Books Thrawn Alliances Book - Summer 2018

I liked Nuru and it was a shame he hasn't been seen in any other media since.

 

I noticed that in the audio book for Alliances as well. It made me laugh more than anything. I have loved the new Thrawn novels though and IMO they are the best thing that Disney Star Wars has done with their new canon. I look forward to more books about him, the Chiss, and their relationship with The Core.

 

I'm glad you could laugh about it. Haha! I don't have any fanboy rage, but it was super-cringey and disappointing that it got approved in the production process and made it through editing, etc.

 

still only a bit into the book but with a chunk being set on Black Spire is this the first official tie-in prequel novel for a theme park?

 

It should be, because apparently everything down to the drinks Padme orders at the bar will feature in the park.

 

this makes sense. I was wondering about it myself. The 501st is the Clone Battalion. The First Legion is the Stormtrooper equivalent. IE: no clones. Vader wouldn't want it named the 501st because it would be a connection to Anakin.

 

I have a thread about Zahn doing more novels with Thrawn and the Chiss and the possible Grysk invasion where they will invade the GFFA in the post-ROTJ era. The Grysk are the new Yuuzhan Vong. Zahn should do a trilogy about Thrawn,the Chiss,the Unknown Regions and the Grysk invading the GFFA in the New Republic era going up against the Big 3 Luke,Han and Leia.

 

Didn't Thrawn vanish into hyperspace with Ezra, never to be seen again?

 

But he could come back. Zahn has story ideas for more Thrawn novels including him fighting the Grysk in the Grysk invasion in the New Republic era post-ROTJ.

 

The Vong would likely eat the Grysk for breakfast. Even compared to the Yevetha the Grysk seemed fairly impotent as antagonists.

 

Agreed.
We need something new.

 

I think you may be underestimating them. They fight very differently from the Vong. We've only seen a small scouting force. And as is they held their own against Thrawn, Vader, and elite Imperial troops. But there style isn't brute Force and overwhelming numbers. The Grysk fight through gathering intelligence and then using technology to infiltrate and isolate sectors. They then move in. They are technologically advanced and can hold their own in a fight, but they're very cautious. Once an enemy know about the Grysk and their strategies, most of their advantages are weakened.

 

They were an interesting mystery for Thrawn and Vader to solve, but not once did I get the impression they were ever in real danger. And given their almost complete lack of characterisation I suspect they're not the next big threat everyone thinks they are.

 

I can't see them being the next big threat, but I'm sure we will have a book or two about Thrawn fighting them in the unknown regions. I'm confident they'll be developed a lot more and be some sort of challenge, but nothing major. Just the antagonists for a mostly self-contained series.

 

So, now that I have Rebels S4 DVD, it was time to read this.

All in all, I found it worked very well. It's notable that Vader considers his former identity of Anakin to be that of The Jedi, a thing to be resisted and dismissed. This also suggests the new material is going with the split personality angle to resolve the redemption in Jedi. (Without that, it's Anakin-as-Vader going around killing billions across two decades and loving it, then he saves Luke, on a split second, having done all he can to corrupt him but moments before, dies and oh look, sir, redemption.)

The split narrative was far better executed here than in Last Shot. Adding cortosis to the new canon was smartly done too, why wouldn't you want battledroids armoured with that?

The Thrawn / Anakin / Vader other vision snippets were a neat touch that I enjoyed, building on the Thrawn perception sequences in its predecessor. The one sequence that did feel cringeworthy was the origin of the Marg Sabl bit.

As to the Grysk, I'd agree they are not going to be the new canon Vong. They were good villains but entirely disposable.

The one thing that stood out to me across the story as a whole is that there was only one thing stopping the conflict between Thrawn and Vader spiraling out of control - the looming malevolence of the Emperor. Neither dared to push too much for fear of what that would them to from a displeased Palpatine.

 

Well, Zahn was merely connecting the dots. Ahsoka did a Marg Sabl maneuver in an episode of TCW.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Ah thanks, had forgotten that - couldn't recall if it was done in an actual ep.

