Books Thrawn Alliances Book - Summer 2018

Scoundrels was the most Bantam of any Del Rey novel -- I definitely recommend it. As someone who also had doubts after reading the Choices of One series. Scoundrels' major problem was that it set up a lot of unresolved plots and felt like Zahn really wanted to do a sequel.

 

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm expecting.

 

I wonder what the new threat is supposed to be.

One of the reasons the "villain" in the last Thrawn book worked better for me than in Choices of One was that he was a Rebel given a sympathetic motivation, which made lots of opportunity to make him well-rounded and interesting, as opposed to Nuso Esva, who was just supposed to be more villainous villain and ended up being rather two-dimensional.

 

I haven't read that one in a while. What did they set up? Other than Villachor going to work for Imperial Intelligence...

 

I wonder if this was planned before the first book was released or after mostly positive feedback it was decided they'd do another.
Also, do you think we might get a comic adaptation of this since we're getting a comic adaptation of the first book?

 

I think it has to do with the fact that there is a lot of story left to tell about Thrawn within the novels. Though the Thrawn novel was extremely successful there have been a few other new canon novels that were just as successful and very well received as well. Catalyst and Bloodline sold about the same as Thrawn did and were very well liked also.

 

1. YAAASSSSS. I honestly checked Amazon this morning LOL

3. Thanks for the reminder!

5. Do I get a prize?

 

Barriss, we truly have differring perspectives. Scoundrels is my least favorite Zahn book by far, which surprised me since I loved the short story released just prior to the book.

Sent from my Moto X-Wing

 

It's definitely not one of the best books ever (the loose ends were annoying), but I got the impression Zahn wrote it for fun more than anything else. It's sort of goofy yeah, but that's what I'd expect from a Han & Lando book.

 

Scoundrels was fun, yeah. I liked it much better than the miserable "Allegiance" series.

 

I think I'm the only person who really liked Allegiance/Choices of One. Choices, especially.

 

I'm with you. Loved them. Scoundrels was really, really boring, IMO. But I know it was well liked in general. As was Mercy Kill...which was also very...meh to me.

Thrawn was ok, but I was also really into it at the same time. Loads better than Scoundrels...which I sincerely was looking forward too. I enjoyed all Zahn's Del Rey books up to that point. Outbound Flight was possibly my favorite.

Sent from my Moto X-Wing

 

I’ll read another thrawn novel, yes please.

 

My undying love and admiration.

Also that button I gave you

 

Mercy Kill was a mixed bag for me. It had great character moments, great action, heartbreaking death scenes, and a lot of other staples from the Wraith Squadron trilogy. But it lacked a good villain or a good climax, and the third act of the book just kind of fell apart. Miles better than any of Allston's Fate of the Jedi stuff, but still missing enough to be a solid book.

OK. I'll say it if no one else will. We're all thinking it, anyway: The book will feature Thrawn outsmarting Anakin/Vader at every opportunity. Come on, guys. We all know that it will.

 

Nope, I do too. Of course, The A-Team in the Star Wars universe is putting one of my favorite TV shows and one of my favorite movie franchises together, so it was almost inevitable that I'd like it.

Now, make a MacGyver book in the Star Wars universe, and I'll never ask for another story again.

 

I mean, I can tell from your username why you might have had some affection for it, but personally I just... can't defend Choices on any level. I think it and the 'series' in general bears far and away the most responsibility for perceptions like this

 

I will admit that the Thrawn in Thrawn is more flawed and fallible than he has been in literally decades, but yeah, the Thrawn- and Mara-worship in Choices is still going to take some more time to get over. And they weren't the only bad subplots in a book full of them, either. I hesitate to compare the Hand of Judgment to the A-Team because the members of the A-Team all had distinct personalities. In the Hand, LaRone is the only one with any personality at all --- in Choices the rest of them all had zero-note personalities and were indistinguishable from each other. They might as well have been named Trooper A, Trooper B, etc. Would have made it easier to keep track of who was who.

 

I actually think Alliegence was worse then Choices in Jmo. Luke literally being locked in a cupboard/Darth Vader going on Google and being jealous of an 19 year old it was all just eww. He even redid a scene from Spector of the Past only swapping Luke with Mara. It was TFA before TFA was uncool

Jeff_Ferguson you consider Chouces worse than Alliegence ?

 

Allegiance was a serviceable book. Nothing to write home about, but it was a decent little OT-era adventure that cleverly had Luke and Mara at the same place without seeing or meeting each other, and the only egregious Mara-worship was when she turned off the lights and got the better of Vader. Although I didn't like the re-writing of Mara's Force abilities --- the 90s had led us to believe that during the OT she was a skilled assassin who used The Force to augment her stealth and killing abilities, but by 2007 the prequels had happened so suddenly she was a prequel-era Jedi who swung a lightsaber around and backflipped and stuff.

Choices, on the other hand, was just awful. Luke's subplot saw him gaping at how amazing and incredible Mara was with The Force while she simultaneously was disgusted with how sloppy and terrible he was (ugh). Meanwhile, Thrawn predicted that the Rebels would make a base on an ice planet and warned Palpatine not to dismiss the indigenous population of Endor. Seriously? Seriously?? The Lord Odo subplot lacked any suspense, as the parallels between him and Thrawn were too obvious for him to end up being anyone but the bad guy. The Han and Leia subplot was utterly generic Han-and-Leia-bickering-between-ANH-and-ESB that we had seen a thousand times before. The Hand of Judgment got zero characterization beyond LaRone. Zahn tried to do way too much in this book and failed miserably at all of it. Well actually the scenes from Pellaeon's POV weren't bad, and Airen Cracken had a cameo, so that was cool. But all in all the book was an FOTJ-level catastrophe. That's why I asked about Scoundrels, as the last two Zahn books I've read have been messes.

 

My own view is that Scoundrels was kind of meh tbh, almost dare I say it boring. Not bad just bland. The best scenes were the Winter scenes but she was clearly an after thought and the whole Oceans Eleven plot was the main story and was very forgettable. If not for the rather pointless twist reveal at the end, I doubt it would've been remembered at all.

For me Outbound Flight is still the best Zahn out there.

 

Allegiance was okay at best. Choices was rubbish. I'd underline twice if I could.

(And I thought Scoundrels was fun, but I don't know how much my opinion's gonna help you since I also thought Thrawn was great).

 

Allegiance and Choices were both low points in Zahn's run, and I can't say I ever really cared too much about the whole Robin Hood-Stormtrooper thing. I didn't hate the books, but I found them tedious at times. Though, in defence of Choices, I did really like the concept of Nuso Esva...the actual idea that the Unknown Regions factions would intrude on the Empire and Rebellion's turf is fascinating to me.