Young Jedi Knights

• 1. Introduction

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  Young Jedi Knights is a Star Wars young adult fiction series written by science fiction author Kevin J. Anderson and his wife Rebecca Moesta. Published between 1995 and 1998, it follows the twin children of Han Solo and Leia Organa Solo as they train to become Jedi Knights. The twins are Jacen and Jaina, and when the story begins they are fourteen years old, living some twenty-three years after the Battle of Yavin. What made this series unusual was not just its young heroes. It was willing to address racism and drug abuse head-on, using a galaxy far, far away as a mirror for real-world struggles. And it introduced a generation of Jedi Knights who would go on to shape later, darker chapters in the Star Wars saga.

• 2. The Twin Heroes

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  Jacen Solo carries a green lightsaber and is described as kind, philosophical, and humorous. His twin sister Jaina inherited their father Han Solo's gift for piloting and mechanics. Together they form the emotional core of the series, but they are never alone in their adventures. Their closest companions include Lowbacca, a Wookiee who is the nephew of Chewbacca. Lowbacca, known to his friends as Lowie, loves tinkering with computers and wears a miniature protocol droid named Em Teedee on his hip. Em Teedee was programmed by C-3PO, and inherited that droid's tendency toward long-winded explanations. Tenel Ka rounds out the group; she is a young princess of Hapes who prefers to be known as a warrior of Dathomir. Zekk, a childhood friend of the twins who grew up in the shadowy lower levels of Coruscant, completes the circle. His rough upbringing left him feeling out of place among his upper-class friends, a tension the series would press hard on as his story unfolded.

• 3. The Shadow Academy Arc

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  The first six books revolve around a threat that starts quietly. A pilot named Qorl had crashed his TIE fighter during the Battle of Yavin and spent the next twenty-three years hiding in the jungle of Yavin 4, waiting for a chance to return to the Empire. When the young Jedi trainees discover and repair his wrecked fighter, they set in motion a chain of events that eventually connects to the Shadow Academy, a hidden space station run by the dark Jedi Brakiss. Brakiss creates the Shadow Academy as a dark mirror of Luke Skywalker's Jedi Praxeum on Yavin 4, and he draws recruits from across the galaxy, including Force-talented inhabitants of Dathomir. His second in command is Tamith Kai, a Nightsister from Dathomir. The Shadow Academy kidnaps Jacen, Jaina, and Lowbacca and subjects them to weeks of vigorous and sometimes deadly training, attempting to turn them to the dark side in service of what the text calls the resurrected Emperor. They resist. Zekk's arc runs parallel and darker. Captured and brainwashed by Brakiss, Zekk becomes one of the Shadow Academy's most powerful Dark Jedi Knights and is sent to lead a raid on the Wookiee city of Thikkiiana, a major exporter of computer technology. The confrontation between Zekk and his former friends Jacen and Jaina anchors the fifth book. The arc ends on Yavin 4 when the Shadow Academy launches a full assault on the Jedi Praxeum. Tenel Ka kills Tamith Kai in a lightsaber duel on an exploding landing platform. Luke faces Brakiss in a duel of his own. Brakiss flees back to the Shadow Academy, where the Emperor activates the station's self-destruct rather than allow capture. The station is destroyed with Brakiss on it. Zekk, in the end, stops the Shadow Academy from destroying what remains of the Jedi and returns to the boy his friends once knew.

• 4. A Lightsaber and an Arm

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  Book four, Lightsabers, contains one of the series' most striking moments. Every student at Luke Skywalker's Jedi Academy must build their own lightsaber before facing the Shadow Academy. Tenel Ka crafts her handle from a tooth but rushes through the construction without concentrating fully on the quality of the blade. During a duel with Jacen, her blade shorts out and explodes. Jacen's lightsaber cuts off her arm. Tenel Ka returns home to her grandmother and must learn to cope with one hand. She rebuilds her lightsaber, and against her grandmother's wishes, returns to the Jedi Academy. The episode leaves a permanent mark on the character and on the tone of the series. It signals that consequences in this world are real, and that the path to becoming a Jedi is not painless.

• 5. The Diversity Alliance

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  Once the Shadow Academy was defeated, the series shifted to a second plot arc dealing with a very different kind of threat. The Diversity Alliance is an organization of non-humans who believe that humans have never atoned for the atrocities committed against alien species under the Empire. Their leader is Nolaa Tarkona, a Twi'lek. Lowbacca is convinced by his friend Raaba to join the Alliance on Ryloth, while the other young Jedi Knights travel to the same planet to uncover the group's true purpose. What they find is that the Diversity Alliance is preparing to launch a plague against the entire human species, using a biological weapon found in an Imperial storehouse. Bornan Thul, father of the young Jedi Knight Raynar Thul, dies in the plague chamber while assuring his son that he was proud of him. Boba Fett moves through this arc as a hired operator, first working for Nolaa Tarkona and then, having been paid by Raynar's uncle Tyko Thul, turning on the Diversity Alliance soldiers. The arc ends with Raaba fleeing to a barren planet, burying Nolaa and her plague samples, and sending Lowie a message saying that if she survived, she would find him. Raynar Thul constructs a pewter lightsaber to mark his survival.

• 6. Anja Gallandro and Han's Past

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  The third and final arc introduces Anja Gallandro, whose father was a gunslinger who died fighting Han Solo long before the events of the series. Anja arrives on Ord Mantell during a high-speed race that Han is attending with his twins in the Millennium Falcon, wielding a lightsaber and carrying knowledge of Han's history that he finds deeply uncomfortable. Her story unfolds across three books, taking the group to Cloud City and eventually to Kessel, as Anja pursues a plan to harm the Solo family while hiding a devastating secret. The series does not frame her simply as a villain. Her anger has a source, and the books treat that source as worth examining.

• 7. Scope and Legacy

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  What started as a six-novel plan grew to fourteen volumes over the course of publication. A fifteenth volume titled Jedi Shadow appeared in 2003, collecting the first three books. The characters introduced in Young Jedi Knights went on to play significant roles in later Star Wars series, including the New Jedi Order, Dark Nest, and Legacy of the Force. Jacen Solo in particular would have a long and complicated life beyond these pages. The series was notable for taking on racism and drug abuse in a format aimed at younger readers, using the Star Wars universe to give those subjects a distance that made them easier to approach. Lusa, a Sentaur companion of the young Jedi Knights who had always been Force-sensitive, joins Luke Skywalker's Praxeum at the very end of the Diversity Alliance arc, one more name added to the generation the series spent fourteen books building.