Star Wars The High Republic Character Encyclopedia

by Amy Richau, Megan Crouse

Want to dive into The High Republic era of the Star Wars galaxy, but don't know where to start? Look no further!

Centuries before the fall of Anakin Skywalker and rise of the Galactic Empire, the noble and wise Jedi Knights must face frightening new threats to themselves, the galaxy, and the Force itself! Meet the brave Jedi, ruthless Nihil marauders, cutthroat mercenaries, and evil monsters who call this era of the galaxy home.

Featuring more than 250 characters from The High Republic publishing initiative, this character encyclopedia is a perfect introduction to an exciting new era of Star Wars storytelling.

(c) AND (TM) 2023 LUCASFILM LTD.

Genres: Star Wars, Science Fiction, Fiction

200 pages, Hardcover

First published November 9, 2023

Reviews

[Neil R. Coulter · Rating 2 out of 5]

Reading the High Republic era of Star Wars can be challenging, since only a few characters have appeared in other formats before. Because of that, and because the series introduces hundreds of new characters who often seem entirely interchangeable, it's tough to picture all of them and remember who's who. I hoped that this character encyclopedia would help. It sort of did, a little bit. But what I most needed from it—illustrations of every character—it doesn't provide. A lot of the entries are text only, which doesn't help me.

The entries are arranged by affiliation—sections on Jedi, "bad guys," "normal citizens," and so forth. This means eras of the story are mixed up, and characters who seem like they belong together because of story moments are instead in different parts of the book. I think it would have been simpler to arrange everyone alphabetically by name.

The writing is an odd mix of all-spoilers and keeping-secrets. Sometimes an entry tells everything about a character, including the details of their death. Other times, the writing seems to step around important plot points to avoid spoilers. So it's not a book that's good to browse before reading the first two phases of the High Republic, but why should you have to wait until you've read everything before looking at this book, when the whole point of this book is to help you keep all the characters straight as you read? Maybe there's no perfect way to make a book like this.

Each entry includes two details that I found distracting and unhelpful. One is the first appearance of that character—which would be great, except instead of writing out the full title of the book, they abbreviate it with initials. Without a photographic memory for all the titles (particularly difficult for the Adventures comic books, whose individual titles are not front-and-center), you have to flip back to the key for the titles. Why make this so hard?

The other comically unhelpful detail is each character's pronouns. Out of nearly 300 characters in the book, only five are "they/them," which is the only identity that could potentially be confusing in the written profile. Otherwise, the writing already clarifies the gender of each character, so why include that in every single heading?

All I really need from a High Republic guide is a collection of images of every character. Just show me how I'm meant to picture these random characters. This encyclopedia isn't exactly what I needed, and it contributes to my general feeling that the High Republic creators want this era of stories to be as confusing and difficult as possible.

[ashlabooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Die Hohe Republik - Lexikon der Jedi, ihrer Verbündeten und Widersacher

Mal abgesehen von dem komplizierten Namen gefällt dieses Buch mir ausgesprochen gut und ist ein Must-Have für alle „Die Hohe Republik“-Fans und solche, die es noch werden wollen!

Der Inhalt:

Wie der Titel erahnen lässt, finden sich alle bis dato von dem kreativen Team hinter der „Hohen Republik“ ins Spiel gebrachte Figuren in diesem Buch. Egal ob sie nun Protagonisten oder kleinere Randerscheinungen sind, in diesem Lexikon erfährt man alles Wichtige über sie. Dazu liefert das Buch ein paar Kurzfakten, Bilder (insofern verfügbar für die jeweilige Figur) und Zitate. Aber Achtung! Es werden auch Werke behandelt, die bisher noch nicht auf Deutsch erschienen sind 🤫

Meine Meinung:

Ich hatte sehr viel Spaß mit dem vorliegenden Lexikon, da hier wirklich alles geliefert wird. So mancher Charakter, der bereits etwas bei mir in Vergessenheit geraten war, taucht im Buch auf und so durfte ich doch immer mal wieder einen Aha-Moment erleben (erinnert hier euch noch an den Gungan-Professor für Hyperraum Dr. Wolk? Nein? Jetzt schon! Und ihr könnt ihn in dieser Enzyklopädie finden! 😳😜). Besonders gelungen ist aus meiner Sicht die übersichtliche Gestaltung. So findet man leicht auch heraus, in welchem Werk welche Figur das erste Mal auftrat! Perfekt für eine Recherche! Danke auch an Krystina Arielle für das hervorragende Vorwort 😇

Fazit:

Wer „Die Hohe Republik“ detailliert verstehen will, der ist hier richtig!

Werbung: Vielen lieben Dank an DK für die Bereitstellung des Rezensionexemplares!

[Grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was really good, very informative. It'll be helpful when I'm reading the other High Republic books.

