Review: Catalyst (Star Wars) by James Luceno by James Luceno
Blurb:
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Lauded Star Wars author James Luceno returns to pen an intense tale of ambition and betrayal that sets the stage for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
War is tearing the galaxy apart. For years the Republic and the Separatists have battled across the stars, each building more and more deadly technology in an attempt to win the war. As a member of Chancellor Palpatine’s top-secret Death Star project, Orson Krennic is determined to develop a superweapon before the Republic’s enemies can. And an old friend of Krennic’s, the brilliant scientist Galen Erso, could be the key.
Galen’s energy-focused research has captured the attention of both Krennic and his foes, making the scientist a crucial pawn in the galactic conflict. But after Krennic rescues Galen; his wife, Lyra; and their young daughter, Jyn, from Separatist kidnappers, the Erso family is deeply in Krennic’s debt. Krennic then offers Galen an extraordinary opportunity: to continue his scientific studies with every resource put utterly at his disposal. While Galen and Lyra believe that his energy research will be used purely in altruistic ways, Krennic has other plans that will finally make the Death Star a reality. Trapped in their benefactor’s tightening grasp, the Ersos must untangle Krennic’s web of deception to save themselves—and the entire galaxy.
Review:
Coming off of the series finale of Andor and a subsequent rewatch of Rogue One, I decided it was finally time to pull Catalyst off of my shelf after having let it sit there unread for almost a decade. In the days after the Andor finale aired I’d seen other folks across the web pitch Catalyst as something that would scratch the itch left by the prospect of no new Andor episodes, so back into the world of Star Wars literature I went.
Catalyst is split across four POVs, those of engineer Orson Krennic, scientist Galen Erso, Galen’s wife Lyra, and a smuggler named Has Obitt. Knowing where the story would end up (and not really knowing anything about Catalyst except that Orson and Galen—introduced in Rogue One—were in it), I was interested to see where it would begin, and I was surprised to find that Catalyst begins, not in the midst of the Empire’s conquest over the galaxy as I’d guessed, but right at the tail end of the Clone Wars. At the start of the story the Republic still exists, Palpatine is still just “Chancellor,” Order 66 has yet to occur, and Galen and a very pregnant Lyra Erso are overseeing energy experiments on a distant world that will soon fall into the hands of Count Dooku’s Separatist forces. It’s amidst this first of the story’s many reversals of authority that one of the secondary characters tells Galen something that will soon be echoed across the galaxy:
“We’re free to do just about anything we wish–anytime, anywhere, and to anyone.”
Though not spoken by an Imperial, this early exchange quietly helps to frame the events of the rest of the book, and indeed much of the Star Wars media that chronologically follows. So then, while Andor and Rogue One (and, by extension, the original trilogy) deal with the struggle against established fascism, Catalyst observes its slow and insidious growth. And it is slow growth, spanning years. At 330 pages, the word “Empire” doesn’t even appear until essentially the halfway mark (page 145) with the events of Revenge of the Sith happening entirely out of sight (and though much of the story takes place on Coruscant and involves the acquisition and study of kyber crystals, the execution of the Jedi warrants barely a passing mention between the characters of this story).
Those who’ve seen Rogue One know that Galen Erso is responsible for cracking the science that allows the Death Star to become a viable weapon in the Empire’s arsenal, and so much of Galen’s side of the story involves just that: the science—in what is essentially the Star Wars universe’s analog for the Manhattan Project (with Erso as it’s Oppenheimer). But like the creeping fingers of the Empire’s fascist chokehold over the galaxy, it takes some time for Galen to become a proper—albeit unwitting, at first—collaborator with the Empire’s Special Weapons division, and much of the story leading to that point involves a good deal of subterfuge, political maneuvering, and propaganda as Orson Krennic slowly corrals his friend onto a path of service to the Empire. And yet, even so, those who’ve seen Rogue One know there is at least one more twist and turn on that road.
And given the subject matter, as is the case of Andor and Rogue One in relation to the more grand-in-scope stories of “The Skywalker Saga,” the events of Catalyst are similarly intimate in scope and scale—though not completely devoid of the epic battles for which Star Wars is known. Still, Catalyst is mostly devoted to interpersonal battles between characters, intellectually, ideologically, and politically, with the final standoff of some of these battles occurring weeks, months, or years after they first begin.
I was most interested to discover, however, this novel’s retroactive narrative connections to Andor, specifically Season 2, as it’s here in Catalyst that we’re first introduced (or I would’ve been first introduced, had I read this in 2016) to the Empire’s “renewable energy initiative,” which we soon discover is simply clever, PR-friendly propaganda used to disguise the further development of their military might. Those who’ve seen the second season of Andor will recall that it is under the guise of this energy project that the Empire takes an interest in the planet Ghorman, and similar events to what occurs there unfold on other worlds within the events of Catalyst (though unlike Ghorman, the “Legacy” worlds presented in Catalyst are mostly uninhabited, and so require a much less complex effort on the part of the Empire’s propaganda machine to spin excuses for Imperial involvement there). Through this interest we see, over and over, in stark detail, that the Empire is truly able to do anything they wish, anytime, anywhere, and to anyone. So it is that Lyra, looking down on one of these conquered planets, ominously muses: “Get ready to see just what the Empire’s capable of.” She doesn’t yet know of the Death Star, but we do, and the noose around the galaxy tightens.
Yet with all this in mind, do I consider Catalyst essential Star Wars media? Not necessarily. It is certainly an interesting extension of the Rogue One / Andor story thread that unfolds on a similarly small scale relative to other Star Wars stories (a scale I relish, at times), but in its lack of the spectacular action of Rogue One and the precise, tactically-honed anti-fascist thematic backbone of Andor (themes whose absence I can’t fault too badly, since that simply isn’t the story that Catalyst is trying to tell), Catalyst exists in a somewhat odd limbo-state vis-à-vis my ability to properly recommend it. Did I tear through the whole thing in two sittings? Yes. Did it feel kind of like homework? Also yes. Additionally, it definitely feels like the first act of a larger story (either as a duology with Rogue One or as the first section of a Catalyst / Rogue One / A New Hope trilogy) rather than its own complete tale, but again, I think this is by design and so I can’t hold that “incompleteness” against it.
So, yeah, do with all that what you will! If you like Star Wars, especially the stories set in that transitional era between the Republic and the Empire, you’ll find something to enjoy here. If you don’t like Star Wars, thanks for making it to the end of this review! I can’t imagine it made any sense.
