PT Club Jocasta - Thrawn Ascendancy: Chaos Rising

We're back from the longest unintentional hiatus (maybe it was intentional, who knows) for another Club Jocasta book club. This time we're diving into the new novel from Timothy Zahn, Thrawn Ascendancy: Chaos Rising.


Looking forward to finding out more about the Chiss Ascendancy. Anyone is welcome to participate in the discussion. I'll aim to have the first few chapters read by next weekend, October 4 and hopefully get things rolling then.

As always with your friendly reminder:

 

Got this book on my Kindle but haven't started it yet. This looks like a good excuse to start it

 

I'm finishing up another book and then will order this.

Any chance we can do Queen's Peril next? @Guidman

 

You're like a mind reader. I got that out of the library today so I was planning on doing that next. There's not much else out until The High Republic stuff at the beginning of next year.

 

I started reading last night and it has one of my favorite things that Del Rey enjoys doing in the new canon: changing timelines every other chapter.


Maybe we can just change to Queen's Peril now not serious.

 

Started my reading got through the first chapter and "memories" section. I do think it could be interesting to see Chiss society from the inside as it were. I get some imperial Japanese inspired vibes from them with their family name being more important than their personal name and the structure of the names themselves as well that focus on honor, militarism, and the collectivist mindset so that is kind of cool. I also think the idea that people could be adopted into families and can sort of climb in ranks is fascinating and suggests an intriguing mix of meritocracy with a place where family and birth seems to matter so much.

Is there any particular pages or chapters we should try to have done by certain dates?

 

No, it's not a school assignment. You can read at your leisure and can discuss. I'm about 150 pages in. It's pretty good so far, seeing the Chiss society and how it operates. It does have a lot of technical stuff like Treason did too. For some reason, the early chapters with Thrawn reminded me Spock in the new Star Trek movies. Far above his peers mentally but socially awkward. My only complaint so far is each character having a bunch of names (formal Chiss name, abbreviated version), pretty sure Thrawn has three names in the first few chapters.

I'm throwing it out there now: General Ba'kif is going to be key to the story or some big revelation about him. He even might be Snoke.....

 

One of the things I've found pretty interesting so far is how they've expanded on the sky-walkers that they mentioned in Treason. The relationships that Che'ri (sky-walker) and Thalias (caretaker) have has been cool to read about.

 

@Guidman I am about twenty percent through the book now, and I have to agree that the relationship between Che'ri and Thalias has been one of the most interesting things to read about. There's a compelling dynamic between them with Thalias having a history of being a former sky-walker herself and it's sweet to see her caring for Che'ri. I do find the idea of sky-walkers losing their power to navigate as they come out of childhood intriguing.

Also, it's kind of lowkey amusing to me that we have these sky-walkers in a franchise build around Skywalkers

 

As sometimes the whole Thrawn being ten steps ahead of everyone can be alittle too much for me, I did have a laugh of him just making up the family hostage situation to throw the Nikarduns off.

 

Finally finished this book last night. I was a bit slow in my reading not because of any major flaws in the book, but because I am currently in the habit of reading many books at once, which while exciting, means that my pace in getting through books is a bit slower than if I read one book at a time.

Anyway, leaving aside my personal reading habits, I enjoyed reading the book throughout. Zahn has a strong writing style, and I was consistently interested in the politics and world building of Chiss society. I liked Thrawn's friendship and overall professional relationship with Admiral Ar'alani where they have a great mutual respect and trust in one another and their careers are entwined together so tightly from the days of Thrawn training to be an officer and her needing to defend him against a charge that he cheated. Ara'lani, Thalias, and Che'ri were my favorite characters in this book, so I look forward to seeing what happens to them in the next book of this series when it is released.

I do agree with @Guidman that it can become a bit grating how Thrawn is constantly portrayed as being smarter than everyone else and always about ten moves ahead, so I do appreciate that it was emphasized how Thrawn had this major blindspot and weakness when it came to understanding politics, the shifting goals, and nuances thereof. The final conversation between Ar'alani and Thrawn about how Thrawn is unable to really understand the ever-changing nature of politics (even though as Thrawn says it is another form of warfare) was very moving in that way. I really like how loyal Ar'alani is to Thrawn throughout and how she sees potential for greatness in him but also is aware of his flaws and blindspots. I think she is a great character along with Thalias and Che'ri. This book really shined with its creation and depiction of female characters in my opinion.

It did warm my heart to see Thrawn go on a special mission with Che'ri and teach her how to fly. Thalias undergoing her trials with the Mitth family (which were really fascinating to read about) at the same time was also really awesome.

And there was incredible payoff for the whole hostage ploy @Guidman mentions at the climax of the book.

All in all, a very satisfying read for me even if I did wish that the memories arc had a bit more clearly developed conflict and resolution arc of its own. But that's a fairly minor quibble.

On a five star rating system, I'd give the book a very strong 4.5 out of 5 stars. Definitely a recommended read for Star Wars fans!

 

Sorry for the delay in posting. I just got the book out again from the library, I have around 100 pages left. I should finish it this weekend. This is probably one of the more dense Star Wars novels I can remember. For the most part because pretty much everything in the book is new to readers. I'm enjoying it so far but I have my frustrations with the character of Thrawn and Zahn as well.

 

So this is one of the more mixed bag of a book for me. It delves into a whole area of the galaxy that we've never seen before. If Thrawn wasn't the main character, you could make an argument that it doesn't feel entirely like a Star Wars novel. I did enjoy learning more about the Chiss culture (certainly the hierarchy in the Ascendancy) and we get more of a sense of who Thrawn is. Certainly learning more about his background. Learning how he treats people as assets at time was interesting, certainly plays more into the villain side of him that we know later. I liked the concept of the Skywalkers and how after they grow out of the Third Sight, they're almost cast away.

Now my main frustration in it lies with Zahn as an author now. His writing style is certainly more sci-fi than other authors and I can understand, he has a background in physics. It wasn't fully on the level of Treason (tilt ship 0.3 angle..) but it can get into the weeds with sci-fi/technical stuff. Also, full disclosure: I think Thrawn's one of the most overrated characters in Star Wars, certainly the new canon iteration. Consistently being ten steps ahead has gotten real old over the course of the past four novels. Of course Thrawn knew that the Vaks wear hoods to block the sunlight, he saw them do that yesterday. Also, the studying of art to learn military strategy is severely beaten to death now. The fact that Zahn shoehorns it into every novel is lazy to me, you can only go to that well so many times before he becomes a one-trick pony (which at this point it certainly is).

With four straight novels of Thrawn from Zahn, I don't know how much excitement I have for the next novel in the trilogy. I'll see what the synopsis is next year and go from there. I really liked the Thrawn 2017 book. Thought the relationship and dialogue between Thrawn and Eli Vanto was well done. I didn't like Allegiance that much, the skipping time periods each chapter isn't for me. Treason was an improvement but still kind of mediocre for me. The thing is, I've enjoyed some of Zahn's other non-Thrawn novels. I liked both Allegiance and Choices of One, dealing with the Hand of Judgement. Scoundrels was just a fun novel for, the Ocean's 11 novel for Star Wars. I wish he'd take a break from Thrawn. Although with the big name drop in the Mandalorian this past week, it doesn't seem like Thrawn is going anywhere, anytime soon.