After the crushing disappointment that is the experience of Rise of Skywalker*, I knew I needed to connect with some sort of Star Wars project that would hit my nostalgia spot. And it had to be something besides the series, which I’ve seen hundreds of times.
A few years ago, after seeing (and loving) The Force Awakens, I decided to dip into the expanded universe with the OG of the franchise: the Thrawn trilogy. I had read some of the books years ago but didn’t remember much.
I liked Heir to the Empire, but I found it to be too slow. Thrawn’s character was the most compelling one, whereas the big three were stuck in boring situations requiring tons of exposition. I figured it was a good base-building novel for the series so I didn’t come down too hard on it.
This one starts out well enough. It advances the arcs of the first book and the characters are all more interesting. I was excited for the plot to get juicy. And I waited…
And waited…
And waited…
And by page 350, I realized that this was as good as it was gonna get. Another hefty dump of expository dialogue coupled with more tire-spinning around the plots. Even the big bang finale failed to really satisfy.
Also, I was eagerly awaiting an encounter between two characters and when it finally happened…well I found it to be lacking.
It’s still better than RoS and it scratched the itch but it’ll likely be another few years until I finish the trilogy.
(*I will not be entertaining comments on that, thank you.)