 

I remember it being done but I don't remember her claiming to have invented it...I need to rewatch the episode.

 

She comes up with the maneuver and explains it, with no-one seemingly knowing it beforehand, which indicates that she is the inventor. It was an admittedly clumsy reference in the book, but I didn't mind it. It was kind-of nice to have a nod to Heir to the Empire and Zahn's smaller legend contributions

 

It kind of works well with the useage in Heir to the Empire, with the maneuver now being fairly well used and common. Zahn's explaination that it was named after a Togrutan flower was....cute.

 

I enjoyed this book much more than the first one (which I read second, lol). It was more entertaining, largely because it had my favorite character, Vader/Anakin in it. I thought Zahn did a pretty good job with him, but with a touch of fail here and there, which was expected. But in the grand view, I was okay overall. Like the first book, I grew exceedingly tired of Thrawn's know-it-all-ism in the first person. It plays out much better completely in 3rd person. His thoughts about himself overpower the thoughts about him from others. The plot was okay, but the storytelling was interesting and engaging. The trilogy and duology were better, imo, but these were quite good. I agree with those who say that they were some of the best to come out of the new era - but I have to say, that is not saying much. I would give them more credit than that.

 

What thoughts, exactly, did Thrawn have about himself?

Because for the most part his internal monologue is basically just a list of details and observations he makes note of without any real look into his actual opinion or feelings.

 

Had time to catch up on my SW reading during the holidays and finally finished this one.

After the great Thrawn novel, the Alliances was a bit of disappointment.

The story was kinda predictable, there was stuff like cortosis, which in my opinion no longer fits in the new canon, and Vader's characterisation was just completely off. And the whole book just felt like its some small random adventure Vader and Thrawn/Anakin, Padme and Thrawn had, without any real impact on anything else.

It was still a nice book to kill time and it wasn't badly written or anything, just that I expected much more after the first one being so good.

 

So... I've been catching up on this in lieu of the impending release of Treason.

This book is very well written and I think the characterizations are all on point, except...

Thrawn. I just can't get with the actual character of Thrawn. The first book had times where Thrawn was just really impressive, but that book had the benefit of Thrawn being with a cast of very minor characters who could fawn over how amazing he is. In this book, we get Thrawn and Vader, and while I think Zahn is really trying NOT to do it, Thrawn is constantly one-upping and outshining characters he should not be outshining. Too often he is written as a pet character with pet characterization and not as someone with weaknesses and blind spots. And on top of that the Chiss as a whole already have everything figured out. Their ships and tech are better, their armor is better, their intelligence is better, it's getting to be quite annoying.

Say what you will about Rebels Thrawn but I liked his characterization better in that show. It was a lot closer to his initial showing in the Thrawn trilogy where he is a brilliant tachtician who can still be overconfident and who can fail, and who is also EVIL. He does amoral things in the name of control and security. The first book in this new Thrawn series did a good job of making Thrawn brilliant for a while and his battles against Nightswan were fantastic. Watching him struggle against certain powers' anti-alien prejudice was interesting. But then we get his whole speech to Nightswan where he wasn't kicked out of Chiss space and is actually a plant to learn more about the Empire and oh look how forward thinking the Chiss are and they are playing the Empire like a fiddle. Annoying, but it goes by quickly and it's just the one time.

In this book it's just beyond annoying. I'll still read the next books just to get more out of the universe but I think Zahn needs to ease up on the Chiss worship and highlight his character's flaws a bit more.

Sent from my XT1635-01 using Tapatalk

 

That’s funny, because I think this one really underlines the Chiss Ascendancy’s flaws as a society.

Their use and discarding of child soldiers is presented as horrible, and the state of near-civil war they currently exist in is used to show that Thrawn’s own disregard for the Old Republic (and democracy as a concept) is hypocritical. Vader even rightly points out that Thrawn is deluding himself in thinking that he can be loyal to both the Empire and the Chiss.

I don’t know, I think this book was pretty fair with how it depicted Thrawn and the Chiss. I don’t think Zahn has presented them as this flawed before.