Book Review: Path of Vengeance
Where to even begin with this one? Words hardly seem to do it justice. Cavan Scott’s Path of Vengeance wraps up loose ends and invites readers to jump back forward in time for Phase III, but beyond that tells a brilliant self-contained narrative with plenty of twists and turns that will keep readers breathlessly hooked until the end.
Path of Vengeance picks back up with Marda and Yana Ro, who haven’t taken center stage since the beginning of the Phase, but have always lingered at the background of the story. Following the Battle of Jedha, the two cousins are disillusioned: Marda with the wider world of Force users, and Yana with the Path of the Open Hand. As a result, Marda falls deeper into her beliefs and fanaticism while Yana tries to pull herself out, putting the cousins at odds.
Meanwhile, padawan Matthea “Matty” Cathley is sent with Jedi Knight Oliviah Zevaron to Dalna to investigate the Path and their dealings. Inconvenient timing given that the Mother — who Oliviah is especially interested in — has decided to send a team to the mysterious Planet X to bring back more of the Nameless, the creatures that have been turning the Jedi to stone.
To distill this book to a handful of paragraphs is to do it a huge disservice. It is absolutely jam-packed with plot, with not a single page wasted. Marda, Yana and Matty are taken on such a journey in Path of Vengeance, the kind that pays off who we’ve known them to be all along (read: a satisfying character arc), while also laying the groundwork for the state of the galaxy a century and a half from now.
Path of Vengeance is made all the richer by its focus on interpersonal relationships, and more specifically on love: familial love, romantic love, the love shared between a mentor and mentee. All valid, all different in their own way, but united in the idea that how we feel for another person can so unintentionally inform something about ourselves. The story wouldn’t have had half of its punch if these elements had been absent, if we hadn’t been sold each of these relationships as important. That seems like an obvious statement, but is not always a given in adventure stories of this kind. It’s something The High Republic has done fairly consistently since its inception, but it shines particularly brightly here.
The story thread of the Path of the Open Hand as fervent believers at best, zealots at worst (and everything in between) is also explored, to wonderful effect. It would be so easy to brush them off as a cult and have the audience follow along, but the why’s and how’s of getting people to go along with an ideology, an why a person might form that ideology at all is far more interesting. It also has the effect of putting the Jedi’s beliefs in both the High Republic era at large and the Prequel era into a starker contrast, showing how even the best-intentioned of groups can start to imitate an ideology the once opposed.
As quickly as Phase II of the High Republic began, so it has come to an end (at least as far as the books are concerned). And much like Phase I, this final book of the phase is a worthy send-off.
Path of Vengeance is out now. Special thank you to Disney Books for the advance copy for review purposes.