Star Wars: The High Republic's debut novel Light of the Jedi will tell a story that crosses multiple genres, according to its author Charles Soule.
"My personal mandate for Light of the Jedi was to explore genre[s] in a way we hadn’t directly seen in the franchise — to bring the concepts of Star Wars to places that would feel fresh and cool," Soule told THR during an interview. "It's a disaster movie; it's a mystery; it's a race-against-time-team-on-a-mission story."
Soule is no stranger to the Star Wars universe, having penned the second volume of the Darth Vader comic and The Rise of Kylo Ren miniseries for Marvel. He is currently the writer for the main Star Wars comic. Comparatively, Soule said the scope of the world in The High Republic far exceeds that of his previous Star Wars projects. Soul said, "The closest analogy I can think of is working on the big multi-title crossover comic stories I've [created] at Marvel and DC, but this is bigger by...[a] magnitude."
Star Wars: The High Republic is set 200 years before the events of the Prequel Trilogy, featuring the Jedi Order in their prime. The publishing initiative will span several novels, as well as interweave into the existing comic series from Marvel and IDW Publishing. Star Wars: Light of the Jedi will release on Jan. 5, 2021.