Star Wars: Tempest Breaker Review (The High Republic)

Tempest Breaker focuses on the life of Lourna Dee, both past and present, and how her strange story sets up to shape the remaining events of Phase III.

Tempest Breaker is written by Cavan Scott. It is available in audio, physical, and digital formats. However, not all might be available in your region. For this review, I got the audio version.

This is not an illustrated novel so most of the images you’ll see are for illustrative purposes for this article. Most of them are from High Republic media.

The article contains light spoilers from this book and references events from other stories from this era.

Star Wars: The High Republic Reading Order and Full Catalog

Phase I: Timeline Explained Phase II: Timeline Explained

A different way to tell a story

Tempest Breaker has a slightly different way of telling what happens when compared to the other High Republic stories. The story begins with Rhil Dairo, a renowned reporter entering a ship.

Inside the ship, none other than Lourna Dee is waiting for her. The purpose of their reunion is for Rhil to interview Lourna about her recent actions and how much she has changed since serving Marchion Ro as a Tempest Runner.

Lourna Dee leads attack — Lourna Dee leads the Nihil legions on the Valo attack

Most of the time you will be learning from past events in the form of flashbacks, after some time, it comes back to the room where Lourna and Rhil are talking. This is something I didn’t expect but it’s not the same time that a High Republic story does this.

We already had Tempest Runner, the novel that also talks about Lourna Dee’s past experiences. At first, I had my reserves, but it turned out to be quite fun and entertaining. They used a very specific sound to signal the listener when the story would move from past to present, a simple but effective way to prevent us from losing track of everything.

Not what I expected

Phase III of the High Republic multimedia project is arguably the most important one. All the things that have happened since the Path of the Open Hand settled on Dalna are finally coming to an end.

We are still not close to a conclusion but many things are finally getting some long-awaited answers. Important events took place in previous stories like The Eye of Darkness, Defy the Storm, Temptation of the Force, and Tears of the Nameless but nothing significant enough to turn the tide of the war.

Lourna Dee is an important character who has appeared in some of the most relevant events of Phase I but since she is not a Jedi or Marchion Ro I never thought that she would be so essential to the story.

Tempest Breaker is packed with nerve-wracking sequences. We know that no character is completely safe in High Republic books so it was really fun to have so many instances where an important character could die.

As the cover suggests, the three main protagonists of this story are Lourna Dee, Keeve Trennis, and Avar Kriss. Keeve Trennis has grown a lot in one year, from being knighted to becoming a Jedi Master in such a short period of time.

It’s not unusual for the Republic to speed up the process when there’s something like a war but to Keeve’s credit, she has matured incredibly fast. I really like that she always sticks to what she feels is right, even if that comes with having to confront someone as Avar Kriss, one of the most renowned members of the Order and the same Jedi who knighted her.

There’s another big character who is not only returning but also involved in the main plot of the story. This individual is one of the most unique characters in the High Republic and seeing how this uniqueness was incorporated into the plot made everything a lot more interesting.

Said character had a good amount of involvement before the destruction of the Starlight Beacon and was presumed dead for quite some time but thankfully that was not the case.

The Nihil are slowly falling apart

When Marchion Ro and his Nihil marauders began their raids on different systems, they were a formidable opponent. The Republic lost many battles to them and their odd approach to battle.

Stellan Gios leads the defense against the Nihil — Stellan Gios defends the people of Valo from the Nihil

Chemical weapons, strange hyperspace technology, and force-eating monsters who could render any Jedi completely useless would make the Nihil one of the most terrifying enemies the Republic and Jedi Order have ever faced.

Despite how dangerous they are, their structure is extremely fragile. Marchion Ro is the Eye of the Nihil, the indisputable leader, with three Tempest Runners who served as his lieutenants.

