Review: The Jedi Council takes center stage in emotional, hilarious, character-driven 'The Living Force'
"The Living Force" is a quintessential Star Wars read and is full of pure, comforting, prequel-era goodness.
What happens when Qui-Gon Jinn bullies the Jedi Council to leave their tall temple and help one person? An all-Council field trip to a planet with a High Republic-era Jedi outpost up for decommissioning.
Otherwise known as The Living Force by John Jackson Miller, the author’s first Star Wars novel in 10 years.
This road trip to the planet Kwenn is an attempt to get the Councilers back to their roots as Jedi — helping individual people and representing peace and light to the larger galaxy. It’s an act of goodwill, and for many of the Masters, a nostalgic vacation of sorts.
What Miller does with the Councilors — all 12 of them — is an impressive feat. Each of them gets POV chapters as they navigate smaller missions around the Gem Cities of Kwenn. It’s through these more intimate missions that the Jedi gain some self-awareness about how much the Order’s priorities have shifted over the centuries.
This is one year before The Phantom Menace — the calm before the stormy last years of the Republic and the Jedi Order. This Jedi Order — and especially the Council — is increasingly isolated from the larger galaxy as it focuses on the cosmic Force and the needs of the Republic Senate.
Gone are the days of thousands of Jedi spread throughout the galaxy at outposts and temples seen during The High Republic era — frequently referenced in The Living Force.
Through this trip to visit one such outpost before it’s decommissioned, the Jedi Council is confronted with how much they’ve changed since their Golden Age and how the galaxy’s people feel about them. Spoiler: It’s not great.
It’s when the Councilors face indifference, scorn, and even hostility from the people living and struggling in this part of the galaxy that they begin to question what it means to be a Jedi. And the answer is different for every single Jedi Council member.
As the era of The High Republic came to a close, being a Jedi became about working ever closer with the Republic Senate to serve the entire planetary systems and the greater good of the galaxy. For many Jedi, that also meant protecting peace as a defense group against villainy and continuing to study the histories and ways of the Force.
But the challenge posited by Qui-Gon isn’t about acting like a Jedi through one’s missions and studies, but about individual people — part of the living Force. To truly serve the Force and be a true Jedi, he says, is to help people — even just one person.
What follows that challenge is a wild trip to Kwenn, where some Councilors are paired together on seemingly innocuous missions to help people — many of them in small ways but with big impact. These pairings and the individual POVs were an excellent way to highlight the differing viewpoints and similarities amongst the Jedi Council as well as perspectives of more obscure Jedi from the prequel era.
With an ensemble cast of 12 Jedi (plus a chaotic villain and Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan), The Living Force is a beast of a character-driven book. But this is Miller’s forte – introspective, poignant character work. The action and battle sequences are pretty good, too, but it’s with the individual characters we get the heart of the story.
The Living Force is just as full of quiet, emotional moments as it is of epic action sequences and Jedi badassery. It’s also one of the funniest Star Wars books out there — a bold statement about a story starring several centuries-old Jedi Masters who embody the term crotchety.
This book elicited the full range of emotions — laughing, giggling, kicking my feet, tearing up, and quite a bit of side-eyeing. Looking at you, Yarael Poof.
The Living Force is a quintessential Star Wars read full of pure, comforting, prequel-era goodness.
Ripe for even more stories during this transitional period, the book also has wide appeal to all types of Star Wars fans. I wouldn’t be surprised if The Living Force becomes many people’s first Star Wars book — I will certainly begin recommending it to new readers.
The Living Force by John Jackson Miller is available now from Random House Worlds.
Nice review! I mean, I was already sold solely on the book's description, being in the prequel era, the Jedi Counsel, and the cover art, but you absolutely cemented it as a something I'll be aiming to get to much sooner