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4.18 AVERAGE
4.18 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Best Star Wars book I have ever read
adventurous
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Exactly the lightly pulpy, fun, easy reading novel I needed. I do love Thrawn and Vanto.
Writing shifts from past to present and back (as well as from third to first person and back) within scenes.
A great story about a local woman rising up from her home wod, Thrawns empire origins and a man unknown rise to powers even he didn't imagine.
Back at the dawn of the Star Wars Expanded Universe, Timothy Zahn introduced us to Grand Admiral Thrawn in a trilogy of books I would argue are some of the best Star Wars material ever conceived. When Disney bought SW, the EU was considered non-canon and fans mourned the loss of characters like Thrawn.
Well, he's back, baby! In all his blue-skinned beauty. And with Zahn at the helm to relay the Chiss' ascendancy in the Imperial Navy prior to Han Solo and Luke Skywalker and even the Rebellion in its more organized state. And it's amazing.
This book is easily my favorite of all the SW books ever written. What I love is that Zahn not only gives us a great story of Thrawn but the rise of Arihnda Pryce is a secondary backstory and we even get some time with Colonel Wulff Yularen. This book is chock full of great story and action and military strategy and intrigue and deception and... you get the point.
Read this. Now. And, Mr. Zahn? Please give us more.
Well, he's back, baby! In all his blue-skinned beauty. And with Zahn at the helm to relay the Chiss' ascendancy in the Imperial Navy prior to Han Solo and Luke Skywalker and even the Rebellion in its more organized state. And it's amazing.
This book is easily my favorite of all the SW books ever written. What I love is that Zahn not only gives us a great story of Thrawn but the rise of Arihnda Pryce is a secondary backstory and we even get some time with Colonel Wulff Yularen. This book is chock full of great story and action and military strategy and intrigue and deception and... you get the point.
Read this. Now. And, Mr. Zahn? Please give us more.
adventurous
fast-paced
As a fan of Star Wars Rebels who hasn't read any of the Legends novels featuring the Grand Admiral, and as somebody who has found the canon books about 3/4 hit to 1/4 miss so far, I went into this novel with fairly tempered expectations.
I was pleased to find myself totally enthralled in this story at every turn, from Thrawn's initial foray into the Empire; through Eli Vanto's Imperial coming-of-age; and Rebels' Governor Pryce's ascension through the Empire's bureaucratic hierarchy. Each of the three protagonists perspectives is distinct and engaging, and they are interwoven narratively and editorially to great effect.
My favorite aspect of the novel is its showcase of the Imperial fleet as more than just an evil force-- it is full of people just doing their jobs, who have no idea the treachery of the likes of Palpatine and Tarkin. Thrawn and Vanto both have their own reasons for joining the Empire, and frankly, after reading this book, even having rooted steadfastly against him on the animated series, I'm not convinced that he's really an evil person at all. He values loyalty and seeks order, and unfortunately for him he has placed his loyalty with the Emperor, and Phoenix Squadron is disrupting his order. In another galaxy, Thrawn could have been discovered by the Alliance, and been used just as effectively against the Empire.
Zahn's writing is fantastic from beginning to end. After the bafflingly contemporary stylized writing of Wendig and Older in Aftermath and Last Shot, I am very happy to be back in the hands of somebody whose sense of Star Wars gels better with my own. I particularly enjoy the bits of insight into Thrawn's thought processes.
While I would warn that this novel is not heavy with action, and is much more squarely dedicated to exploring the growth of Thrawn, Vanto, and Pryce as characters through riddles and politics, I can emphatically recommend this book to anybody for whom that type of story sounds appealing. This book peels back a few layers of Thrawn's character without drastically altering what we already know, and it does so in a mystery narrative that kept me reading straight through until the end.
I was pleased to find myself totally enthralled in this story at every turn, from Thrawn's initial foray into the Empire; through Eli Vanto's Imperial coming-of-age; and Rebels' Governor Pryce's ascension through the Empire's bureaucratic hierarchy. Each of the three protagonists perspectives is distinct and engaging, and they are interwoven narratively and editorially to great effect.
My favorite aspect of the novel is its showcase of the Imperial fleet as more than just an evil force-- it is full of people just doing their jobs, who have no idea the treachery of the likes of Palpatine and Tarkin. Thrawn and Vanto both have their own reasons for joining the Empire, and frankly, after reading this book, even having rooted steadfastly against him on the animated series, I'm not convinced that he's really an evil person at all. He values loyalty and seeks order, and unfortunately for him he has placed his loyalty with the Emperor, and Phoenix Squadron is disrupting his order. In another galaxy, Thrawn could have been discovered by the Alliance, and been used just as effectively against the Empire.