[Mike S · Rating 3 out of 5]

The High Republic Character Encyclopedia serves a couple of different functions. First, it is a catalog of the various characters who have appeared in the High Republic novels and comic books. The characters are categorized by what group they are affiliated with (e.g., Jedi, Nihil, Path of the Open Hand, etc.). Each character has a write-up that gives information such as their species, what book or comic they first appeared in, and major events they participated in. The more central characters get longer write-ups (about a page and a half or two) and the minor characters get about a paragraph. There are pictures of some of the characters and others are just listed by their name. While the book covers most of the characters, not every character that has appeared in the books has an entry. The second function of the book is to summarize the first and second phases of The High Republic era and chronicle the major events that have led up to the forthcoming third phase.

The hardcover version of the book is 200 pages long, but because the book has a lot of illustrations, the actual text is much shorter. Therefore, the book can be read very fast and easily finished in a day or two. This is not likely going to be a book that casual Star Wars fans will get into because most of the characters have not appeared in the movies or the various TV series. I would not call this one of the must-read books but for anyone who has read some or all of the High Republic-era books, it is worth reading once.

[Darth Jader · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a very good character encyclopedia that gives a decent background for all major and minor characters in the new High Republic series. I wish that there was more art depicting some characters. It seems they just focused on producing great art for mostly major characters and didn't do any art for many minor characters. Also, some descriptions of characters were very short and I wish more info was given. Within these descriptions, there were some spoilers on how some characters died which I wish was left out as this makes this not a really good introductory book for new readers (like myself) due to these sometimes major spoilers. I should've known that there was potential for spoilers as they state in the introduction that this book is meant to be read after finishing the second part of the series before starting the third. Finally, I really don't care what the pronouns of each character are as I am more interested in who they are, what causes they support, and if they are good, bad, or somewhere in between. This is a detail that could've been left out, however woke Disney can't help themselves.

[Sydney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Handy reference guide for readers of the High Republic covering characters (and some spoilers) for Phases I and II. I've referred to it many times while working my way through Phase III. I hope an expanded/complete version will come out in the future now that this main story of this initiative is coming to an end.

I do wish this had more character art though. I understand not having art for every minor character in these books but the fact that major POV characters like Xiri and Phan-tu didn't have any art was a bit disappointing. I also would have liked it if it had listed out all pieces of media in which the characters appear rather than just their first appearance.

[Jason Powell · Rating 4 out of 5]

So great to have a program to tell all the players apart. Beautiful art, excellent information and organization. I'll be referring back to this often to help me remember who's who. So funny reading through it and thinking "oh that's my favorite" and then turning the page saying "oh wait, that's my favorite".

[Martycoffey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very nice to have a resource like this for the High Republic. Encyclopedias like this are part of why I got so heavily into Star Wars in the first place. My main complaint would be I wish it had a more thorough listing of all of each character's appearances, not just their first...

[Topher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved seeing the illustrations of characters I haven’t seen outside of text. This was a good summation of characters to get me ready for the final phase of the High Republic. But… it says Honesty isn’t in Phase 3 and I’m going to fight them if that’s true

[Charlie Moe · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a nice refresher for phase one and two. I think it'll be REALLY helpful when reading phase three books. But like, reading on its own was difficult. It's an encyclopedia. I'm not surprised. But I'm glad I got it! I'm sure it's going to be VERY useful!

[Jay Gabler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Invaluable for High Republic readers.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

should have had more character art

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was great but not as detailed as other High Republic reference books. I still really enjoyed this.

[Amber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great for reminding yourself of the huge cast of characters in the Hugh Republic. There are some weird notable exceptions that appear to have been forgotten, like Cair San Tekka.

[Jon Mahaffey · Rating 3 out of 5]

How do you rate a character reference book that isn’t really meant to be read cover to cover like a standard novel?

[Matt · Rating 1 out of 5]

The High Republic has over 50 individual works within its grasp. Yet you abbreviate the character's first appearances to save on a bit of ink? Disgraceful.

[Rodney · Rating 5 out of 5]

There’s so many characters in The High Republic. This book is great as a quick reference while your reading the novels.

[Declan O'Keeffe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this book!!!

I'm a massive High Republic fan and have followed it since its announcement. I loved this book just for helping me get some characters straight in my head and learn more about them.

Word of warning though, this book came out a week before The Eye of Darkness (phase 3 Novel 1) if you want to read that spoiler free read it first. I didn't know to do that until it was too late and now know a thing or two I wish I didn't.

[Elise · Rating 2 out of 5]

4/10. Warning ⚠️: URGH! I'm so annoyed that I keep looking at this one and getting spoiled! I just want to see what some characters look like, and then it says right in the description "this character was killed by X in book Y". 😒 If it weren't for the massive spoilers right from the start, it'd be a good reference.