Star Wars: Knight Errant by John Jackson Miller

Review by Jordan S.

Knight Errant is my first foray into my previously most unexplored area of the expanded universe canon, the Old Republic. Not having access to a computer during my adolescence means I missed the Knights of the Old Republic and most of that era of the old expanded universe. I have a recollection of reading the first Darth Bane book in high school but it didn’t really make an impression on me and I can’t remember any of the details about it. As an introduction point to that side of the old Star Wars universe, Knight Errant should probably not have been my introduction point but it was an interesting read despite the learning curve behind it. 

Knight Errant is broken up into the three acts, each focusing on Kerra’s (our protagonist) interactions with various Sith Lords. Each act is named after the Sith Lord she predominantly deals with in that section, specifically Daiman (and his brother Odion), the twin youths Quillan and Dromika, and the mysterious Arkadia. We are also introduced to another Sith Lord named Lord Bactra who doesn’t get his own act but is interesting nonetheless. Kerra is a traveling Jedi whose late master was a Sith hunter who died on a previous mission. Alone, she is now seeking out as many Sith as she can in an attempt to bring them down. 

Knight Errant feels like a video game in terms of storytelling. Each Sith Lord is treated like a boss and the story moves through them as focus points with each act. The second act, which features the mysterious twins, was the strongest portion of the book and in my opinion it was because this was the section where it was most successful for pulling off the feel of a video game. 

Another strength of the book is the protagonist, Kerra. She is a fantastic lead character and I was disappointed to see that this was her only foray into the prose side of the Star Wars EU. I would gladly have read a dozen more books starring her. She was easily the most believable character in the book and if this book had only been written from her viewpoint, I think it might have been even more successful. However, some of the other characters were interesting too. The Bothan spy, Narsk, was interesting and lit up the page when he was around but he disappears for much of the second, and best, act so he’s not the most memorable of character. Rusher, the mercenary, was the weakest of the three main characters but is sections were still interesting and moved quickly. 

The second act’s other resounding success was in its use of the alien race, the Celegians. I’d never heard of this group of aliens before and they were one of the highlights of the book. They felt like the most different part of the book and I’m so sad that they haven’t made an appearance in the new canon. The idea of telepathic alien species being used to mind control an entire planet against their will was fantastic and definitely was a huge contributor to the success of the second act. 

The biggest flaw of Knight Errant was how much I felt like I needed to go to Wookiepedia to research various parts of the book. There were a lot of species of aliens that were specifically in Old Republic books so I was going to Wookiepedia to try and get a mental image of what they looked like quite frequently. This book definitely had the highest learning curve of any Star Wars book I’ve ever read but it’s unclear to me on this first reading whether the problem is the book or the reader. A smaller issue was the book really slowed down when the Sith lords were less interesting. Daiman was definitely the least compelling of the three Sith it focused on and the book started off far more slowly than I would have liked because of that. 

Overall, Knight Errant was an imperfect but fun installment in the old Expanded Universe. While not entirely successful, it didn’t permanently scare me off from the Old Republic era and I look forward to my future visits to that more exotic era of the Jedi and Sith. My biggest hope from those will be more appearances from my new favorite Star Wars aliens, the Celegians. 

Cover Wars: 

This is the portion of some reviews where I’ll discuss the various covers for the books. This one only has two covers. The 2011 cover by John van Fleet and the Essential Legends 2024 rerelease cover by Dominik Meyer. Honestly, both are pretty solid. The 2011 cover is pretty simple but is better quality than I think many of the other late Legends canon releases. Meyer’s 2024 cover is fabulous and definitely a far better cover, especially for a story that is about Kerra fighting a half dozen Sith Lords. I definitely give the 2024 edition cover the win this time but it’s a closer battle than some of these Cover Wars will be.