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Star Wars: Read an Excerpt from The High Republic Novel Into The Dark


There is little doubt that the new content for Star Wars: The High Republic has intrigued fans considering that these stories will take place centuries before the events in the Skywalker Saga. But what exactly can we expect in the new books, comics, and shows? For starters, you can read an excerpt from the upcoming novel Into The Dark by Claudia Gray.

Gray is no stranger to Star Wars fans considering that she has penned several books for the franchise including Shadows of the Empire, Leia: Princess of Alderaan, and Star Wars: Master and Apprentice. However, Gray's latest novel is fairly different considering that she's dealing with new characters. The author confirmed with Collider that she took a new approach with the book.

"I didn't invent every single character who appears in Into the Dark, but I was the first writer to work with them, and I was developing them from the ground up. While all of my other Star Wars work had involved original characters--even in the leads, as in Lost Stars--this was the first time it was absolutely all new, and the entire spirit and personality of this era was new too. In that way it was definitely new ground," Gray said.

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Credit: IDW

In Into The Dark, a Padawan is forced to take a position on the new space station Starlight Beacon which is a symbol of hope and positivity throughout the galaxy. However, things are not what they seem when they uncover the secret of an abandoned nearby space station.

Check out the excerpt from Into The Dark below.

"Ah, pirates." Jora Malli shook her head almost fondly. "They never learn."
The Togruta Jedi Master sat beside her Padawan in their PI-R airspeeder as it swooped through the massive constructions that covered a good third of Coruscant, in pursuit of a pirate skiff. In the decades since the latest building boom had begun on the planet, valuable ores and materials had been shipped and stored there. Tempting stuff, for a pirate. And for many years, stealing a haul and getting away had been far from impossible. Yes, Coruscant was the central world of the Republic, one with a vast security force. But everything about the planet was vast—including its opportunities for concealment and escape.
However, Coruscant was becoming a more ordered place. An even more important place. And already home to the largest of all the Jedi temples in the galaxy.
Which meant Coruscant would be safer than ever before. About time the pirates learned that.
Jora opened her mouth to tell her Padawan what she sensed—that the pirates were going to try to surprise them by swooping upward—but Reath was already guiding the airspeeder up and over the spiderweb of construction beams, toward the brilliant sky.
His strength in the Force isn't remarkable, not among the Jedi, she thought as she studied her young human apprentice. The wind blew his dark brown hair into even more of a nest than usual. But Reath works harder than almost any Padawan I've ever known. He tuned in to my thoughts not through his natural gifts but through effort of will—and he did it faster than the naturally gifted ever manage. He'll go farther than many of them . . . perhaps in ways he doesn't yet understand.

Read the rest of the excerpt here.

The new Star Wars: The High Republic novel Into The Dark will be released on February 2, 2021.

Related: The Mandalorian: Giancarlo Esposito Says Star Wars' Peter Cushing Inspired His Moff Gideon

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