Zahn's writing is fantastic from beginning to end. After the bafflingly contemporary stylized writing of Wendig and Older in Aftermath and Last Shot, I am very happy to be back in the hands of somebody whose sense of Star Wars gels better with my own. I particularly enjoy the bits of insight into Thrawn's thought processes.
While I would warn that this novel is not heavy with action, and is much more squarely dedicated to exploring the growth of Thrawn, Vanto, and Pryce as characters through riddles and politics, I can emphatically recommend this book to anybody for whom that type of story sounds appealing. This book peels back a few layers of Thrawn's character without drastically altering what we already know, and it does so in a mystery narrative that kept me reading straight through until the end.
This is by far my favorite Star Wars book I’ve read to date. I loved it cover to cover. I haven’t read the original Thrawn trilogy, so maybe this is missing something from those, but I may never know.
The most noticeable change for me from the Legends books I’ve read was the pacing. It wasn’t some decompressed story that took place over a couple of weeks stretched out to fill 400 pages. This covered several years worth of time, and everything moved at a decent clip.
I think the scope was better managed, too. There were certainly parallel stories, but they were all closely related enough that they made sense to cover in the same book. Along the same lines, the side characters really worked for me. Eli Vanto was a great reader insert who added a lot to the interactions with Thrawn (including an excuse for him to explain a lot of the more intricate plans). Arihnda Pryce was also a fascinating story for someone I had completely forgotten was in Rebels until more than halfway through the book.
The overarching story almost felt like a riff on Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty as Thrawn tries to trace down various situations instigated or exacerbated by a mysterious “Nightswan.” One complaint I had was that I was not at all surprised by who Nightswan was. Maybe I misread something when the name first came up, but I thought it was first brought up as a codename for that character explicitly (it was not). Also, as usual with these kinds of characters, it may be somewhat unrealistic to think that someone could anticipate things to the level that Thrawn does, but we’ve been told from the beginning what an amazing strategist he is, so it works on some level. It’s always just grounded enough to work.
The story itself is great, too. It’s easy to forget that rooting for Thrawn is rooting for the Empire and the bad guys, specifically because Thrawn so clearly wants to do what’s right. He wants to help people in general and keep the peace. He doesn’t seem interested in the authoritarianism that the Emperor fosters, but does want to keep the peace. It allows for a lot of interesting comparisons between how he views the potential of the Empire and how everyone else sees the reality of it. It also creates some philosophical questions about the rebellion and creates more depth that shows how the Empire got so entrenched so quickly. It also shows the flip side with how people inside the bureaucracy can miss the actual hardships happening to everyday people and how that stacks up to a rebellion.
Every aspect of this book was firing on all cylinders for me. It finally made me excited to read other Star Wars books and helped me see the potential of what they can be when done well.
The most noticeable change for me from the Legends books I’ve read was the pacing. It wasn’t some decompressed story that took place over a couple of weeks stretched out to fill 400 pages. This covered several years worth of time, and everything moved at a decent clip.
I think the scope was better managed, too. There were certainly parallel stories, but they were all closely related enough that they made sense to cover in the same book. Along the same lines, the side characters really worked for me. Eli Vanto was a great reader insert who added a lot to the interactions with Thrawn (including an excuse for him to explain a lot of the more intricate plans). Arihnda Pryce was also a fascinating story for someone I had completely forgotten was in Rebels until more than halfway through the book.
The overarching story almost felt like a riff on Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty as Thrawn tries to trace down various situations instigated or exacerbated by a mysterious “Nightswan.” One complaint I had was that I was not at all surprised by who Nightswan was. Maybe I misread something when the name first came up, but I thought it was first brought up as a codename for that character explicitly (it was not). Also, as usual with these kinds of characters, it may be somewhat unrealistic to think that someone could anticipate things to the level that Thrawn does, but we’ve been told from the beginning what an amazing strategist he is, so it works on some level. It’s always just grounded enough to work.
The story itself is great, too. It’s easy to forget that rooting for Thrawn is rooting for the Empire and the bad guys, specifically because Thrawn so clearly wants to do what’s right. He wants to help people in general and keep the peace. He doesn’t seem interested in the authoritarianism that the Emperor fosters, but does want to keep the peace. It allows for a lot of interesting comparisons between how he views the potential of the Empire and how everyone else sees the reality of it. It also creates some philosophical questions about the rebellion and creates more depth that shows how the Empire got so entrenched so quickly. It also shows the flip side with how people inside the bureaucracy can miss the actual hardships happening to everyday people and how that stacks up to a rebellion.
Every aspect of this book was firing on all cylinders for me. It finally made me excited to read other Star Wars books and helped me see the potential of what they can be when done well.