Heir To The Empire

Nostalgin är total.
Det kan inte ha varit lätt att ta en så älskad bunt karaktärer och skriva något tillräckligt nytt men samtidigt tillräckligt likt Star Wars-filmerna, men Zahn gör det med bravur.
Första tjugo sidorna räcker för att jag ska känna mig helt övertygad om att det här verkligen är Luke, Leia, Han och Threepio, så som jag minns dem men några år äldre. Visst finns det problem här och var, men de överskuggas för mig av det rafflande äventyret och igenkänningen. Grand Admiral Thrawn är dessutom en helt igenom värdig efterträdare till Lord Vader. Det här vill jag ha mer av. ( )

This is a really well done unabridged audiobook. In particular, the reader does a great job getting the voices to sound like their related actors (with perhaps the sole notable exception of his Harrison Ford impression) - and his Grand Admiral Thrawn sounds exactly like I imagined him. Using a somewhat Hispanic voice for Talon Karrde seems a little off though. ( )

Heir to the Empire is my first foray into the murky depths of the Star Wars Expanded Universe, and it's a fine book. The only flaws that stuck out are the silly coincidences of everyone winding up at the same place at the same time, and the inevitable power creep. ( )

I first read Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn trilogy when it was originally published in the early 1990s, and while I retained positive memories of the books I was content with leaving them as a positive reading experience in my memory. The release of Episode IX in the film series, however, led me to revisit what was once the “official” sequels to Lucas’ movies, to see how they measured up to my recollections of them.

Reading them after having viewed the trilogy that replaced them helped to deepen my appreciation for Zahn’s work. Faced with the stricture that he had to work with the survivors of the original film trilogy (something that unfortunately wasn’t imposed on J. J. Abrams as well) but benefiting from a lack of accumulated backstory to accommodate, Zahn creates an effective adventure filled with interesting characters and an enjoyable plot. At the heart of it is Grand Admiral Thrawn, the last great leader of the Empire, who five years after the battle of Endor is determined to rebuild the imperium. His most effective weapon in this effort is knowledge, particularly of the Empire’s secret resources and hidden information. Drawing upon that knowledge, he begins to challenge the New Republic in ways that threaten the existence of that fragile and overstretched organization, which has barely been able to start rebuilding after its years-long fight against Emperor Palpatine’s tyranny.

In Thrawn Zahn provides an effective main antagonist to his central characters. Yet it is the original trio of Luke, Leia, and Han that are at the heart of his novel. Here he benefits greatly from their development in Lucas’s films, which allows him to focus in his first novel on building up the post-Empire world and the characters central to his story. This includes not just Thrawn, but the insane Dark Jedi clone Joruus C’baoth, the calculating smuggler Talon Karrde, and the cunning and driven Mara Jade as well, all of whom went on to become fan favorites. Here they are introduced to readers in a way that hints at a clearly-defined past, rather than presented with undefined backstories that would be filled in randomly and in an incoherent manner. This is undoubtedly a reason why they became as popular as they did.

When combined with a coherent plot that could play out over the course of all three novels, Zahn provides Star Wars fans with one of the greatest stories of the entire franchise. In this he benefited from all of the advantages that I’ve described, yet it is a testament to his skills as an author that he took these elements and crafted them into a tale that balances politics, mystery, and adventure in ways that surpass most of the “canon” produced since. It’s unfortunate that so much of Zahn’s achievement in creating the post-Original Trilogy Star Wars universe has been undone by the later movies, especially considering how poorly they measure up to Zahn’s work. While turning Zahn’s novels into films was never possible, they certainly demonstrate how to do do Star Wars storytelling right. ( )

My review of this book can be found on my Youtube Vlog at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztNlqUz7cFY

Enjoy! ( )