An artisting portrail of Marchion Ro with a gun in his left hand and his helmet in the right hand — Marchion Ro Source: Eye of the Storm #2 Cover (Marvel)

One thing that was made clear very early is the fact that neither Marchion Ro, the Tempest Runners or even the low-ranked soldiers had any type of loyalty towards each other. Everyone was in just for personal benefit.

Most of his subordinates felt more fear than respect for the so-called Eye of the Nihil and combined with the fact that they lacked loyalty, it’s easy to understand why tensions grew up fairly quickly between them.

Throughout the development of Phase I and III, Marchion Ro has lost many of his subordinates. They either died in battle, abandoned the Nihil, or betrayed Marchion in some way.

Star Wars High Republic Marchion Ro, The Eye of The Nihil — Marchion Ro rallies his Nihil followers

Tempest Breaker covers more of this, particularly with one very important character. I never expected it to happen, this person is probably the most valuable ally of Marchion Ro. Revealing more would spoil the identity of this character and I really don’t want to do that because it’s one of the best plot twists of the entire Phase III.

Lourna Dee has evolved incredibly. While she still has that defiant attitude, her motivations have changed drastically. It’s almost hard to recognize her as the same Tempest Runner who led legions of Nihil.

Lourna Dee with her Tempest Runner distinctive mask

I think that the closest example of her change in behavior would be Marda Ro from Phase I. By no means am I complaining, it’s very refreshing to see a non-Jedi be part of the story in such a significant way.

With how things ended, it’s unclear if Lourna Dee will appear in any of the remaining stories of Phase III but I’d really like to see her take a side in the final confrontation between the Jedi and what remains of Marchion Ro’s forces.

An audio drama, not audiobook

I really believe that this is one of the few High Republic novels that almost everyone should hear on audio version if possible. It is an audio drama, meaning that it’s narrated by an entire cast.

Every character has a different voice made by a different person, unlike standard audiobooks which have a single narrator voice everyone. As you might imagine, immersion is at the next level. All you have to do is close your eyes and let your imagination run.

I often get distracted when a male narrator does a female voice or vice versa, trying to picture a character with a voice that does not fit always puts me off.

Music is constantly playing, and the number of pieces used is considerable compared to audiobooks that just reuse the same ones over and over. Not that it’s horrible, but sometimes it can get a little repetitive. So having more music that matched the moment made everything a lot more fun.

These types of productions should be promoted more, it’s probably so expensive to make them and I feel like they are not given enough attention. High Republic Audio Dramas but it’s still nice when we get spoiled with them.

Final thoughts

To be honest, my expectations weren’t too high and I was extremely surprised. As I’ve stated multiple times, High Republic stories have the tendency of being too slow during the first half. It has a purpose, there are many characters and plots, and it’s not easy to digest everything but that doesn’t make it less tedious.

Many characters take the spotlight throughout the story. It was so fresh to see a few of them become part of their main plot. It’s not that they weren’t important before, but their role in this story will affect the entire outcome of the war.

It’s surprising how many times when it seemed that things couldn’t get worse, they did. This is a common occurrence during the High Republic. Phase I was full of tragedy and death, I didn’t expect things to continue going downhill in Phase III.

The High Republic Occlusion Zone — The Occlusion Zone isolates thousands of systems from the Republic to establish Nihil space

Not everything is negative, but even when the Jedi and the Republic manage to overcome a big challenge, two more appear almost immediately. Marchion Ro has become one of the most complex and compelling villains in all of Star Wars.

For the majority of the time, he has been a mystery that not even his own allies presume to understand. But after many hours worth of comics and books he is finally starting to show his true self. His stoic and calm image is slowly fading as his plans get frustrated time after time.

This will turn him into an even more dangerous individual. I have no doubt that he still has some tricks under his sleeve, it’s going to be fun and terrifying to see what he has prepared for the last part of Phase III.

This entire review as well as the summary in the review card below are all based on our own opinions as fans of the franchise. We would love it if you shared your thoughts.

Full Title:

tempest breaker