I’ve been reading Star Wars novels for years, ever since I saw the special edition of the movies in 1997. I started with the Junior Jedi Knights, Galaxy of Fear and Jedi Prince young readers and eventually moved may way to the Young Jedi Knights and eventually the adult novels when I was about 13 or so (Star Wars ignited my passion for reading and I always cite it as the reason my reading level has always been higher than “average”)
But with all this reading I never read the epitome of the EU, the books that pretty much opened the doors for all others, the Thrawn Trilogy by Timothy Zahn. When I first started reading in the EU, the books were quite intimidating to me, because of their size relative to what I was used to. Then as time progressed I just never got to reading them. I didn’t even own them while I owned many other of the novels. Finally while reading the Legacy of the Force series I decided I was going to pursue getting all the Star Wars novels published. That lead me to reading Outbound Flight and Survivor’s Quest and I decided I enjoyed Zahn’s writing and I finally bought the Thrawn Trilogy. I put off reading it until Legacy of the Force was finished and after resting my mind by reading two short story anthologies (Tales from the New Republic and Tales from the Empire), I delved into it.
(Legacy of the Force spoilers follow.. you have been warned)
After about a month and a half of reading, I completed the trilogy. And as I finished up The Last Command it hit me, I wish I would’ve read these earlier. I remember when Sacrifice had come out and once every body read it, the outcry over the death of Mara. I didn’t feel any of that, I wasn’t as connected to Mara. I got to know her through the New Jedi Order series, Survivor’s Quest and later Legacy of the Force, I didn’t meet her years ago. I think if I read these books at the same time I read the Jedi Academy trilogy (which was one of the first adult series I read), I would be just as connected to Mara as I was the Solo kids and her death would’ve hit me a lot harder than it did. I don’t know if her death would’ve hit me like Anakin Solo’s did in Star by Star and I know for sure it wouldn’t hit me like the ending of Invincible.
The Thrawn Trilogy is incredibly well written and enjoyable. Zahn’s command of Thrawn’s character is fantastic. I noticed this when reading Outbound Flight and Survivor’s Quest as well as his short stories, Thrawn is his character. No one can write Thrawn like Zahn does, it’s wonderful reading it. Thrawn is one bad guy that I feel alright rooting for, because of his genius and creative thinking. He makes you feel like he deserves to win, that the Empire deserves to win. The relationship between him and Pellaeon was interesting to read and you could feel the clash between their strategies, though Pellaeon seemed to ceed to what Thrawn wanted to and eventually saw the genius of his plans.
I don’t know if it’s because I knew the outcome, but the fighting and relationship between Mara and Luke had romance written all over it. Their banter reminded me of young children who have crushes on each other and the only way they can show affection is by being mean to each other. That would me reading too much into though.
I was a bit disappointed in the limited amount of Han/Leai stuff, but I can find that in other stories like Courtship of Princess Leia and Tatooine Ghost. I did like what I got and I can see why Zahn left it out, as it didn’t seem like his style. The birth of the twins was a great moment for me, though the scene where Leia brings Jacen to the window to watch over Courscant and how he smiles at his mother and way he worries when she does is really sad considering the events in Legacy of the Force. A memory similar to that would be perfectly placed in Invincible.
(End any Legacy spoilers)
The only negative of the trilogy was C’baoth’s character. This may not be because of the writing though and might just be because of the character. I dislike him a lot, but I also disliked the original C’baoth in Outbound Flight. His insanity was annoying and his speech just rubbed me the wrong way. But that was probably what Zahn was going for.
Overall I throughly enjoyed the Trilogy and I can see why it is hailed as the masterpiece of the EU. I wish I read it earlier, but better late than never. Next I’m going to start on another Zahn series, the Hand of Thrawn duology. Hopefully this will live up to what lese I’ve read.
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