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Lit The 181st Imperial Discussion Group: Specter Of The Past!

Discussion in 'Literature' started by Grey1, May 1, 2013.

  1. Grey1

    Grey1 Host: 181st Imperial Discussion Group star 4 VIP

    Registered:
    Nov 21, 2000
    Feel darkly greeted to another round of discussion in the 181st Imperial Discussion Group, this month discussing the terms for Imperial surrender (among other stuff)! After having spent the last month with extensive festivities regarding the Group's fifth anniversary and a look at a specter of the past, we will now talk about Specter Of The Past by Timothy Zahn. Wizard!

    I want to try starting off with some general discussion points, not having us rush off in all directions right away and lose track of what's an interesting path of thought. So here's three basic approaches to what we find in the book:

    - Information. Our discussion of The Thrawn Trilogy made me realize (and I hope you will agree on that) that in Zahn's plot, you could always find one theme popping up again: the power of information. Who knows what when? What is a secret, and what power does the secret have? Karrde spent more time brokering information in those books than smuggling, reforming from a smuggling ring boss/criminal to a kind of logistics guy to an information broker figure. How do we see these themes popping up again in The Hand Of Thrawn? Is this a speciality of Zahn's, or do we find this in a lot of books (beyond the obvious mystery angle which naturally has the hero searching for information)?

    - Thrawn. Now, it's obvious that Zahn was (and still is) a very important EU player. Back then, he was a living legend. And Out Of Universe, it's obvious that elements like Thrawn from those old books carry a bigger importance to us readers than, say, Kueller or that guy who did that one thing in one of those books. But In Universe, Thrawn is meant to be the biggest thing, too. His name gives chills and gets connected with the biggest campaign against the New Republic - was he really the worst, the most dangerous? He's also the choice for the miraculous, King Arthur-like Imperial saviour that Disra creates. Why not Vader or Palpatine, especially since Palpatine already came back once? What makes Thrawn the perfect rallying point for the last enemies of that alienloving government?

    - Caamas. What do you think about the creation and inclusion of this huge past event? Having it set up in I, Jedi in a stunningly well prepared bit of writing synergy by Stackpole and Zahn, how does it work as the emotionally charged potential breaking point for the New Republic we never really heard about before? In hindsight, do you think the entire concept of "the Republic's peaceful backbone" should have been included more in EU beyond Elegos' return in Dark Tide and the Coruscant Nights connection? Finally - isn't it much more fun to read about Palpatine's scheming and general disrespect for the rest of the galaxy now that we have Ian McDiarmid's prequel performance to correlate it with?

    More discussion points as we move along the calendar.

    Next month, to no-one's surprise, we will continue with Vision Of The Future. Now go have fun.
     
  2. Gorefiend

    Gorefiend Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 23, 2004
    Information in general is one of these things that keep popping up as insanely valuable in the GFFA. ANH after all was essentially all about design plans (for the Rebels) and the location of the Rebel Base (for the Imperials). Since the galaxy is huge it kind of makes sense as you really just need to know where to find something, as some place is likely to have it, especially if you consider the nature of hyperspace and the power of “lost technology” and force artifacts (Kotor is really big on this). Karrde switching to information trading also makes sense as smuggling should become less popular as the galaxies economy recovers with the civil war cooling down.

    Vader was never liked; he was hated, feared and despised even by may Imperials. The Emperor was the Emperor, he got really bad PR especially after his clear Dark Empire insanity. Thrawn on the other hand was popular with the Imperial troops, an Alien and surprisingly reasonable to the worlds he conquered. Things that would get him good publicity especially as the Republic was collapsing during the Hand of Thrawn events.

    It is nice to see one of these worlds that seem really to be peaceful and filled by people that really believe in such things, even Alderaan is a little off here with its history. It getting wiped out by the Emperor just as a symbol is also pretty fitting for his modus, plus it created the nice parallel in the book itself on what happened to Emberlene.

