadmap for the Spring Quarter.

On a personal front, my new job is going well and I love it so much! I’m so blessed to be able to support myself with my new title as Sales Representative at Hachette Book Group.

Now, let’s talk Star Wars.

I’ve been teasing reading through the Star Wars High Republic novels for some time. Of all the things in the new canon of SW, these novels are highly regarded even by those who take umbrage with the cinematic direction of the franchise.

I still have yet to read any of them because I wanted to dedicate months to reading what we have so far. There are 7 novels published so far with an 8th novel out in June of this year. I am speaking strictly about the “Adult” novels and not the YA novels, Middle Grade novels, audio productions, and comics. I might get to those later but I want to stay focused on a reachable goal for myself in the next 3 months.

What prompted me to pursue this were for a couple of reasons. The announcement of The Acolyte arriving this June and the release of the 8th adult High Republic novel, The Temptation of the Force by Tessa Gratton around the same time. Along with my above reason for wanting to push myself to educate myself on the new mythos, it was 3 solid reasons.

If you haven’t seen the trailer for The Acolyte, watch now! It’s set about 100 years before The Phantom Menace (132-ish BBY) and follows the events (so far) of the High Republic books by 100 years.

So here are the novels I am going to cover.

Phase 1 (232 BBY)

• Light of the Jedi by Charles Soule

• The Rising Storm by Cavan Scott

• The Fallen Star by Claudia Grey

Phase 2 (150 years before Phase 1 - 382 BBY)

• Convergence by Zoraida Cordova

• Cataclysm by Lydia King

Phase 3 (232 BBY)

• The Eye of Darkness by George Mann

• Temptation of the Force by Tessa Gratton

I will be writing about more than these novels too over the course of the 3 months. Obviously the Podcast will still be going and I’ll write about whatever pops into my brain.

The Living Force by John Miller comes out in April and I plan on talking about that - it is a novel set about a year before the events of The Phantom Menace.

There is the Fallout TV show hitting Amazon Prime which I will try to collect thoughts on. Still not sure what to think yet but I dig the vibe of the trailer. It’s a game franchise that peaked with Fallout: New Vegas and then became safe and in the case of ‘76, broken! But the lore is rich for storytelling so I’m gonna stay positive.

And? Well, video games but probably not about novel tie-ins. I can only read so much!

I look forward to writing this Spring and I look forward to you reading.

Thank you!