Lit STAR WARS - THRAWN - My Brutally Honest Review

Actually, I've looked this up. So while Disney's Lucasfilm story department (yes...that is a real thing...) keeps a close eye on the canon (and they do...nothing gets done with that without going trhough them first) the rest of the written materail is soley up to them. So I will agree, they have no 'real' grip on the stories being produced...or at least a soft hand on it....they are keeping a tight leash on the canon material. So there's that solved. Good? M'kay....

I'm now 22 chapters in.....and I am finding this book......BORING! What a waste of a character novel! I do enjoy Thrawn and his rise through the ranks, the observations and military prowess. But having the bulk of the book focusing on Pryce and her adventures in Coruscant is utter boredom. An intelligent story? No, this is not that....this is a political drama and it 's far from intelligent. The focus is too much on the intrigue of senate inner workings and planetary mining conspiracies. OMG! Is this the only conflict going on in the whole f'n galaxy?! The Empire should be up to their eyeballs in counter insurgents and the beginning of the Rebel factons.....not quibbling over which Moff is trying to undermine the other. Whether this is where it leading up too the reblels...it's still boring.

This book should be on Thrawn solely. It should be in his perspective and on all the deallings with living in the Empire. Who gives a crap about a new character that Zahn is trying to hustle again, Pryce is god awful and extra fluff that isn't necessary or bring anything vital to this book. She rises up and helps Thrawn abit....but really? Wasn't something that was totally needed.

There are moments in this novel when Thrawn is excelling and bits where he's totally subdued. And isn't he suppose to be a bad guy? Zahn continually tries to make a "Nice" villain as if we should feel sorry for him and maybe enjoy the Empire as it overcomes the prejudice within. Whhhaaaa? Oh come on! It's the EMPIRE!! Evil, powerful and boot to the throat tyrannical! If anything the military should be cut throat and relentless to all of it's kind military and civilian. This soft and relaxed approach is utterly laughable. Here I'm expecting Thrawn to destroy opposition forces with his military cunning and observations and all we get is him doing barely anything at all. Unforgivable. Wasteful. Pure ZAHN!

Sounds like a conlclusion ahead of finishing the book. Well....I can't help it. I wanted him to desperately to take full advantage of putting his character in the spotlight and letting his creation shine as it becomes canon. But, alas....he does not. He is a over-thinking professional writer that's for sure, so he has no passion for writing in field itself. If he was...the book would be far more epic, far more thrilling and much more steeped into the galaxy that's far, far away. What we have is "The Art Of Coruscant Politics"...not Star WARS!

Ok. Breathe.....*exhales*....time to finish up this....book. Maybe now all the jockying for top dog is coming to a close...more military missions will come. (Probably not.)

 

Pryce isn't Zahn's character - Pryce was invented for Rebels. Zahn's job was to tie her backstory and Thrawn's together - because of the way Season 3 began - with the hints that Pryce and Thrawn were connected in some way.

 

As the book characters constantly say in those Zahn-isms..."Ah!" Can't say I've been following the whole "Rebels" tv show....so I was unaware of Pyrce being in it.

 

Ok, gone and familarized myself with Pryce. So now I see how she plays into the whole thing with his involvment.

 

I, too, am less than impressed so far. But its still better that anything else I've read in the new canon (Ahsoka, Lost Stars, Bloodline...and I'm not counting the TFA novelization). I'm less than 100 pages in, and the italicized stage direction is super annoying. Why write it this way?

"Right," Vanto said. "Which means you'd still have to carry a long-range version for off-ship use." He sighs in resignation. (more dialogue follows)
Or

"I suppose," Vanto said. His tone is thoughtful. (more dialogue follows)

Or

"Not even close." He is silent for three more steps. His forehead is creased in a frown. (more dialogue follows)

This just seems like such a dumbed down way to write. I get it when the italicized text is Thrawn's thoughts. Part of good writing is helping the reader to see what you're describing. You show. You don't tell. I'm going to lay this one at the Story Group and/or Editor's feet, since I've never seen this in any of Zahn's previous work. I was 8-11 year old when I first read TTT. There's absolutely no reason to write a book this way, even if kids are going to read it. And its particularly galling, since I know Zahn can do better. Personally, I thought he did a really good job with political intrigue in the Hand of Thrawn duology.

 

That was basically my reaction to this book, too. "Zahn can do better."

Still waiting on a JC Lit Review Thread.

 

Zahn really, really, is doubling down on his Thrawn white-washing. Again.

 

DarthGaul Wow, some pretty strong opinions there about what should and shouldn't be in a Star Wars novel! First of all...Thrawn's discovery by the Empire was fairly soon after ROTS, and the book covers at least a decade leading up to Star Wars: Rebels season 3, which is in the year 2 BBY. According to other sources, we don't have organized Rebel cells pestering the Empire until 5 BBY...mostly because the Empire's grip tightened gradually, and people tend to act like the proverbial frog in the boiling water at least until the last minute. Which brings me to another point: do you really think everyone in the Empire was evil to the core? If so that's incredibly naive, and a huge contradiction to an entire list of characters in both canon and Legends. That said...I do tend to agree with you regarding the split focus on Thrawn and Pryce, as the characters weren't really connected enough over the course of the novel to warrant a shared spotlight. Each of them should really have gotten their own novel, not only because both characters deserve it but because covering more than a decade of time between multiple perspectives put an undue strain on even a 400-page count.