    Oh McDiarmid in ROTJ was already "fun" enough in that regard ;)
     
  3. Jeff_Ferguson

    Jeff_Ferguson Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    May 15, 2006
    The collaboration between Stackpole and Zahn here is really to be applauded. Stackpole has stated in a couple of podcast interviews that he thinks Hand of Thrawn and I, Jedi work really well as a loosely-connected trilogy, read in the order that they were published --- Specter; I, Jedi; Vision. Keeping that order in mind, Caamas isn't really set up in I, Jedi when you consider that Specter was published one year earlier --- it's elaborated upon, sure, but Specter already laid the foundations. It does kind of come out of nowhere in Specter as this ultra-important thing that can send the entire galaxy spiraling into chaos, but you know what? Zahn sold it to me. He painted a great picture of a galaxy that's ready to see how hard they can poke the New Republic until it bursts.

    The Hand of Thrawn duology is, IMO, some of Zahn's finest work, and also his most underrated. It's a perfect wrapup of the New Republic era told by the era's most masterful storyteller. It's not without its flaws, upon which I'll elaborate, but the good heavily outweighs the bad.

    Zahn's more recent works have severely overplayed the Thrawn worship, but in Specter it's Thrawn worship that makes sense. The Imperial fleet is beaten to the point of surrender, and they need a masterful fleet commander to rally behind. Sure, it could have been Palpatine, but that story's been done. Thrawn's also a much more practical choice for the Sinister Triumvirate to imitate, when you consider that Palpatine's return included Force Storms and a dark-side-shrouded planet. Additionally, Palpatine's Operation Shadow Hand was driven by a gigantic war machine that the Imperial Remnant simply doesn't have anymore --- Thrawn's exactly the man who could do wonders with their limited resources, and the fleet commanders know that.

    ... Of course, that's retroactive reasoning. Zahn was far more likely to simply dismiss Dark Empire rather than analyze it. Although I do love Specter and Vision, they suffer from playing up the Zahnverse. Specifically in Specter, Talon Karrde is suddenly one of the most important people in the galaxy again; Luke randomly thinks about something he did on Poderis during The Last Command; the Solos are vacationing on Wayland, of all planets --- while most Bantam-era books suffer from the author over-referencing the Original Trilogy, Specter suffers from Zahn over-referencing his own trilogy.

    Yes, there are references to other Bantam books, but they're all one-off mentions that almost feel forced. A throwaway line about the Vagabond in Specter, a single reference to Drochs in Vision, a scant few mentions of Tendra in Vision... Luke's a one-man freedom fighter in an X-wing, just like he was in Heir to the Empire, despite the whole running-a-Jedi-Academy thing. The Jedi are offhandedly mentioned as having been dispatched to all of the planetary-rivalry hotspots, but overall Luke doesn't seem that different than he was ten years before. He's still rushing into missions that require the intervention of Mara Jade for him to make it out OK.

    Some of Zahn's references to other novels even seem kind of mean. Mara dresses down Luke for the way he ran the Jedi Academy in Anderson's novels, and the lone reference to Dark Empire is Mara dismissing the entire series with "Yeah, I doubt it was even the real Palpatine." Really, Zahn? The entire galaxy is suddenly fearing a repeat of the Thrawn Campaign, but the far-more-devastating Shadow Hand campaign of one year later isn't important enough to warrant more than a single line that totally dismisses it?

    With all that said, Zahn does deserve props for some of the obscure continuity he used in these books. Zothip and the Cavrilhu Pirates, who play a big role in Specter, come from the Dark Force Rising Sourcebook. The Kathol sector comes from The DarkStryder Campaign, but I'll get to that next month. I would have liked to have seen a few more non-Zahn characters play at least supporting roles --- Kyp Durron or Ben-Kihl Nahm, anyone? --- but it's not a deal-breaker.

    I hope those last few paragraphs didn't seem overly harsh. Like I said, I do love this duology, and Vision remains my favourite SW book to this day, but the overimportance of the Zahnverse is something that's gotta be acknowledged. Zahn wrote the OT heroes better than most, if not all, of his Bantam contemporaries, and even if Specter suffers from feeling like little more than a setup for Vision, Zahn's characterization and ability to write large-scale galaxy-hopping adventures still make it great. More on that later.
     
