Lit The Hand Of Thrawn Duology - My Very Brutal Review

Review #1- Spectre of the Past

Read (sorry, I meant listened too....audiobook back and forth to work) the first one and I found it just as boring as the first book of The Thrawn Trilogy. I mean, good god, Mr. Zahn - would it kill you to have a bit of action at the beginning of the book to hook the reader in? Have the fleet locked in a heated battle where everyone is jolting around....not just standing there like their on break around the water cooler.

Ok, I do like the idea of bringing in a con man pretending to be Thrawn ( I think the Clone idea would have been better though) and that the Imperials are in a bit of a power struggle. I also like the unrest and political turmoill of the New Republic as that would most definately happen after a dictaor is overthrown (Or killed...what have you.)

What I find most about this book - too much exposition! Talking, talking, talking, talking.....oy vey!

I've never seen such a chatty character star wars novel in my life. Yes, I understand that they are explaining the plot and the details of their plans, but holy crap - that is waaaaaay too much. Most of that could have been in the narrative and not in their converstations. The characters sound like books themselves as the drone on and on about what will happen next and what they'll do. Come on, Zahn! It's STAR WARS not STAR BORED!

True this is only the first book....and yes, it needs to build up to the next. But that's a lot of craming of story he's trying to do in one book. It's not even entertaining enough to keep me away on the road (a few times my eyes began drifting as they chatted on and on). And it looks like some of the main characters got brushed aside for a bit for the other "Zahn Creations" to get a more of a spotlight.

Lots of explots from Talon Karrde, Mara Jade, Tierce, Pellaeon....and of course the imposter Thrawn. Naturally a writer does want his own characters to shine...so I won't hold that against him. However though, their side adventures within the arc of the story itself was too distracting. It seemed to drift away from the heart of the main character's plight and just (as always in his stuff) felt like un-necessary fluff.

So....yeah, no surprise I'm not loving the Zahn. I'm glad to see many enjoy his books....but I'm a bit perplexed at him getting such high praise all the time. Course, I'm not even in the same ranks as he is...so who am I to question that, I'm sure. Still, I find his writing to be repeatitive at times (Point, Mottled Sky, Yeah, I'll be alirght...) and making the characters so bland and boring. I think he needs to be less in the cerebral and more into the action hero....cause this ain't Trek, it's Star Wars.

This book was a bit better then the entire Thrawn Trilogy, some of the writing improved and moved a tad faster. But it still wasn't enough to make me give it full stars. Again, this is only part one of a two parter....but even a part one has to have more going for it then this.

So my review rating is 3 out of 5 for this book. And that's being generous on my part....but only because this book is a step up from his last Thrawn books.

So now it's onto Visions Of The Future....

 

I think once you read through Visions of the Future you'll come to appreciate the exposition and build up of Specter of the Past in certain parts, and in others you will be left scratching your head.

I find the Hand of Thrawn duology a much more rewarding experience to read overall than the original Thrawn trilogy. The plot isn't so reliant on remixing the OT, and the original story with all the political conspiratorial intrigue is miles above the military science fiction edge of the older books. There are some neat little twists and turns, especially when it becomes evident that...well, I don't want to say anything that might be spoiler-ific.

If you want to, you could also pick up Survivor's Quest and think of it as a long epilogue to the revelations and events that happen in Vision of the Future. I like to read all three as a trilogy sometimes, even though Survivor's Quest doesn't actually work too well as a third part.

 

Here's a thing dude most of these early to late 90's books are pretty much going to be this way, i would suggest trying to the books from the 2000's like Labyrinth of Evil, Shatterpoint, Dark Lord Rise of Darth Vader . Oh and what were your thoughts of Mara Jade?

In fact it reminds me of something fett 4 brought up on a forum about cinematic style books. Or something of that nature (Apologies for forgetting the wording)

 

Well, yes....I get at the time that this was all anyone had close to a "Star Wars Fix" before the Prequels even saw the light of day. And I get that Zahn was trying to expand further into the mythos and develop something interesting for the readers. Like I said, I think that's fine, he's a professional writer and that's his job. However, his style of writing might not be everyone's cup o' blue milk.

