New Star Wars Novel ‘Star Wars: The Living Force’ Will Explore The Jedi Council Prior To The Phantom Menace

Star Wars is a major IP and with the Ahsoka show premiering now on Disney+, fans are wanting more. Star Wars has been in movies, TV shows, video games, comics, and even books. Whether you’re reading one of the Star Wars novels or enjoying the audiobook versions, the written versions of the Star Wars universe expands on what fans think they know of the galaxy far, far away.

For all book readers out there, it’s just been announced that a new Star Wars novel will be releasing in 2024. Star Wars: The Living Force will be published by Random House Worlds and is written by John Jackson Miller. Miller returns to long-form Star Wars fiction after writing A New Dawn in 2013. (Side note: if you’re enjoying the Ahsoka show, I highly recommend A New Dawn, which takes place before the underrated show Rebels).

Star Wars: The Living Force is a pre-Clone Wars era novel that will take place one year prior to The Phantom Menace. While the prequel movies got a bad rap when they were first released, they’ve been appreciated by fans in recent years. With millennials having grown up on the prequel trilogy and the Clone Wars cartoon, there’s a lot of love for this era in the Skywalker saga. And if you’re a fan of this time in the Star Wars continuity, you know that there was a lot that the Jedi Council could have done differently. The Living Force will focus on a member of the Jedi Council to attempt to get the others to see the error of their ways.

Miller spoke to the outlet io9 and had this to say:

“Many of my Star Wars works have explored what it meant to be a Jedi alone, cut off from the Jedi Order. The organization came in for criticism in those books, and I found myself sympathizing with Qui-Gon Jinn, who felt they’d lost touch. So when [Random House Worlds] editor Tom Hoeler invited me to develop a story for the Jedi Council in their last year before The Phantom Menace, I knew exactly what I wanted to do.”

The Living Force will see Qui-Qon Jinn and his padawan Obi-Wan as the Jedi who implore the Council to see things differently. There are many videos made about this subject, but Qui-Gon was quite a different Jedi from the likes of Mace Windu, Yoda, and others. We just didn’t get to see much of that in the movies, but it’s there in comics and books. So, it’ll be interesting to see Qui-Qon’s attempts and ultimately knowing that they did little to change the Council.

Here is the full synopsis of the novel, provided by io9:

In the year before The Phantom Menace, Yoda, Mace Windu, and the entire Jedi Council confront a galaxy on the brink of change.

The Jedi have always traveled the stars, defending peace and justice across the galaxy. But, the galaxy is changing, and along with it, the Jedi Order. More and more, the Order finds itself focused on the future of the Republic, secluded on Coruscant, where the twelve members of the Jedi Council weigh crises on a galactic scale.

As yet another Jedi Outpost leftover from the Republic’s golden age is set to be decommissioned on the planet Kwenn, Qui-Gon Jinn challenges the Council about the increasing isolation of the Order. Mace Windu suggests a bold response: all twelve Jedi Masters will embark on a goodwill mission to help the planet, and remind the people of the galaxy that the Jedi remain as stalwart and present as they have been across the ages.

But the arrival of the Jedi leadership is not seen by all as a cause for celebration. Warring pirate factions have infested the sector in the increasing absence of the Jedi. To maintain their dominance, the pirates unite, intent on assassinating the Council. And they are willing to destroy countless innocent lives to secure their power.

Cut off from Coruscant, the Jedi Masters must reckon with an unwelcome truth: that while no one thinks more about the future than the Jedi Council, nobody needs their help more than those living in the present.

Star Wars: The Living Force is available for pre-order now and releases April 9, 2024.

Source: io9