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  4. Sniper_Wolf

    Sniper_Wolf Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 26, 2002
    Brief aside, though Vision of the Future was my introduction to the EU I did not read the volume until many years later, after listening to the audiobook first. Anthony Heald, you are missed. ^:)^

    Hand of Thrawn possess a great deal of foreshadowing, the whole mentoning of the Vong for New Jedi Order and the governmental dysfunction leading into Legacy of the Force. Here is one of the few times an author recognizes the galaxy went through three successive governments in a lifetime after centuries of stability. Camaas Document Crisis, a good plot manuver by Zahn. Too bad many other parts in Specter of the Past starts up Zahn's self-sodomzing of his work.

    I've always wondered who gave the go ahead for the transition of Thrawn from benevolent fascist to messianic commander, but if Bantam pushed Zahn then the author gleefully ran off into that direction with this novel and following books. For Grey1's point, Zahn pushes Thrawn into near camp territority. Han soiling himself over the mere mention of Thrawn teleporting into existence is silly. There is no finese employed by Zahn in the whole faux Thrawn gag. No one doubts for a moment that a method actor could have been hired, the reader automatically knows Thrawn is Flim thrown into a vat of blue paint, and apparently the mere snap of Thrawn's fingers can consolidate three sectors per snap.

    Zahn does a good job of describing how dilapidated the Imperial Remnant is at the start of the novel. Regardless of if someone of Thrawn's skill set would have arisen the New Republic would have won through inertia. The crafted military manuverings of Thrawn Trilogy are thrown into a blender alongside two parts nonsense, three parts rejected publishing house cocaine. Congratulations, you are enjoying the Zahn Eightball, please do not ingest while near your copy of Thrawn Trilogy. You will cover the novels in puke.

    The writing itself is still solid from Zahn though the content is half-baked. Alas, a good writer exploring schlock is far worse than a hack falling over due to their inherent incompetence.
     
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  5. Robimus

    Robimus Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 6, 2007
    As others have mentioned, this makes sense in a lot of different ways. While I can see retroactively how it could be glanced at and dismissed as an author playing favorites, I really don't think it was. It is all layed out really well. Disra uses officers like Dorja, who personally knew Thrawn, to help legitimize the plot. It all gets explained, from Nagol getting the false DNA sample to Pellaeon being removed from the picture. He also convinces Lando later in the book, due to knowledge of Lando's trip to Myrkr, so on. It all works in a logical manner.

    Also it would be much easier for Flim to pretend to be a a person without Force powers. A situation would never arise where he suddenly needed to be in character and do some Force choking, and as has also been mentioned the Palpatine rising plots had already been done to death. What if a situation arose where Flim had to meet with Luke Skywalker or Kenth Hamner, or whoever? How would he then hide his lack or Force powers?

    What I loved the most about Specter of the Past, was how well it expanded, and frankly created, the Imperial Remnant. Suddenly we had the names of numerous key players, every remaining Moff, the names of key worlds and key hyperspace routes and more named Imperial characters than maybe any other book has given us. It made the Remnant feel like a real thing, something with political structure and dueling personalities as opposed to it just being Pellaeon and a bunch of Star Destroyers.

    Easily one of my favorites of all time.

    Yes, it doesn't venture beyond the Zahnverse(which included some Stackpole stuff) and that is maybe its biggest fault, but it is still a minor one at this point in the timeline. Yeah would have been neat to see Kyp, or Belindi Kalenda or whoever. It would have made the universe feel a bit more whole, but it still works well without any of those references.
     
  6. Grey1

    Grey1 Host: 181st Imperial Discussion Group star 4 VIP

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    Nov 21, 2000
    Would you agree that with Palpatine and Vader dismissed, there is no leader that could motivate the Imperial Remnant like Thrawn? In that regard, who are the Imperial big shots of the Bantam era that could have been forged into a new leader? Pellaeon is too nice and Daala, well, I don't think even the New Republic would want her as their big leader, would they now? What about Tavira? Checking her wook page, I find out that she's MIA since I, Jedi - now wouldn't that have been a Stackpole/Zahn collaboration, Tavira returning all the wiser (and of legal drinking age) for the last big Imperial campaign.

