A review by billyjepma
Cataclysm by Lydia Kang

adventurous mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

This started off on a high note, and, until the third act, felt like a notable improvement on the Convergence. There was some solid momentum, interesting political angles, and a fun conspiracy angle that I was eating up. But that third act—which is all one prolonged action sequence—is so drawn out that it loses the threads I was interested in. Kang’s writing is good but inconsistent, and the action scenes aren’t the strongest showcase for her talent. There’s very little sense of space to what should’ve been a bombastic climax, and without that frame of reference (both spatially and narratively), it bordered on monotonous more than a finale should. 

It doesn’t help that the resolution is half-finished, presumably to leave some story threads for Path of Vengeance to wrap up. This entire phase of The High Republic has been more miss than hit for me precisely reasons like that. The overarching story is stretched far too thin, and the connective tissue is less a feature here than an obfuscation of what could’ve and probably should’ve been an interesting detour for the era. There’s nothing outright bad in this book or any of its peers, but it doesn’t utilize nearly enough of the potential sitting in its lap. I simply don’t feel like this prequel excursion paid off, and I wish this had been its own thing instead of a diversion from the stories started in Phase 1, which I very much enjoyed and felt far more cohesively told than anything in this follow-up 

But there is fun to have, and seeing more Jedi of the era was ultimately enough to keep me reading (and I’m glad I did, I promise). I wish the characterizations and plotting were more consistent between this book and Convergence, but I do like what Kang does with most of the cast, especially the ones in supporting roles. There are some excellent pairings here that I enjoyed, and, to the finale’s credit, it does deliver some surprising payoffs.