Mara Jade in this one seemed to be a tad more relaxed in this story at least. Can't say that I'm still a fan of her character....she just still seems to on the nose that she'll end up with Skywalker. I was halfway into Cloak Of Deception (My 'borrowed' Audiobook cut off mid-way because the file was incomplete), dry as that book might have been....it still seemed more interesting then HTTE.

I remember reading Splinter Of The Mind's Eye waaaay back....and just wondering, "what the hell was that story?" But even back then, it was something that was meant to be a gap filler between ANH and ESB. (It even was going to be the next possible sequel to ANH if it hadn't been a blockbuster)

Well, I do have to say that this book was better then probably the other three combined...but still dragged too much to stretch out the story into a two parter. Which really, it could have been one book had he not filled it with other side stories or long exhausted character dialogues. Again, I understand....it's a money maker....gotta stretch them to make money.

 

That wasn't me but Tom Veitch in an interview of his I posted.

 

So are you having these problems with all the Star Wars novels your reading or do you just think Star Wars is better as a visual medium

 

Not a fan of the duology. I found Flim particularly obnoxious, as was the "fix" aspects.

It comes off as more of an April Fools' Day satire than Zahn's actual April Fools' Day satire.

 

There are soooooo many books in the world, why are you torturing yourself by reading books you don't like? I will never understand that.

 

I never understand watching reading or listening to something you don't like in the first place either.

 

Especially as its no longer relevant. I forced myself to read through LotF and FotJ, to see what post-NJO GFFA would look like, hoping there would be some improvement, some happy ending that would slightly justify all the pain and misery... but it ended up being a waste of time. Though you should also read a book to criticize it rather than pre-judge it too.

But after the OP's reaction to the Thrawn trilogy, not sure there's much point to reading the HoT duology. In some ways its worse than the Thrawn trilogy, and has more flaws that show up in much of Zahn's later Star Wars works.

A lot is left to VotF to wrap up, which it does. I remember when I first picked up VotF so long ago that it looked huge to me. I know, there are many novels larger than that, but it seemed like the largest Star Wars novel ever (at the time, I know several NJO novels were quite longer).

In some ways I like the talk-y nature of the book. The HoT duolgoy serve as a kind of "epilogue" to the Galactic Civil War, as after all those defeats, there's not really much of a war going on anymore, but they still need to wrap things up. As well as showing what a post-Empire galaxy looks like, and that its not all instant happy ending. In many ways, I miss the flawed version of the galaxy shown here. There were problems, but didn't seem quite like galactic war problems- tons of local problems, but not another galactic war at least. True, this is Star Wars, and occasional big galactic wars are just part of the setting, but I like to read the aftermath too sometimes.

Back then it seemed surreal that here were the OT characters 20 years after the Empire was defeated (mostly). Nowadays, it just seems like an extremely idealistic setting compared to Star Wars stories we've gotten in the last decade (old EU and new EU).

 

Though I'd still argue to try some of the Prequel Era books like Labyrinth of Evil, Shatterpoint, Darth Maul Shadow Hunter.

 

While I will go to bat for a lot of aspects of the Heir trilogy, I feel the Hand of Thrawn is a step down

 

I was not a fan of Shada, she was basically a Mara clone but without Force Powers. Right down to the same character journey that Mara does in TTT

 

I love the Duology and the fact that Luke and Mara got together in it, but was disappointed that we didn't got Thrawn back as a clone. That it was just an actor playing him.

It would have been much better if the clone that was grown in the UR had survived and ended up either in charge of the remnant or as the leader of the empire of the hand.

 

Hmmm....why am I reviewing star wars books on a star wars site? I'm sure there's some sort of reason. Well, for now I'm reading SW novels because I'm a fan and I wanted to see if the novels will at least will give me an insight to the various EU (or previous EU/Legends).

Why does anyone watch a bad movie and then watch others possibly knowing it could be bad but go anyways? You know you've all done it..."Oh boy, this could be be awful...buuuuut....I'll give it a shot." And then after, "God! That movie sucked! What was I thinking!"

You know having benefit of the doubt is ok, giving books a chance (or writers) and seeing where they go from there is just pure curiousity. Zahn won't be devestated from my one small review after shining up his awards and checking his full bank account, so really, let's just simmer down. This is MY review only, not the assosiated press.

