Star Wars: Thrawn - Timothy Zahn

Thrawn is considered to be one of the better new canon Star Wars books by the community, but I would have to disagree. A character dragged out of Timothy Zahn's decanonised Heir to the Empire trilogy (which was really pretty awful), Zahn fleshes out Thrawn's enigmatic past and his rapid ascension through the Imperial ranks. His translator and aide, Eli Vanto, acts as Thrawn's foil for the benefit of the reader, but lacks a personality of his own. The narrative interweaves with another main character, Arindha Pryce and her long term scheme to reclaim ownership of her family's stolen mining operation by climbing the political ranks. This subplot of double dealings made for excruciatingly dull reading. As with all Star Wars books, classic characters such as Palpatine and Tarkin are dropped into the mix.

Zahn's writing is as sloppy and repetitive as I remembered it. He seems incapable of finding new ways to structure a sentence, with most of his character dialogue responses being "interesting" or the cringey modern use of "absolutely", which sounds ridiculous coming from the lips of Imperial officers. Another overused phrase is '(insert character) winced', which becomes very noticeable. I do not really understand why Timothy Zahn is held in high regard by fans, his actual storytelling capability is very stunted. He tries so hard to show off Thrawn's intelligence and tactical capabilities that the plot devolves into a convoluted mess and most of the time I could not figure out what was supposed to be happening. I never thought Thrawn was a particularly compelling character and his reboot did nothing to change my opinion.

Rating: 2/5