    As for the Caamas novel sequence - I guess I suspected as much, but didn't check the dates again. Reading it chronologically sure does make more sense than Zahn pulling the tragedy out of nowhere here, and then us reading about it in a casual manner in I, Jedi. And I wouldn't call the books a loose trilogy content-wise, connections like Luke's state of mind and knowledge of Caamas are too circumstantial. It's interesting to see them as an example of authors working together a bit beyond the usual shout-outs to fellow authors who helped with certain characters or with events from the year before, though.

    Back in TTT, the characters all seemed to be reset to their ESB/ROTJ personas - Han left the military to scoundrel around as much as he still can, Luke feels he needs a Jedi mentor, and Lando owns an outrageous mining facility. It's interesting to notice that Luke's not really grown since then.
     
  7. Dr. Steve Brule

    Dr. Steve Brule Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 7, 2012
    I think the reasons mentioned above about why Thrawn would have been chosen to return are all logical, but I also wonder if, in-universe, Palpatine's return meant that his myth was kind of spent. I mean, a few years later IU, we basically have a repeat of the Flim-flam from SOTP but with Palpatine, in the form of the Second Imperium in YJK. No one in the galaxy gave the apparent Third Coming of Palpatine much interest, it seems. Although there "Palpatine's" escapades were basically limited to forcing kids to go to an evil summer camp.
     
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  8. Son of a Bith

    Son of a Bith Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Feb 28, 2013
    Forgive me - it's been ages since I've read the HOT duology - what gets mentioned about the Vong? I'm very curious.
     
  9. Gorefiend

    Gorefiend Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 23, 2004
    Tavira is unlikely to be taken serious by the Moffs, after all she pretty much killed a Moff and just took his post before going pirate. The rest are dead, Zsinj still imho being the best candidate to actually be a popular Warleader for the Empire. Grant could also have worked, though the Rebels would have made sure to prevent his escape.

    Oh Zahn writes a pretty nice introduction for Luke, where he actually leaves the Academy business behind on purpose and cuts back on overusing his force powers because things just aren’t feeling quite right to him in the past few weeks. Sure it is a little of a copout but it is imho acknowledged pretty well.
     
  10. Grey1

    Grey1 Host: 181st Imperial Discussion Group star 4 VIP

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    Nov 21, 2000
    Oh Zahn writes a pretty nice introduction for Luke, where he actually leaves the Academy business behind on purpose and cuts back on overusing his force powers because things just aren’t feeling quite right to him in the past few weeks. Sure it is a little of a copout but it is imho acknowledged pretty well.[/quote]But in the end he's just inventing a plausible reason to reset Luke, isn't he? Not that quite a few of the other Bantam authors didn't do the same thing, and "grown up authority Luke" wasn't that cool anyway once we saw him in YJK and NJO.
     
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  11. fett 4

    fett 4 Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Jan 2, 2000
    For me Zahn's duology is his book version of Return of the Jedi. Where you had good even great bits interspersed with terrible and pointless bits and repeats. He also goes one step further than Stackpole by not just going after KJA but pretty much the whole Bantam authorship in these books.

    While Thrawn (who is a step ahead of Palpatine of course) and Mara are the most important people ever ever and poor ole Vader is a distant 3rd.

    With RTJ we get 2nd Death Stars in SP we get Mara Jade Mk2 in the form of Shada, who even goes through the exact same character journey and ends up in the exact same place as Mara did in TTT.

    Reviewing Specter on it's own without Vision, its basically a short story dragged out into a full novel, with a lot not happening or not really needing too. I forget the page count but you could probably edit it down to quarter of that size and you wouldn't miss anything from story or plot perspective.

    As a book it feel's less like 10 years after Last Command and more like just a year, the way everything is mentioned from that including meals, like it was yestarday. Pelly is of course back aboard the Chimera even though in past books he was on other ships, well that doesn't matter.

