So. Anyone else finish it yet? I want to bounce ideas around.

I am. Better throw up a spoiler alert.

It contains the line "Vader pursed his lips..." I can't make this stuff up.

4 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

It contains the line "Vader pursed his lips..." I can't make this stuff up.

Vaders mask truly is expressive.

I spotted this two days ago next to the Tarkin novel... I go on hols soon and fancied a SW novel to look like a total geek on the beach. Either of them any good?

I haven't read Thrawn: Alliences yet but Timoty Zahn usually writes good books.

I remember Tarkin as a good book too.

On the other hand, don't trust this old charlatan with a taste for bad literature.

Thanks for the heads-up on the release!

Last I saw, Vader still had lips under all that armor. I bet his vocalizer makes a smacking noise when he purses them.

I did enjoy Tarkin but it wasn't the best of the "new canon" in my opinion.

I liked this new book it simultaneously tells the story during the Clone wars, and at the end of Rebels season three.

19 hours ago, Eoen said:

I liked this new book it simultaneously tells the story during the Clone wars, and at the end of Rebels season three.

Each of the two stories are fine by themselves, but the thread the author uses to connect them is really weak IMO.

I hear the Thrawn audio book is pretty good.

6 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

Each of the two stories are fine by themselves, but the thread the author uses to connect them is really weak IMO.

The shared history of Vader, Thrawn, the locale and the side characters aren’t enough of thread to tie them together?

How about the Sith involvement, with plans for order 66, or the Emporer’s interest in the unknown regions; where the Empire retreats to as it collapses and becomes the first order.

Or the possible origin of the first order navigators.

54 minutes ago, Eoen said:

The shared history of Vader, Thrawn, the locale and the side characters aren’t enough of thread to tie them together?

How about the Sith involvement, with plans for order 66, or the Emporer’s interest in the unknown regions; where the Empire retreats to as it collapses and becomes the first order.

Or the possible origin of the first order navigators.

The shared history was enough, the Grysk link to the CW-era story was so weak that it wasn't really effective. The part about Order 66 is IMO unneeded, and I never heard that the First Order used any special navigators (but I don't really seek information out about that era since I think it's total crap).

On 7/28/2018 at 10:18 AM, kaosoe said:

I hear the Thrawn audio book is pretty good.

I loved it. The voice acting was really good, especially for Thrawn himself. And it really depicts his ability to plan not just one or two moves ahead, but he's already mapped out exactly how the next several games are going to play out.

46 minutes ago, Kabal said:

I loved it. The voice acting was really good, especially for Thrawn himself. And it really depicts his ability to plan not just one or two moves ahead, but he's already mapped out exactly how the next several games are going to play out.

I'm actually less impressed with the current Thrawn stuff than the old. Thrawn no longer even gives the appearance of having to plan and think through things, he just seems too smugly all-knowing. It's the same author, but the character seems to have drifted into a caricature of himself. This really isn't all that uncommon as the same thing happened to almost all of the characters Ed Greenwood wrote for the Forgotten Realms, particularly Elminster. In many ways, Thrawn has become Zahn's Elminster, and that has really hurt my enjoyment of the character's portrayals.

I did find a write-up of the new Force Power highlighted in this novel: Double Vision .

On 7/30/2018 at 2:10 AM, HappyDaze said:

It's the same author, but the character seems to have drifted into a caricature of himself.

Yeah, I'm about 4 chapters in, and if it weren't for the other "mystery" I'd have put it down already.

Thrawn is soooo very awesome, and everyone else is a bumbling irrational thoughtless resentful idiot, barely able to remember to press their lips together to keep in the drool. Even the Emperor can barely keep up, and Vader is just an impulsive menace. Thrawn always has the right solution and knows the details of the most minute obscurities that perfectly solve any situation. When you consider all the info he'd have to have on hand just in case he needed it, but never actually used, he'd need a hard-drive the size of Coruscant strapped to his head. Never mind all the gear he just has on hand, the guy's a walking Bag of Holding.

The term Mary Sue is thrown around a lot on this board, mostly misplaced IMHO, but if Thrawn isn't a classic Mary Sue I don't know what is. At least so far...

On 7/27/2018 at 5:09 AM, ExpandingUniverse said:

I spotted this two days ago next to the Tarkin novel... I go on hols soon and fancied a SW novel to look like a total geek on the beach. Either of them any good?

