Books Thrawn - New canon Star Wars book by Timothy Zahn (Spring 2017)

I just finished the audiobook and really enjoyed it. It is one of my favorite of Marc Thompson's Star Wars narrations. His Thrawn voice is excellent. I know I am late to the party on this one, but is it me or is Vanto and NuCannon stand in for Gilad Palleon? I like the Vanto character and he is reminiscent of Palleon as Captain of the Chimaera in the original Thrawn Trilogy.

Over all I enjoyed the book and Thrawn's rise through the ranks. However, there were a few drawbacks.

1. Thrawn never failed in any significant way. I would say only failure he experienced was not gaining Nigthswann as ally.

2. Ahrinda Pryce, though given a full back story was never sympathetic. In fact, I got the impression that hers was a cautionary tale. Although this story is told from an Imperial perspective, I could not root for Ahrinda in any way as I could for Thrawn.

3. I was a little suspect of Thrawns 'greater evils' speech, given that one never materializes. It is a far reaching motivation that has no resolution unless further along in the series of novels. If Palps is not an Evil threat, then what is and when will the nebulous conflict take place?

 

Yeah I thought this too, but was told this wasn't the case by someone earlier, can't recall the precise reasoning. I suppose the most obvious is the fact that there is a NuCanon Pellaeon.

 

There is? Where? Is he in Alliances?

 

Rebels.

 

For me, the cover reinforced Thrawn’s sex appeal.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Ah, I must have missed that in season 3. Price was there, but I never saw Palleon. I have not seen Season 4. Thanks.

 

He has a one-line offscreen cameo at the end of Season 4, nothing beyond that yet

 

The 5 Thrawn books were favs. I love Zahn's writing on the whole. And this one, was entertaining. But I don't like Thrawn anymore as a character. He has gotten on my nerves in this book. He has expanded into new areas of "know it all-ism" that is predictable and boring. I rolled my eyes too much. I didn't like Pryce and Vanto either. The former is too hard and the latter is too sycophantic. But not liking well written characters does not stop me from enjoying the book. I admit tho that I miss 3rd person enemy Thrawn, he really sits better with me from that perspective.

 

I just wrote up a review for this on Booknest. I read the book before but only now I am reading the sequels so I wanted to review this book after re-reading it and then read the others back to back.

http://booknest.eu/reviews/charles/1641-starwarsthrawn

 

Zahn's Thrawn novels in the old EU were always among my favorites but I have yet to read any in the new canon. Seeing Thrawn in the Ahsoka Disney+ series got me interested in what his character was up to in the new canon. I dipped my toes back into Star Wars novels after a long break, first with the Ahsoka novel and then Rise of Skywalker (both audio books.)

I wanted to listen to the audio book of Thrawn but I couldn't find it in my local library system, so I picked up the physical book instead. Most of the reviews I've read of it are mixed. I doubt it can live up to the nostalgia-tinted glasses I wear when remembering the original Thrawn Trilogy, but Zahn is a talented author and I'm confident the story will be engaging.

If I enjoy this initial novel enough, I'll continue with the other entries in the series. I believe there are now 2 Thrawn trilogies in the new canon.

 

2017's Thrawn (gods that title is so blasé) is pretty damn excellent, especially since you not only do you get an almost exact retelling of the Legends short story "Mist Encounter" (with minor additions and new angles) that originally showed Thrawn's moment of joining the Empire, but an extension and expansion of that moment as he rises through the ranks, despite prejudice against his non-human appearance.

When I read the paperback in 2018 it was my first Zahn book I had read since Vision of the Future around the turn of the millennium and I was highly satisfied, even having not read anything by Zahn in nearly twenty years by that point.

 

Reiterating Sturm, the blase-titled "Thrawn" 2017 book is really good. I went into it expecting something mediocre, and while it's not the best of the new Disney-era books, it's pretty great. And while some of the subsequent Thrawn novels in the new trilogies are less than stellar, they're all worth reading. The most recent of the bunch (Lesser Evil) is amazing. But you have to read the others to build up to it.

 

Yes, I do remember reading Mist Encounter long ago, but I don't remember much about it, save for it introducing Thrawn's long-form Chiss name. I wouldn't have connected it to the opening chapters of Thrawn otherwise, if you hadn't mentioned it. This is my first Zahn novel in many years also. I read Scoundrels ten years ago, and, like you, read Vision of the Future around 1999.

Yes, I'm told the Ascendancy trilogy is superb and I'm eager to get to it, but I'll take the sage advice to read the novels leading up to it first.

As for the title, I'm sure the geniuses in the marketing department at the publisher came up with that one. At the time, it was probably all that was deemed necessary to capture the attention of potential readers. That, and plastering Thrawn's giant, unmistakable mug on the cover.

 

Yeah, absolutely Pryce is a cautionary tale. She starts as a somewhat sympathetic, if ambitious young woman, and then transitions over time into a ruthless social climber who's learned not to depend on anyone. She also gets the true blame for the Batonn disaster (as a bit of retcon from Rebels season 3) and is shown in Thrawn's eyes to be a less than reliable ally anymore. In a way this also sets up her mistakes in Rebels season 4, that help unravel Thrawn's wider strategy.

So it's not really that relatable... but is still fairly good seeding and developing of character traits.
That said I did WANT to see Thrawn fail a bit more, especially in the Ascendancy trilogy.

We do see hints of a bigger threat in books 2 and 3, and the Ascendancy trilogy. Still, I really struggle to see this threat as SURPASSING Palpatine. Thrawn seems still blind at times to his malevolence... and we still do not see exactly when Thrawn acquiesced so thoroughly to the Imperial philosophy (although that's maybe more of an Original Thrawn trilogy issue, in hindsight)

Also, Pellaeon has a small cameo in the novel Treason. Is also in - a tv role, briefly... at one point.

 

One thing I really liked about Zahn's take on Pryce was her connection with Lothal. She doesn't seem to care about it much in the show, but in the book she started out really devoted to it.

 

Zahn definitely enhanced what was (onscreen) a fairly cardboard villain character.

 

Kinda sad that Pryce's journey to villainy started with Mr. Krabs Azadi's corruption scheme that targeted her family and in the end she is dead and he is the Governor once again.

 

This was one of the things I had a problem with. Azadi doesn’t come across as corrupt or even evil in rebels. Hell adventures in wild space show that he was helping the Bridgers as far back as 17 BBY.

I think Zahn was trying to make the rebel characters all more complex than they actually ever were meant to be to the point it doesn’t jive well with what is presented on screen

 

^ Something that gets lost in translation, it looks like.

 

Ryder’s played by Clancy Brown, I’ll never fully trust him.

 

Well, one does not necessary contradict another, Azadi could honestly want to help Bridgers as well as to protect his home planet from the Empire's plans, while having some illegal profit for himself.

IMO, it is more likely because of Zahn's usual portrayal of politicians being either corrupt or ineffectual.

Yeah,

Spoiler: he can be quite ruthless with his political opponents.