    Luke's Pirate infiltration dodn't really go anywhere and had no real purpose other than filler and could have been cut in half. Pointless scenes of Shada showing off her mad skillz, beating people up, breaking into the Solo's house just to ask enlist only to end up going with Karrade which the author could have accomplished with far fewer pages.
    Corran's Jedi secret which was pointless seemed to be nothing more than set up to show how great Karrade is at knowing stuff. There is probably more examples but off the top off my head that's it.

    This is also the first book Zahn starts to tell us how great his OC's are to everyone else. Karrade knows everything about everyone, and Booster is clearly second best, the scene where he and Lando are contrasted and Lando is almost comically slapstick to the intelligent Karrade was a bit of anvil.The Noghri are of course brilliant, with even a scene of Luke standing in awe of there skill. Wedge is now back a pilot under Bel-Iblis command who is the NR's greatest general. Mara is of course great and she was Palpatine's Hand you know, the Emperors Hand, are you listening SHE WAS THE EMPERORS HAND !
    Thrawn was god like and was a genuies which goes without saying, with everyone seeming to talk about him all the time, complete with Han Solo wetting his pants at the mention of his name :mad:
     
  12. fett 4

    fett 4 Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Jan 2, 2000
    But in the end he's just inventing a plausible reason to reset Luke, isn't he? Not that quite a few of the other Bantam authors didn't do the same thing, and "grown up authority Luke" wasn't that cool anyway once we saw him in YJK and NJO.[/quote]

    Thing is Zahn criticises other authors for making Luke almost god like with his powers, which I agree with, but he then goes and has him survive deep space vaccum o_O
     
  13. fett 4

    fett 4 Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Jan 2, 2000
    They don't. This was way before and Zahn was setting it up for others to use the Chiss and the Unknown regions for when it moved to Del-Rey, which they completely ignored.
     
  14. Son of a Bith

    Son of a Bith Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Feb 28, 2013
    Gotcha, that makes more sense, thanks.
     
  15. Iron_lord

    Iron_lord Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    While the line "There are a hundred different threats out there that would freeze your blood if you knew about them" could be just "the unknown regions in general" there's another line relating to a single, overwhelming threat:

    "He brought me out here. Showed me what it was we faced, and what we'd have to do to stop it. Showed me that even with all the resources of the Empire and the New Republic combined, and with himself at the head, there were no guarantees of victory. On the contrary, he's already made contingency plans for defeat. Ten years ago he had sleeper cells of the best of his cloned warriors scattered around the Empire and the New Republic, ready to form the nuclei of local resistance forces should Corscant and Bastion fall. Men who loved their homes and the land and their worlds, and who would give their lives in their defense."

    Seems plausible to me that Zahn had been told about Vector Prime and what was going to happen.

    Zahn's a physics graduate- he knows that hard vacuum is not instant-death the way all too many sci-fi films and books portray it as.
     
  16. Son of a Bith

    Son of a Bith Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Feb 28, 2013
    Dave Bowman did it! :)

    [​IMG]
     
  17. Jeff_Ferguson

    Jeff_Ferguson Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    May 15, 2006
    Zahn's definitely guilty of overusing his own pet characters, but I think it's worth noting that every single SW author (save Kathy Tyers) does the same thing. Allston, Stackpole, Denning, Traviss... even Jim Luceno indulged in Kenth Hamner and Malik Carr in The Unifying Force. It's not inherently a bad thing. Not that anyone in this thread has asserted as much, though; most of the criticism seems to be of how important and how much cleverer than the OT heroes Zahn's characters are here. That may be true, but honestly, I'm willing to put up with that indulgence in this case, because I really do like Zahn's characters.

    Karrde, Mara, Pellaeon, Fey'lya, and Bel Iblis were so well developed over his the course of Zahn's nameless trilogy, and I was disappointed with each successive Bantam book during my chronological readthrough for either not using them or barely using them at all. They were a new and exciting cast that got shunted aside post-The Last Command, and they still had countless stories to tell, dammit. Before I got to Specter, I was eagerly awaiting their return, and most of them ended up going through some great arcs and character development throughout the duology. If anything, I was disappointed by how small of a role Fey'lya played. The focus on them in this duology was a welcome one, because frankly, they're great characters who should have been used more by the other Bantam authors. Like I said, I would have liked just a few non-Zahn characters to balance out the cast, but whaddyagonnado.
     
