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A review by kirnet
Thrawn: Alliances by Timothy Zahn
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Going in I knew this wasn’t going to be my favorite book, I don’t really care for the Anakin/Padme relationship, but I did end up enjoying it more than I thought. The book is split into a past timeline with Anakin/Padme/Thrawn and a current timeline with Vader/Thrawn. The past is much more interesting than the present. I really enjoyed a lot of the callbacks to Ahsoka and Anakin’s slaughter of the Tusken people, it’s nice to see that these character’s past relationships and actions continue to have an affect on them. I also really enjoyed Padme’s POV, it made her appropriately headstrong but also clever and diplomatic. Anakin’s Force hijinks were fun and I do think the Force needs to be implemented in more creative ways, but Vader pulling those same stunts felt more like a letdown. This book’s main sin to me is that Vader just doesn’t feel that larger than life powerful or terrifying. Other people are scared of him, sure, but he didn’t have the same presence he usually has, probably because he’s always picking the same fight with Thrawn and deferring to him anyway.
Learning more about Thrawn and the Chiss, as well as other threats, was interesting, but I’m not sure if it needed to be put in this book, or if this book was even needed as the second in a trilogy. I’ll have to read the third to see, but nothing about this felt really that important rather than to draw people in with Vader. That’s another thing to me: these books are about Thrawn but they’re hardly ever about Thrawn, if that makes sense. We learn more about him, we see his rise to power, we see the impact he has on the people around him, and I don’t want to diminish the author’s work put into that. But we always get other character’s views of Thrawn, and any sense of interiority of POV of Thrawn that we do get is limited to his observations rather than any emotions or reactions. I know he has them, Vader notices them in this book, and it’s probably just a way to preserve his and the Chiss’s secrets for a later reveal, but it hurts his role as a… protagonist? Is he really even the protagonist of this series? Vader/Anakin felt more like the protagonist rather than Thrawn.
There were a lot of annoyances I had. For one, the “double vision” parts when using the Force were just not needed and annoying to read, and could have easily been reworded to fit with the rest of the narration better. Vader and Thrawn have the same argument about loyalty at least for times and it is incredibly repetitive and no new info is gained any time. Because of the nature of Thrawn’s thinking things need to be explained to the audience and characters so they can follow along, but I felt like some simple stuff was over explained and that has to be a better way to blend it in with the rest of the narration.
Learning more about Thrawn and the Chiss, as well as other threats, was interesting, but I’m not sure if it needed to be put in this book, or if this book was even needed as the second in a trilogy. I’ll have to read the third to see, but nothing about this felt really that important rather than to draw people in with Vader. That’s another thing to me: these books are about Thrawn but they’re hardly ever about Thrawn, if that makes sense. We learn more about him, we see his rise to power, we see the impact he has on the people around him, and I don’t want to diminish the author’s work put into that. But we always get other character’s views of Thrawn, and any sense of interiority of POV of Thrawn that we do get is limited to his observations rather than any emotions or reactions. I know he has them, Vader notices them in this book, and it’s probably just a way to preserve his and the Chiss’s secrets for a later reveal, but it hurts his role as a… protagonist? Is he really even the protagonist of this series? Vader/Anakin felt more like the protagonist rather than Thrawn.
There were a lot of annoyances I had. For one, the “double vision” parts when using the Force were just not needed and annoying to read, and could have easily been reworded to fit with the rest of the narration better. Vader and Thrawn have the same argument about loyalty at least for times and it is incredibly repetitive and no new info is gained any time. Because of the nature of Thrawn’s thinking things need to be explained to the audience and characters so they can follow along, but I felt like some simple stuff was over explained and that has to be a better way to blend it in with the rest of the narration.