Meet Claudia Gray, Author of ‘Star Wars: The High Republic: Into the Dark’

Lucasfilm has officially launched their latest publishing campaign, Star Wars: The High Republic. The new era of storytelling features new characters living in the golden age of the Republic and the Jedi. The first two books of the campaign, Star Wars: The High Republic: The Light of the Jedi by Charles Soule and Star Wars: The High Republic: A Test of Confidence by Justina Ireland, now available.

On February 2nd readers can dive into the third installment in the follow-up story by Star Wars: The High Republic: Into the darkness by Claudia Gray. I recently got to sit down (over Zoom) with Gray to talk about Into the Dark and what it was like to work on this project over the last few years.

Note: This interview has been edited for clarity and timing, and contains small plot points for Star Wars: The Upper Republic: Into the Darkness.

Megan duBois: Claudia, I read the book and it ‘s amazing and I can’t wait for another one Star Wars fans to read. Can you tell me what the book is about in your own words?

Claudia Gray: I would say that a very satisfied young Padawan is serving in the temple and looking forward to perhaps being a Jedi librarian at some point going up to an adventure at least. with it or not. On the way out to Starlight Beacon he and some other Jedi are trapped in this catastrophic crash. They end up marooned at what should be a perfect place to hide away from danger but there seem to be dangers in itself.

duBois: I really appreciated the whole Jedi librarian side of the story. We only saw one more time in Star Wars oral tradition in the Clone Wars with a librarian called Ahsoka Tano getting to know and talking. How did that idea come about for the book?

Gray: It honestly came out of the idea that you are a Jedi. You have been chosen as a child and your personality is not completely clear. There must be some people who don’t want to be out there with their luminaire. I thought it made sense to have someone who had a very different nature but that doesn’t mean he can’t contribute to the Order or can’t get up to the time when asked.

duBois: You’re referring to some characters that fans are already familiar with, including Yoda who appears In the dark and a few of the others High republic novels. What is it like to let a character that has been loved by fans for years and years take a small look at your book?

Gray: It’s always fun to go, “Remember Yoda? It is still there. “We were joking as we wrote this that a mapped person had this t-shirt. Star Wars characters who had really bad high school year book illustrations. And there’s one with Yoda in a combover jumper and we said, “That’s the Yoda from our time.” Don’t worry he doesn’t have a jumper or a combover. But that relationship is between times and Yoda, as well as being real itself, just serves as that connection.

duBois: Something announced at Disney Investor Day was a series based on The High Republic. Which of the characters from your book would you like to see in a series like that?

Gray: Honestly, and this is a pretty Jedi story, but my pick is the non-Jedi, Leox, Geode, and Affie Ship crew. I really wanted to have a fake pilot and a sidekick and not Han Solo and Chewbacca. I felt like we were there with them. I love how Leox accepts the world, it just makes me happy.

duBois: It was really funny to read his interactions with the Jedi. It felt very hippy 70s to me. That’s how I heard it in my head reading anyway. And I was delighted that Affie is the unsung hero of this.

Gray: Very much so.

duBois: Geode. I really wrote it as a pet rock with nothing to do but sit there.

Gray: I have to be completely honest here, Geode was not my opinion. It was my boyfriend’s idea. The moment he said, “It could be a rock,” I knew it was that. He was just incredibly proud of this and I think he should be.

duBois: You explore the idea that a Jedi can only have one master through the death of a master of your main character Reath. How did that idea come about and what does it look like when Padawan needs a new master?

Gray: It was not so much that you should have only one but it is just in a time when there has been so much peace in the Republic and such wealth and there have been no galactic scale wars in the past. people might get used to them from the movies that you wouldn’t run into that too much. A Jedi does not usually fall in the line of duty. This is a very rare occurrence. It means more revealing the time of safety and security from which the Jedi and the Republic are out and Reath does not know what will happen and no one knows that this happened either. It is a very rare tragedy.

duBois: The Nihil (pronounced Nile, like the river) is a new bad guy, but not all of a Sith type character. How would you explain that to someone reading the book and trying to figure out who they are?

Gray: Who the Nihil might be depending on Nihil you ask. There are several organizations within the Nihil and they all share a commitment and loyalty to The Eye of the Storm. Different areas of the Nihil work in slightly different ways but they are not all unified as one.

duBois: One other new creature that I thought was really interesting is where the scary tree people, the Drengir. It was something I was not expecting Star Wars. He is not a creature that has even been seen or thought of before. I saw them more as an evil Groot from Marvel Cinematic Universe. Was that the idea you were looking for, or were you looking for something less intimidating?

Gray: I thought they were that scary and more humanoid Groot. They have vine bites and my first impression with plants is that it’s not scary. If you look at everything that could poison and cut you, the number of carnivorous plants, including the Drengir, you will realize that there is no living creature that can not be offended. They are different and because they are so different old Jedi tactics do not work. They can cut off a tent but it will be again. They are even more exotic than we have seen before Star Wars hemisphere.

duBois: What can fans expect from you next?

Gray: I’m not allowed to say what I’m working on next, but I’m working on something.

Star Wars: The Upper Republic: Into the Darkness available starting February 2, 2021.