  18. Robimus

    Robimus Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 6, 2007
    For Disra's purposes, yes. Thrawn was the best leader to have to try and carry on war with the New Republic. Imperials believed in Thrawn, the New Republic feared Thrawn.

    Now ultimately the Empire already had the leader it needed to move forward, one that realized that the war was over and that the only way to survive was to adapt.
     
  19. JediAlly

    JediAlly Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Oct 31, 2000
    You're right about how powerful information can be. Thrawn made utilizing information into an art form. And we've seen throughout the prequel trilogy how knowledge of information at critical junctures could have changed the course of the galaxy. As in avoiding the Clone Wars in the first place.


    Thrawn's methods of waging war was quite different from Vader's and Palpatine. Vader strong-armed his way through his enemies, and that yielded destructive results. Palpatine pitted his enemies against each other - more subtle, but still there were high casualties. Look at the Clone Wars. Thrawn, on the other hand, wielded his forces like a surgeon's scalpel rather than a club. One precise stroke that had a rippling effect through the enemy. He was also a master of psychology, allowing him to understand his enemies' ways of thinking. That allowed him to be one step ahead of them.

    Palpatine and Vader commanded the forces through fear, and definitely everyone did everything they could to avoid being punished by either of them. Thrawn, on the other hand, commanded his forces with respect. He treated the soldiers with respect, and the soldiers in turn came to respect him. That generated a different brand of loyalty - a brand that was probably stronger than the one associated with Palpatine and Vader.

    I want to say more, but I want to wait for next month's discussion to do that.


    I think Caamas as well as the Ishori/Diamalan dispute served as a means of bringing to light a major flaw in the running of the NR government. Yes, there's a greater sense of freedom and no fear, but the government doesn't seem to have a firm grasp of control. I mean the Caamas Document was an important find, and it would be wrong to discount it and allow those who performed the act and were still alive to go unpunished. But a good number of races used the Document as a means of dredging up old disputes. The observer that Luke talked to summed it up nicely - each member of the NR had their own sense of what's right and wrong and what would be perceived as justice. I don't think Mon Mothma or any of the architects of the NR ever gave any thoughts towards this situation. I think the member states that ended up in conflicts were aware of this and used it to their advantage. Disra and his faction exploited this oversight quite well. During the Empire, these brush conflicts wouldn't have occurred. The moment anyone thought of doing that, the Empire would have sent in a fleet to knock the participants down to the ground and state in no uncertain terms that they were to behave themselves. All things considered, I think the Empire of the Hand that Thrawn created was perhaps the perfect balance between the Empire and the NR. While the Empire of the Hand made certain that any potential hotspots were quickly snuffed before it got out of control and spread like a wildfire, it didn't rule through fear and allowed the members to have the same freedoms that existed in the NR.

    I don't know if Caamas should have been included in more of the EU. It would depend on the book in question.


    I can't really answer that question.
     
  20. Jeff_Ferguson

    Jeff_Ferguson Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    May 15, 2006
    Something from the OT on which Traviss really picked up was that while officers may have by-and-large hated Vader for all the Force-choking and stuff, the rank-and-file really respected him for serving on the front lines along with them. Flying his TIE into the Battle of Yavin, marching into Echo Base in the middle of the Battle of Hoth, boarding the Tantive IV alongside his footsoldiers --- that's something that Thrawn can't claim to have done. In Specter, however, Disra knew he needed someone that the fleet officers would follow, and yeah, Thrawn was definitely the right man for that job.

    Hear hear. The Remnant in Specter is an interesting and dynamic portrayal of jaded career officers and politicians with different agendas that reads as a very natural evolution of the post-Darksaber Empire. Definitely one of my favourite parts of the book, too.

