Star Wars: Spoiler-Free Book Review – A Test Of Courage by Justina Ireland - The High Republic Era (Phase 1, Wave 1)

This week Mike is doing another spoiler-free book review from the High Republic era; A Test Of Courage by Justina Ireland! Although the book is aimed at “middle-school” readers, this is a book that will appeal to all ages due to the writing, characters and themes throughout.

In more detail, for the first half of the episode, Mike gives a bit of information on the other releases for The High Republic (the first two waves within Phase 1) and then delves into his spoiler-free review; primarily providing information from the blurb and within the first few pages; talking about the book’s themes and what he enjoyed about it.

In the second half, Mike provides more details on the characters within the story and gives examples on how the book’s themes work so well with the story being told, which falls into light-spoiler territory. He gives plenty of warning before delving into his more detailed review, so you can listen to as little or as much info about AToC before picking it up yourself – Mike ends the review with a spoiler-free overview of the first 3 High Republic books and talking about where they fit chronologically with the comics & other High Republic content

A Test Of Courage is from Phase 1, Wave 1 of The High Republic, also in Wave 1 is Light Of The Jedi and Into The Dark. Phase 1, Wave 2 includes The Rising Storm, Out Of The Shadows and Race To Crashpoint Tower.

A Test Of Courage was released January 5th 2021 by Justina Ireland. She has also written the young adult novel Out Of The Shadows; a “sequel” to both Claudia Gray’s Into The Dark and AToC in The High Republic, plus the War Of The Bounty Hunters Jabba one-shot comic and the junior novels Lando’s Luck and Spark Of The Resistance.

Other High Republic content currently available includes; Light Of The Jedi – an “adult” novel by Charles Soule, Into The Dark – a young adult novel by Claudia Gray (who Mike spoke with on SWCIC on December 12th), The High Republic comics by Cavan Scott and High Republic Adventures comics by Daniel José Older, plus Cavan Scott’s sequel novel to Light Of The Jedi, named The Rising Storm is available now along with Out Of The Shadows by Justina Ireland and Race To Crashpoint Tower by Daniel José Older.

In the last episode of SWCIC, Mike takes you through the first Doctor Aphra adventure from the 2020 comic run where Aphra is back to doing what she loves; finding & selling rare artifacts and almost dying in the process! Join everyone’s favourite rogue archaeologist with a whole new cast of characters and crazy situations that brings mystery, great dialogue and lots of connections to other Star Wars content that Mike will take you through, including info about the Kubaz species, the Tagge family, cursed bone cities and more!

Promo is for the Judging Dredd book, edited by Scott Weatherly (of the 20th Century Geek podcast) & it's available now: http://sequart.org/books/14/judging-dredd-examining-the-world-of-judge-dredd/

This was released four days early over on Mike’s Patreon, where he also releases episodes of his “Afterthoughts” show weekly (with 3 episodes now *FREE* to anyone), plus there are unsplit full-length episodes of GCC and more, so if you want to support the show and get more content, check it out at http://patreon.com/genuinechitchat!

Mike guested on the Have Not Seen This podcast, talking about The Way Way Back: https://spoti.fi/3AbPcV4

Mike appeared on Star Wars Timeline’s Timecast, talking about the different SW trilogies, found here: https://youtu.be/W03gonK4rtw

Intro & outro reads by BZ The Voice: http://www.bzthevoice.com/

Intro theme arranged by Mike Burton, backing music by Eric Matyas at www.soundimage.org