Dark Force Rising: Star Wars Legends (The Thrawn Trilogy) (Star Wars: the Hand of Thrawn, 2)

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Zahn introduce conceptos que en su día y aun hoy resultan novedosos y refrescantes para Star Wars, como Coruscant (que fue este tío quien le dio desarrollo a la capital que luego Lucas añadiría en las precuelas), Jedis Oscuros, la Flota Katana (también llamada Fuerza Oscura, que es una flota de la Republica pre-Guerras Clon perdida), que las espadas laser protejan de los rayos de la Fuerza (ahora lo vemos normal, pero aquí fue la primera vez), los Noghri, etc. More on the book, I liked the secondary characters more than the main ones ( excluding luke) as they just had more interesting arcs than the others. I especially love Luke in these moments, because he treats her with such respect and kindness, even as he knows she wants to kill him. Luke, after a period of time with Lando and Han on the planet New Cov, finally tracks down the former Jedi known as C’baoth, not knowing he was not only allied with Thrawn and the remnants of the Empire but was also quite insane. Y esto me sabe a poco, estos libros me parecen que se merecen el reconocimiento que tienen pero para mí no es suficiente.

The acknowledgments came in; and with a shiver from the steel deck beneath him, the huge AT-AT walker was off, lumbering its deceptively awkward-looking way through the forest toward the encampment a kilometer away. Yet most dangerous of all is a new Dark Jedi, risen from the ashes of a shrouded past, consumed by bitterness… and scheming to corrupt Luke Skywalker to the Dark Side. Además que continuamente la llaman Lady Vader, siendo ella todo lo opuesto a lo que era aquel, algo que debe afrontar. Intrigue and spy craft at every turn all the while giving life to one of the Empire's most sadistic, cold-blooded ruthless dictators in History: Thrawn!Grand Admiral Thrawn (the titular villain of the series) would have been an interesting new character if we'd ever been given a look at him through his own mind, and not through the eyes of his bland and annoying first officer. Particularly when characters are conversing with one another, there seems to be only a few different types of responses (which often sound awkward and hard to envision) that characters are able to give one another, such as: "grunted", "retorted", "countered", and "conceded". Probably one of the best uses of the line "I have a bad feeling about this" I have seen in Star Wars. If we can't get into Thrawn's head, maybe give us more about Palleon as a character, what makes him tick. Before reading Heir, I read another beloved Star Wars Expanded universe book that is considered one of the best ever, Path of Destruction.

The series continue to benefit from all the groundwork set in the movie version and makes for an easy summer read. There are also some fun scenes with Thrawn and his bodyguard Rukh, where the latter’s undying loyalty is soon at odds with what the rest of his Noghri race do. After not being a big fan of how little Force and Jedi there were in the previous book I was happy with what we got here.

Every time I encounter Thrawn in the Star Wars universe, I’m impressed with how excellent of a villain he is.

If you asked me what I was looking forward to the most in this trilogy after Heir to the Empire, Mara Jade could be forgotten about and I would not have really cared.It is true that he is very Sherlock Holmes, but here he does everything by learning the art of the enemy, and that is, for me, somewhat lacking. He gave the readouts a quick check and tapped his comm switch, peripherally aware as he did so that Thrawn had likewise activated his own comm. As this was pre-prequels, we get to see his (now obsolete) views on the Clone Wars, how C'baoth became a Jedi (he went to the University before training as a Jedi!