Jedi_Jade-Skywalker Yes, those bits of prose were a little rough-around-the-edges. If you've read the annotated Heir to the Empire, you might know that Zahn has been adamant in the past about never portraying scenes from an alien's perspective, as they would likely think very differently from our linear human minds. Obviously this particular story demanded that we spend time with Thrawn alone...and for that Zahn had to come up with and perpetuate a form of prose that could relate Thrawn's observations of the actions around him without actually getting into his thoughts. I thought it was a quite clever way of allowing the reader to see through Thrawn's eyes without thinking his thoughts, but I do think Zahn should have gone back and edited those sections a little more to work better in the context of the rest of the novel. Before I got used to it and knew what Zahn was doing it definitely jarred me out of the story.

comradepitrovsky Excuse me? "White-washing?"

 

I don't get how people can be so sensitive about empire/fo are made up of white human beings.

They are made of white human beings. Always have been portrayed thus on films. To them (the characters) it is nothing to be ashamed of, and readers should not have any problems when authors portray them thus.

The authors should not be ashamed of portraying the empire/fo as predominately white. In fact, if for some reason authors/screenwriters wrote the empire/fo to be more "politically correct", I would think they(the characters)'re out of character and not really empire/fo, bu became some kind of pathetic attempt to get more readers,

Stop being so sensitive. I mean, next time someone will complain why grand admirals have white uniforms. I can see it now: the uniforms are too whtie, it must actually be portrayed as the multicolor symbol. It is the only way!"


full disclosure: I'm not even Caucasian.

 

What? He what? What now? This is a real thing? What?

 

Everything that's italicized and in present tense is Thrawn's thoughts and observations. I found it very interesting since we've never read Thrawn's thoughts before.

It's not bad writing. It's an experimental way to tell a story. It happens all the time in novels that aren't Star Wars.

 

It's not DISNEY's department. It is Lucasfilm. Disney is the parent company. Lucasfilm is still a separate, autonomous entity. So the Story Group that's overseeing canon is not a Disney overlord.

 

It was bad. I got sick of reading about facial heat and tightening throat muscles very, very quickly, and in the latter half of the book the italicized bits began referring to Thrawn in the third person. Why would they refer to him in the third person if they're his thoughts and observations? Does he talk like Bob Dole now? The italicized bits were a sloppy, inconsistent and repetitive mess that were a weak attempt to make Thrawn more mysterious.

 

Caesar, being aware of their custom, in order that he might not encounter a more formidable war, sets forward to the army earlier in the year than he was accustomed to do.

Edit:

Qua consuetudine cognita Caesar, ne graviori bello, occurreret, maturius quam consuerat ad exercitum proficiscitur

 

Okay.

 

Let's not kid ourselves here. This is a Disney EMPRIE and yes they are the overlord (Or the Emperor if you like)....they are not autonomus, they've mearely given the studio a freedom of sorts to manage certain aspects, but when it comes to any sort of final EXECUTIVE decision....it will be Disney. Think of Disney the parent watching over their children as they play....while the parent gives the kids room to run and explore on their own for a bit....they will make sure they don't get into any trouble or do something they don't approve of.


Disney and Lucasfilm are a joint comapny with seperate studios, yes. But in the end....it is Disney now that directs their hand. Why? Because they own the Franchise and they want to everything to flow with their Star Wars grand plan mapped out. Ok, I'm tired of talking about this. Believe what you believe....I refuese to continue on this matter any longer.


Heading into chapter 29....

So with all my opinion on what Star Wars should be....I will revoke that angered comment, just because I was ticked off at the book's lack of warfare at the time and depth I was in the novel. So now they've had a major skirrmish, great...at long last....but my god, there's a lot of exposition going on during a battle. While I find Thrawn's tatics and manouvers to be interesting....I also find his inner thoughts on people's reactions to be annoying now as well. I can appreciate the fact that Zahn wants us to understand the man and how he observes others, but this is getting a tad annoying.

On to the next....

 

Zahn has clearly been trying to make Thrawn less and less villainous since TTT. This Thrawn -- which hates civillian casualities -- and TTT's Thrawn that demolishes houses and fires on civillians, are hard to reconcile.

 

Literally no-one was talking about this. The reference made to whitewashing had nothing to do with race.

Whitewashing:

- deliberately attempt to conceal unpleasant or incriminating facts about (a person or organization)

When people talk about Thrawn being "whitewashed" -- as they have for over a decade -- they mean his evil being de-emphasised in favour of portraying him as well-intentioned extremist, and the like.


While I can see how this mix-up occurred, given the way the term is applied in other contexts, this is the second time to my knowledge you've gone on a weird racial tangent. Which bodes ill. Do not let there be a third.

 

I'd like to sidestep that issue. How that all came about is just beyond me....but let's all move on from that. This about my rant, not others. Heh!

So I've just come to the chapter dealing with the real reason why Thrawn came to the Empire and what he's trying to do. And my first thought was....."What?!"

So you've taken a really interesting, intelligent and possible ultra-badass character....and made him into a 'wanna-be' good guy. Oh come on.
Villians are made to hate....we love to hate them and hate to love them....but we need that villian to, ya know, be a villain...not be some sort of kind of good guy in the making. Which is why Palpatine is is such a big villian to hate....cause he's really evil and he's a force to reckon with. (Quite literally)

Hopefully this book will be coming to an end soon....and then I can give my final comments and summary of it all as a whole.

Lots of snorting going on though....as well as..."ah"...and Eli wincing so many times....gotta say, Zahn is just a terrible creature of habit.

 

A very neat Hans Gruber tone to this line Uli, unintentional?

 

Zahn's a big subscriber to "Many villains see themselves as heroes". Thrawn wouldn't be his only one.

 

I admit, I learned it from him.

 

Your a thief ?
No I am an exceptional thief and since Iv upgraded to kidnapping I'd watch what I'd say if I were you

 

I've seen this out at my local B&N... been wondering about the reviews... kinda bummed that so far they seem just kinda "meh" - at least here...