Lit Now it is the Future! Vision of the Future and the Hand of Thrawn Duology 18 years later My Review

Ok after finding my old copies of the Hand of Thrawn books, I realised it's been 18 years since Vision and 19 years since Spectre, so I thought (as well as feeling old) I'd give them a re-read and see how well they hold up, what with the Prequels and TCW and Disney buy out and the ST etc.
Would the various themes of the Force and power and how Zahn viewed it in his books hold up. Would the story itself hold up under renewed scrutiny.
It was also the last books of the Bantam run before they switched to Del-Rey as well so it was also ending and rounding up that whole run of stories and setting up for them.

Well after reading it, in terms of the Prequels, with a few things like Dates aside, it's actually ok and holds up pretty well. Yes the Clones and how they were perceived back then in The Clone Wars is different but it's not out right stated, so that it can be retconned without too much effort to simply mistrust for turning on the Jedi and helping Palpatine become Emperor. While given that they spend the book off being babysat, Jacen and Jaina and Anakin's names (for the Disney ST) are only briefly mentioned so if they ever were to be re-edited again it would not require much effort, and given the Peace treaty for the Empire and New Rep it wouldn't be that hard to imagine break away groups such as the First Order and Resistance to spring up. So again it's ok. Only really Palpatines anti-alien bias is really the only thing that doesn't stand up the most, since Palpy was always an equal opportunities manipulator.

As for the book itself as a Stand alone story to read.... well that's where it doesn't entirely hold up. It's set 10 years after his Thrawn trilogy books but the way the most minute things are referenced, it feels more like the setting would have worked if it was just a year or 2 rather than 10.
As well there is a lot of mentions and references to previous Bantam works, so if you haven't read Dark Empire or Jedi Academy or IJedi your not going to know what the hell they are talking about. Also Spectre itself feels like a short story padded out to make a Duology and not really needed in jmo.

While the pacing itself is excellent and Zahn deftly juggles a number of plots at the same time very well, (with my liking more the one from the Imperial Infiltration teams story being told from there POV more than I did 18 years ago) they are all pretty much after the same thing, the Caamas Document, with the exception of Luke who goes after Mara, and they are the ones who end up finding the document unintentionally. This is were the book falls down and doesn't hold up. Mainly due to the main plot. Basically a fake Thrawn is on the scene and engineering all this, while everyone is quaking in fear, thinking it's the real Thrawn. Now people talk about Thrawn and his genius a lot, nearly every other page which can get tiring and a bit absurd tbh (the idea he was manipulating Palpy is laughable). Luke and Mara are hiking in a cave and they suddenly start talking about Thrawn. Booster and Mirax have a cameo and in there Father/Daughter discussion and who should come up yep Thrawn. Some Clones talk about being reactivated as agents and you guessed it, Thrawn comes up.
While like I said the main characters are terrified of him:
Mara thinks he's a step ahead of Palpatine and 2 steps ahead of everyone else, Lando goes 1 further and says Thrawn is 3 steps ahead. Leia actually considers him another Super Weapon on Par with The Death Star ! While Han (yep Han Solo) just gives up as he feels it's pointless carrying on as Thrawn will anticipate every move they make!
Anyway the whole charade is ended when Karrade and Mara Shada go to Cardas and get all the exposition needed on Flim the con-man pretending to be Thrawn and Tierce the brains behind it, even though he would have no way of knowing that it was Flim as Thrawn or Tierce pulling the strings, even if he knew that Thrawn wasn't real. Karrade then gives this info to Pelly while Shada defeats Tierce (Top combat soldier) in seconds. Also for the record I don't think Cardas the way he is written here (basically as Mr Exposition) was seen as Thrawn's boyfriend by Zahn as he would be in Choices of One.
Now I used to think the Luke/Mara scenes were my favourite back in they day but now they make me groan a bit. They go gave Cave exploring with some Telepathic bats and Luke is basically apologising for everything including Mara not having the same connection with the bats as she had with Palpatine. It's also the start of the never on the Darkside nonsense and Zahn, using Luke as his mouth piece to justify it, doesn't work at all. It also under cut his own views on the Force and Power but that's another debate for another day.
Anyway the ending with Peace between the Empire and New Rep was a good way to end the Bantam run while setting up the hundreds of threats in the Unknown Regions was also good set up for Del-Rey for future works, even though they never bothered to use it.

So overall enjoyable if slightly absurd story (with a bit to much OC love, that's giggle worthy) that manages to both Hold up and not Hold up at the same time.

 

I remember getting the internet around the time Vision of the Future came out, and Luke and Mara getting engaged was as big a news item as info on The Phantom Menace on Star Wars sites at the time.

 

The marriage was a big thing in those days. I could be wrong but wasn't one of the conditions of Zahn coming back to do the Duology being that they got married.