Lit Books Thrawn: BOOK III: LESSER EVIL by Timothy Zahn. Nov 16th, 2021.

Dammit, you’ve reminded me how much I need another Chiss-centric novel in my life.

C’mon LFL, announce an Ar’alani trilogy.

 

Spoiler

Agree. Also, IMO, the Grysk Hegemony seems somewhat similar to the Dominion. With Jixtus being surprisingly short, I won't be surprised if "intendant" Grysk and "warrior" Grysk will be eventually revealed to be two different species, like Vorta and Jem'Hadar.

 

At the very least I think there’s going to be something done that explains the disparity between the Grysk in this trilogy and their appearance in Thrawn: Alliances.

 

Given the Grysk's MO, I do wonder if the Alliances guys will be revealed to just be another client species.

 

That’s probably the easiest way to smooth things over. Plus it gives the Grysk a little bit more credibility as villains if the ones we see in Alliances and Treason weren’t the genuine article.

 

I gave this a 5/5 stars on Goodreads.

I really thought this capped off the prequel trilogy well. The characters like Thalias, Che'ri, Ar'alani and more were just as enjoyable to read. For the last time (save the latter). I felt this book also gave us more insight into Thrawn the person in the memories sections. Thrass proved to be a good vehicle to show that.

It felt like the stakes were higher here. You didn't know who'd survive. In the last battle we could've lost a lot of our favorites. I was on the edge of my seat and honestly Jixtus seemed such a threat. Despite how it ended though we of course know they reappeared in the 1st trilogy, Alliances I believe. Of course going in we know he survives and defeats Jixtus but seeing the how is always interesting.

I did like seeing everyone came out well at the end, got their happy ending as it were. Some may not like that but I'd have hated to see Thalias die for instance. I will say one character that isn't addressed is Qilori. We see he's taken command of the Whetstone and figures out the sky-walkers are children but nothing else. I do recall though in Alliances the Grysks wanting Chiss children now that I think of it. So it's safe to assume he told them.

Overall, I really enjoyed this prequel/origin trilogy and the past 5 years of Thrawn books. Now it's safe to assume we won't see any more of him until Ahsoka which is coming soon.

 

I’ve made the case before, and judging by a recent interview with Zahn, he’s come around to this idea too, that they should do a trilogy about these characters without Thrawn.

There’s always going to be limitations in how Zahn can use Thrawn himself because Filoni’s also got dibs on the character and is ultimately guiding his fate. But also I think you can genuinely tell more exciting stories where Thrawn isn’t present and the safety net of his super intelligence isn’t there to protect the cast.

Plus, the new Chiss characters/Vanto/Faro are really great characters in their own right who could probably thrive and grow in their own stories. Especially now that Zahn’s all the great world building with the Chaos.

 

Yea, I was looking at the previous books and stuff on Wookiepedia and Vanto and Brierly Ronan are interesting (the latter not as much since he's only been in 1 book). Faro wasn't sent to the Chiss Ascendancy. That being said, Vanto was his protege and learned more than enough to hold his own in a fight in the Chaos. As far as another trilogy I'm not sure when it could be set. I mean it could be set anytime. Treason did end on a real cliffhanger though w/Vanto so you could set in right after Treason or within a few years time.

 

I’d like to see something that covers what was happening in the Chaos during the events of the OT. The way Treason left things it sounded like the Grysk and Chiss conflict had begun to really heat up.

 

Some information about what happened between two trilogies (at least in flashbacks) would be great too, because after The Ascendancy Trilogy it is still not clear why many Chiss later openly joined the Grysk.

 

Especially in light of how things played out with Thurfian and Zistalmu at the end of this novel. I get the sense that even Thurfian is the loudest Anti-Thrawn voice among the Chiss, he might be a reluctant ally against the Pro-Grysk faction. The whole status quo of the Ascendancy is going to be fascinating to see moving forward.

 

Well, while Thurfian is not outright old, he is already not young, and by the time of the OT he will be around twenty years older. The Grysk's agents can target new generation of the Chiss (like in Greater Good), seducing them with new opportunities (and sources of income - by plain bribes or providing information about planets with this time real natural resources or defenseless inhabitants - some Chiss still like piracy) and thus creating a faction of their supporters.

 

Yea, I'm really wondering what'll become of Vanto since they even gave him a Chiss name. I also liked Faro but I think it's safe to assume she went down with the Empire.

 

It is also possible that her transfer didn't come through before Lothal given how fast everything was happening, and she got yeeted to the far end of space with Thrawn and the rest of the fleet. Zahn has notably refused to confirm her fate, so I could see him leaving that up in the air until after Ahoska comes out and we find out more about Thrawn's position and activities.

 

Really, Faro was the standout of the “Imperial Trilogy” ( as Zahn calls it). She’s the one human POV who is in all three books and she arguably has the biggest arc.

There’s a number of ways that Zahn could handle her Post-Treason/Rebels. If she was with Thrawn when he went MIA then she’ll undoubtedly show up again as a POV the next Thrawn-centric novel. Or alternatively if she did transfer out of the Seventh Fleet before the Purgill thing happened I could see Zahn writing a story of her being sent into the Unknown Regions to search for Thrawn (perhaps on a mission from Palpatine. The comics make it clear that around ESB Sheev was really missing his blue admiral). That way she could link up with the other Chiss/Imperial characters Zahn’s got in play.

 

Yea, Zahn created some great characters. I was honestly disappointed when she got promoted because I wanted to see more of her lol. Thrawn did have a habit of collecting loyalists and proteges though so we could see her appear in a scenario like that as being chosen to find Thrawn.

 

Looking forward to continuation of Ronan's storyline. He is the one who can actually help the Chiss to learn how to use their collection of artifacts. Also he is a great character and rather unique one for Zahn's books - he is a patriot of the Empire, not totally amoral and still not trusts Thrawn.

 

Seeing characters from Lesser Space in the Chaos would provided a pretty interesting perspective too. We had all that worldbuilding to flesh out the different societies, how they perceive things like the Force...it’d be very interesting to see characters in-universe remark on that.

 

Just to let anyone who’s interested know this book is 99p on the kindle store in the uk right now.

 

We contemplated using a much worse word there, to really punctuate the *record scratch everyone goes quiet* moment, and amp up the completely unprofessional breakdown of decorum. But, settled on ass, which works just fine but is def missing a bit of punch.

 

After a long loonnnnng time away from this series (I read Chaos Rising when it first came out and only got around to Greater Good and Lesser Evil in the last two months) I have finally finished. I overall enjoyed it though I think Zahn's writing in these was a disadvantage. I perversely really liked the Agbui stuff from the 2nd book that @Barriss_Coffee hated because it was something new and I could glom onto that...some of this series does not work as well if you read the first book years ago, imagine that! But yeah Greater Good mostly worked for me because of how distantly it was connected to the main conflict of these things and the Magys/Sky-walker stuff worked really well for me.

And I just started to reread Outbound Flight because I haven't read it since middle school and if I'm being fair, it's like I hardly read it at all at this point lol. Already liking his prose in that one much more than this.

 

So Thalias has gotten a code cylinder that used to belong to Thrass. And now she all of a sudden wants to meet with someone after Che’ri’s Skywalker problems?

hmm my prediction to this 2 year old book?

Spoiler

it’s gonna be Thrawn’s sister who was a sky-walker. She was brought up for like 1 sentence in book 1. Why else would Thrass have had it and why else would the old patriarch have kept it? No. It has to be something super important to thrawn and also important to the Skywalker program. Thus the only logical answer is Thrawn’s sister