Tarkin was a bit dry, but interesting. I have really enjoyed both of the new Thrawn novels

3 hours ago, whafrog said:

The term Mary Sue is thrown around a lot on this board, mostly misplaced IMHO, but if Thrawn isn't a classic Mary Sue I don't know what is. At least so far...

I suppose that is one way to put it, though I noticed several times he has taken equipment or borrowed it as he didnt have what he needed. Also, he has a huge blind spot socially which, admittedly something they focused on more in the first in this series.

I guess my main critque of the entire series (new and old) is that it is difficult to show someone of his caliber without making folks around him seem like idiots. So it suffers some from that. I also feel there is a bit more ex machina than I would prefer. Overall though, while I wouldn't classify this as high art or stellar literature, they were fun reads/listens.

Also note that The Chiss Are Just Plain Better Than Everyone Else theme that keeps coming up. In particular, they can make a light bodysuit that far exceeds Clone Trooper armor in resisting blasterfire. In other words, it's the Star Wars version of elven/mithral chain mail.

1 hour ago, Raicheck said:

I guess my main critque of the entire series (new and old) is that it is difficult to show someone of his caliber without making folks around him seem like idiots.

He doesn't just make them seem like idiots. He writes in 3rd person omniscient, so we get to know pretty much what everybody is thinking, and most of them are revealed as petulant children. He doesn't even make the effort to write them as competent.

So I expect it is difficult, but especially so when the author is nowhere near as brilliant as Thrawn is supposed to be, so the genius falls flat. It's not that Thrawn is so great, it's that apparently the Star Wars universe has been conquered by total rubes.

Thrawn isn't Sherlock Holmes, and Zahn isn't Arthur Conan Doyle. It's a bit pathetic when somebody tries to sell you something that even they have to know doesn't work. The whole character would have worked a lot better if his "genius" wasn't on display every other paragraph...it would have been far more effective left in doubt until a big reveal, and then Zahn wouldn't be wasting his time with endless trivial examples. Zahn actually pulled this off with Scoundrels, the only book he's written that's worth a reread, so it's not like he doesn't know how to do it.

But let's not forget the "humor" of having Anakin mispronouncing Thrawn's Chiss name over and over again because humans are just too darn stupid to pronounce Elvish. Oh, sorry, that's supposed to be whatever the Chiss language is called now.

On 8/2/2018 at 5:33 PM, whafrog said:

Yeah, I'm about 4 chapters in, and if it weren't for the other "mystery" I'd have put it down already.

Thrawn is soooo very awesome, and everyone else is a bumbling irrational thoughtless resentful idiot, barely able to remember to press their lips together to keep in the drool. Even the Emperor can barely keep up, and Vader is just an impulsive menace. Thrawn always has the right solution and knows the details of the most minute obscurities that perfectly solve any situation. When you consider all the info he'd have to have on hand just in case he needed it, but never actually used, he'd need a hard-drive the size of Coruscant strapped to his head. Never mind all the gear he just has on hand, the guy's a walking Bag of Holding.

The term Mary Sue is thrown around a lot on this board, mostly misplaced IMHO, but if Thrawn isn't a classic Mary Sue I don't know what is. At least so far...

I disagree with calling him a "Mary Sue/Gary Stu" for one key reason. Such character's "ability" is always without any logical explanation or reason, and they are always "perfect" in everything they do, with no flaws. Thrawn has a reason and explanation for his abilites, he has flaws, he is not "perfect". He's just very, very intelligent, and has an exceptional grasp of cultures.

Most of the commentary here is hitting my problems with enjoying the book. I liked Thrawn in his introduction trilogy, he was different, a strategic military mind, but not infallible. Here he really seems to be the perfect being, more powerful than every Force user currently.

Vader is also being written as an impulsive mook. In all other depictions he is usually given credit as a good general and leader...if aggressive.

3 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

I disagree with calling him a "Mary Sue/Gary Stu" for one key reason. Such character's "ability" is always without any logical explanation or reason, and they are always "perfect" in everything they do, with no flaws. Thrawn has a reason and explanation for his abilites, he has flaws, he is not "perfect". He's just very, very intelligent, and has an exceptional grasp of cultures.

What are Thrawn's flaws? Remember that having hero characters thwart his plans through plain stupid writer's fiat is not a flaw. The Thrawn in the novel is pretty much without weakness.

2 hours ago, General Zod said:

Vader is also being written as an impulsive mook. In all other depictions he is usually given credit as a good general and leader...if aggressive.

But here, for the first time, you get to know when he purses his lips!