    I think it's worth noting that the duology was originally going to just be one book called The Hand of Thrawn, but a 1,000-word page count ended up causing a necessary split. Specter does suffer from the split moreso than Vision, though --- the latter has self-contained stories like the Mission to Nirauan and the Hunt for Jorj Car'das, while the former reads in some ways like a mere prologue to the latter. A lot of characters who have defined roles in Vision are just kind of "there" in Specter, waiting for something to happen. Threepio and Artoo both have unique roles that play up their strengths in Vision, but in Specter they're just SkySolo sidekicks who provide comic relief and intercept the occasional comlink call. Does Specter even have a real climax? It's been nine years since I've read the book, so I honestly can't remember. Can someone enlighten me?

    With that said, Specter does have some self-contained plotlines that are largely solved by the end of the book. The Mistryl Shadow Guard stuff with Shada and Karoly is mostly in this book, as is the bulk of the Cavrilhu Pirates storyline. Those two storylines in particular help the book feel more like a standalone novel than a mere prologue. The prologue feeling is hard to shake, however, which is such a shame when you consider that each volume of Zahn's earlier nameless trilogy worked so well as a standalone and not just as a chapter in a trilogy.
     
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  21. Dr. Steve Brule

    Dr. Steve Brule Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 7, 2012
    It's been a while since I read it also, but I think the climax was the pirate attack on the Chimaera and the Bel Iblis battle group being called off to a planetary conflict that was set off by the Imperials, I think.
     
  22. Trip

    Trip Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 7, 2003
    i think Sniper_Wolf was referring to the 'thousand terrible somethings' or whatever that Thrawn or holo-Thrawn or whatever mentions being out in the unknown regions that the empire of the hand is supposed to be guarding the galaxy against. iirc this was actually foreshadowing the galactic invasion that dark horse and bantam had planned? so it wasn't a specifically tease of the coming vong invasion but it worked out well enough as one since when del rey got the license they went ahead with the idea, albeit in a different form

    anyway i haven't read these books in like a really long time and i'm super spacey right now but oddly enough i found the idea of thrawn as a morale-boosting savior sorta plausible i guess? what with the remnant being a sad shogunate run by his protege and #1 fan, with the help of most of what used to be his personal fleet. so of course they'd be super stoked if he came back. it's important to remember that the remnant isn't the empire, it's just pelly's sad little vanity project

    (of course it is pretty dumb that han or anybody not part of the remnant bubble would buy his return let alone crap themselves over it but anyway)



    re: Caamas ugh i hate that planet and its stupid tapirs. it's a cheap alien knockoff of alderaan except alderaan is actually interesting. it came completely out of left field, the entire caamas document crisis is nonsensical, caamasi are annoying, and the idea that they taught jedi how to be nice people is just ugh. and probably most importantly palpatine slagging a prominent core world solely because he hates their hippy ways is just cartoonishly out of character, even for zahn.

    basically i hate caamas and everything that has since come from it.

    well except for that time when shedao shai killed elegos and fedex'd his bones to corran, that was pretty great
     
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  23. Zeta1127

    Zeta1127 Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    I haven't got around to rereading the Hand of Thrawn Duology yet, and I unfortunately don't remember as much from the duology as I would like.
     
  24. Robimus

    Robimus Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 6, 2007
    Thing is, definitions aside, they believe they are the Empire. The New Republic believes they are the Empire.

    I don't understand why it would be important to remember. I mean your certainly welcome to that point of view, and I'm sure that complaining internally about every character POV in the book was fun and all, but it kinda runs against the story that is being told.
     
  25. Gorefiend

    Gorefiend Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 23, 2004
    Trust me after Black Fleet super powered Luke I was really happy with it, were his plot was so shoehorned in it made you mentally page skip and "I have no real reason to be here" Corellia Luke was not much better :p

    The heavily indoctrinated and brainwashed Stormtroopers might, but they also actually “liked” the Emperor. The really normal Soldiers? Very Doubtful.

    You mean very clearly after them ;)

    He actually put on Stormtrooper gear and joins them at least twice. Plus Thrawn actually commands battles. Vader has Generals and Admirals do this.

    Not really, even those get solved in Vision of the Future