Hogan Reviews

So these two audiobooks appeared as free Audible downloads over the past few months, and while I don’t normally bother with the really young aimed material the fact they didn’t cost anything, were written by High Republic classic George Mann and the knowledge that they deal with the Drengir plot thread while the rest of the Phase III High Republic stories are obviously focused on other things I decided to give them a go. How was it? Well… it was certainly squarely aimed at the younger audience, I’ll say that much, but there was some fun to be found, especially in the second story. Let’s take a deeper look!

The stories are set on Eiram, which just can’t catch a break at the moment because a year after Starlight Beacon fell into its oceans causing all sorts of collateral damage they’ve started suffering from randomly disappearing people and the two Jedi stationed on the planet, Mon Calamari Jedi Master Ackmora and his Padawan Chalara Matanga, have now gone missing as well. It’s here we’re introduced to the main cast of the two stories: Jedi Master Eve Byer, who we last saw in “Tears of the Nameless” where her Padawan got turned to stone and she was then left tortured on a ship full of Nameless for weeks on end before finally being saved, her new Padawan Cam Lindon, who speaks through a special vocal machine thingy due to an accident when he was young, and two younglings called Tep Tep and Kildo, who apparently have appeared in some of the other children’s books in the series. It was interesting to see (or hear, I guess) Eve acting so normal after what she went through, but I guess that just shows how good of a Jedi she is, able to suppress the dark thoughts and whatnot, although she was supposed to only be on a science mission and is clearly not happy with taking her new Padawan into a potentially dangerous scenario, so there is some development at least.

The cover of the first story, with (from left to right) Tep Tep, Cam and Kildo.

The quartet head to Eiram and begin to search for the other Jedi, eventually meeting a local group of youths who were once part of a Nihil “Storm” but have been left behind on the planet, and then confirming the presence of the Drengir, who are the ones behind the kidnappings, and when Cam runs after the Nihil leader Grenda he comes back and is unable to find Eve. This leads to Cam, Tep Tep, Kildo and eventually Grenda and her “Hurricanes” to find the Drengir base, where they’re seen building something with a bunch of the missing people, including the three missing Jedi, being mentally controlled to build it. While everyone else rescues a bunch of people strung up in a nearby larder (okay, that was a good bit of horror at least) Cam tries to bring Eve back round but it seems the Drengir made her their central hub, or “Queen”, to control all the other slaves and he is unable to bring her round. Everyone escapes back to the city but the Drengir soon follow, and despite anti-Jedi resentment being strong amongst the people of Eiram Cam manages to make a speech that rallies everyone and allows them to fight back, and during the skirmish Cam gets through to Eve, who manages to command the Drengir to return to the ocean and leave the people alone before breaking free. Tep Tep and Kildo managed to free Ackmora and Matanga while this was going on, so they got to do something as well!

The rather dramatic and very well realised cover for the second story!

So the first story wraps up nicely, with the obvious threat of the Drengir still being in the nearby ocean, although boy Eve Byre really can’t catch a break, huh? “Haunted Starlight” has all five Jedi now working with the people of Eiram but soon Drengir pods begin appearing and a member of the Hurricanes called Saxl gets infected by one that washed up on the beach (which creepily laughed as it did it) so eventually Eve, Cam, Tep Tep and Kildo all decide to head under the ocean to the remains of Starlight Beacon to check if the Great Progenitor, the leader of the Drengir who was originally kept in stasis on the station, was still alive or not. Why they didn’t take the Mon Calamari Jedi Master, you know the one who grew up on a water world and can breathe underwater I don’t know, beyond “he isn’t one of the main characters” I guess. They enter the wreckage with a shady businessman who unsurprisingly leaves them behind when they not only encounter the Drengir but the Great Progenitor itself, who breaks from her containment cell and nearly eats Cam whole in a really well written bit of prose. They eventually escape thanks to a lucky ship find and Tep Tep’s ability to communicate with animals and return to the surface, but the Drengir have already beaten them to the city and have encased it in vines…

As I said they’re fun little stories (well, I say little, each is about four hours long…) and given the target audience I can’t be too harsh on recycled plots like “the adults get captured so its up to the kids to save them” that made up the bulk of “Seeds of Starlight”. I’ll give them credit for keeping the Drengir creepy still though, shouting “Meat!” and devouring people. My only issue really is given these are audiobooks rather than audio dramas the narrator, Todd Haberkorn, struggles with the kids voices, especially Tep Tep as she’s supposed to be a small girl but you just hear a man speaking in a high pitched girly voice. Not the end of the world as you eventually get used to it, but worth mentioning.

Overall Thoughts:

The clean cover for Part 1, which shows there are Drengir vines on the side, which I didn’t notice before. Everyone seems to be quite happy about it though!

Both “Seeds of Starlight” and “Haunted Starlight” are perfectly fine mini-stories that are firmly aimed at the younger side of the audience. The single narrator having to do kids voices does hurt the story somewhat, and in general if you are older there will be long stretches where you know exactly what’s going to happen, but I can’t criticise it for that given again I’m far (far…) from its target audience. They were fine (and free, which helps a lot, obviously!) and moved the Drengir plot forward and all that, but I doubt I’ll listen to them again…

Eve, Cam, Tep Tep and Kildo manage to slash their way into the city and eventually meet up with the Great Progenitor, where in order to try and reason with it Eve allows it to access her mind so they can share memories. The Progenitor shows that the thing they were building in the first story was a spaceship and the current plan with all the vines is to turn the city into a giant seed pod to fire into space, all because the Drengir can sense The Blight that’s taking over the galaxy and are understandably scared of it. Eve also finds out about Saxl, who at this point has managed to retain his sense of self and even recruited some newly hatched Drengir to follow him instead of the Progenitor, which then leads to a Drengir-on-Drengir battle, with the Jedi caught in the middle.

And again, the clean cover for Part 2. There’s only so much I can use for Audible original audiobooks!

Cam manages to stop the Progenitor from killing Saxl and then Tep Tep negotiates a truce, with Eve suggesting she and the rest of the Drengir take their ship and they can go to a planet without sentience in the outer reaches of the galaxy to hide and live in peace. The Progenitor agrees and soon it and its kin are blasted off, Saxl recovers and rejoins the Hurricanes (he captured Grenda during all this for the record, but that didn’t really go anywhere) while Eve, Cam, Tep Tep and Kildo decide to head back to Coruscant, leaving Eiram back in the hands of Ackmora. Then in a post-credits scene we see the Great Progenitor used a tiny vine to control the mind of the pilot and force him to set the ship to head not to the edge of the galaxy but to the Wookie home world of Kashyyyk! So I guess the Drengir plot isn’t over, which is pretty much the only reason I listened to these in the first place… Oh well, at least I know how the Progenitor got off of Eiram, I guess!