The Thrawn Trilogy
by Timothy Zahn
The Empire of Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader has been dying for five years after the battle of Endor. The Rebellion, now calling itself the New Republic, has moved into the old Imperial capital at Coruscant and is slowly but surely eating away at what remains of the Empire's power. Leia and Han, married, are expecting twins and Luke Skywalker is more confident in his Jedi abilities than ever before. But in the middle of this good fortune comes a note of new terror. An old Imperial commander, once thought dead, has reappeared, promising to lead the Empire back to its old glory. Teaming up with a powerful Jedi Master and a ruthless group of alien killers, he seems unstoppable. Though the New Republic has perhaps found some allies in an unlikely place-a group of smugglers, their enigmatic leader Talon Karrde, and his second-in-command, a woman with a shadowy past-treachery lurks in their very midst and any move may mean death for the struggling government. Can the New Republic trust Karrde to give them aid when it needs it the most? And can the woman who once swore to kill Luke Skywalker set aside old enmity to join the New Republic in its darkest hour?
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The first time I read this series, I thought "This is great, but there are so many plot lines to follow!" And it's true: Zahn takes about twenty different plot lines, twists them around each other, and then neatly ties them all in to the main story line. I think that's what attracts me most about the trilogy-Zahn's ability to tell a riveting story true to the "original flavor" of Star Wars, while adding new twists to the plot. I thought most of Zahn's new characters fit in nicely to the Star Wars univers-even their names: Talon Karrde, Mara Jade, Joruus C'baoth. I also liked the way he tied things into the movies: for example, how he explains the dark-side cave as the site of a large Force battle between light and dark. Zahn explores the Star Wars Universe in depth without losing the uniqueness of Lucas' creation and his books stay true to the movies.
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There's not much that's bad (in my opinion) about this series, but I do have a couple of cons. My main complaint is too many characters. New characters are good in a book, but the difference between a book and a movie is that in a book you have to give all of them names, and in a movie you can just show them. The smugglers' meeting at the Whistler Whirlpool tapcafe especially confused me. Also, it annoyed me how the characters kept saying "Ah" when they figured something out and how every time they were frustrated their "stomachs tightened".
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