I did like Darth Maul - Shadow Hunter and I was enjoying Cloak Of Deception (Clunky as it was and cut off half way), so there are some books I do enjoy. And who's to say I'm not entertained by the Zahn Wars...I'm not a fan of his writing style, but I can still enjoy where he was trying to go with it. Maybe I want to see if he's improved? Maybe I want to see where he takes the characters or the story? Maybe I'm hoping that all that high praise and recommended readings means the books have merit.

Yeah Shada is not a character I find interesting at all. Fluff again. Infact she's like a cross between Mara Jade and a Noghri. Hopefully there is a reason for her being in the duology at all.

 

I watch crappy movies all the time, but they're over in two hours. My to-read list is so long I have to REALLY be convinced to read a book before I even put it on the list. But, whatever floats your boat.

FWIW, Vision of the Future is my favorite Star Wars book, legends or canon. I'm sure you all can't figure out why.

 

Like I said before, there are some books I've read so far that aren't a problem. But Star Wars probably works best as a visual medium, or maybe it's just the way the writer tries to envision the battle isn't how it gets translated to the page in the right description. Zahn, for his part, does try to convey a descriptive battle....and yet, it never seems tense or actionable enough. Maybe because there's way too much banter going on inbetween (or the characters describing themselves about what they are about to do), it could even be that I just can't seem to get that mental image of what's going on.

The part where Luke is stuck on the asteroid base while it's blowing up and everyone chatting about what to do seems anti-climatic...it's taking far too long for the base to explode and for the others to figure out how to get him off. He should have been dead by the time they figured it out. I mean, come on...that was one slow explosion. Luke would have made a coffee, read a paper and used the washroom by the time the threat even came near him. Maybe that just how Zahn feels tension should be...who can say.

So why do I read his stuff if I hate it so much? What? I can't be curious to see how it turns out? And hate is such a strong word....there is no hate. I just feel frustrated at his writing style, that's all, otherwise I just try to see how the story progresses and where he'll take the characters.

 

Vision of the Future is one of my favorites, too. And I actually think it's one of Zahn's best-written SW works, too, edging out the original TTT books.

 

I think it was his book version of RTJ. It had a mix of good and bad.
The bad being his tendency to repeat himself. Every second page we had people talk about what a genius Thrawn was. There could be 2 people making a Hot Chocolate and suddenly it would turn into a conversation about how no one could do HC like Thrawn could ! He also repeated the exact same description that was used in DFR TLC,I'll use the quote from DFR "A pair of Skyp Ray Blast boats shoot by and Captain Brandi was no longer smiling"
You'll see it when you read it.

The good though is it goes along as a nice clip and has some great moments. He ended the Empire War and Bantam run really well and set beautifully for Del-Rey which they then completely ignored. Also getting Luke and Mara together was long overdue.

 

Could you be more elaborate on how they "Ignored it" I don't know my Bantam v Del-Rey history.

 

VotF set up loads of Unknown Regions threats. DR replaced those with the Vong en masse.

 

TheAvengerButton I would say Survivor's Quest works better as a sequel to Outbound Flight (or the reverse OF as a prequel to SQ).

 

This gets brought up a lot but I think it's overstated. That was I think literally a single line of dialogue from a single character, who no one else reacted to or expanded on. I think fans tend to latch on to that sentence to give it a lot more resonance than Zahn probably intended. And in any case, Del Rey didn't use the Vong solely. The Vong were the main villains of the biggest Star Wars series which began publication after that so of course they were going to be the focus of that series and have a lot of resonance after that fact, but even so there were the Killiks, the Vagaari in at least three Zahn books, the Jaden Korr duology with the Rakatan space station AI, even the NJO had a full trilogy within it devoted to going into the Unknown Regions and looking at some of the other threats there, including incorporating the return of the Ssi-Ruuvi.

 

Ah Gotcha, i was curious on what the story behind the story was.

 

Half way through VOTF.....It's getting overly complicated, too many characters to keep track of and all the side stories. I am enjoying the Adventures of Lando and Han though...maybe Zahn should have written a book just about those two.