I loved this book and I can't wait to read the other two in the series. I've been hearing from Star Wars fans for a while that they love anything by Zahn, including his previous series about Thrawn that is no longer SW canon, while this series is.
This is Thrawn's backstory, but it's wonderfully told. It's how he enters the Star Wars sphere, being "rescued" and along the way, making an unlikely ally, Cadet Eli Vanto, who becomes a personal aide to Thrawn and rides the coattails of Thrawn's naval career.
The book opens with journal entries, Thrawn's, and it isn't made clear who's reading the journal until the very end -- but I won't spoil it for you! You'll have to read to figure it out.
Thrawn and Vanto, with help from a most unlikely quarter, a young woman named Ahrinda Pryce, who enters the story around page 50. She starts off an aid to a Senator, is maneuvered into a fall from grace by another senator, rises through Coruscant's levels by her own grit and determination, and ends up working for a lobbyist and possible Rebel Alliance leader.
By the time Thrawn has his meeting with the Emperor, you think you understand exactly where he's coming from, there are shadows and shades of grey everywhere in Zahn's writing and plot and I'm just not convinced yet.
I learned so much about Thrawn and his brilliant military mind from this book! I first ran into him in the SW animated series, Rebels, and we loved how maddeningly 10-steps ahead of everyone else he was. This shows how he does it, his thinking behind his strategies. We've wondered if he was a Sith apprentice candidate, but this book makes it seem like he's more concerned about loss of life, or more specifically "assets," as he calls them, than I was willing to give him credit for, and that surprised me. Although I'm not ruling anything out at this point, and I'm fully intending to read the other two books, so please don't spoil it for me and tell me.
I highly recommend this book!
Ok, loving this series! This book in particular shows that Thrawn is a strategist on par with the Emperor, without benefit of countless lifetimes to re-do plans and learn from mistakes. He's spine-tingling frightening. When I finished, I was reminded of the Chinese philosopher, Sun Tzu, and his saying, "Keep your friends close; keep your enemies closer." That is exactly what Thrawn is doing with Vader, who's become distressingly-one sided in his loyalty to the Emperor and simply cannot see it.
The book is told in multiple POVs -- Thrawn and Anakin and Amidala, when the young men meet and save Amidala from the pickle she's gotten herself into, and 20 or so years later (not sure on the time frame, exactly) Thrawn and Vader, who investigate and confront a danger to the Empire (and Chiss Ascendency) foreseen by the Emperor.
In the first timeline, the youngsters discover a natural substance, cortosis, which has until-then-unseen abilities to absorb energy (and thus things like blasts from guns, bombs and/or lightsabers). But the Separatists, under Count Dooku, are using it to cover droids and … something else, something much more sinister -- Clone trooper armor.
Many years later, the two men are thrown together again by the Emperor, who knows full-well the havoc these two wreaked on his plans the last time they were together on this particular planet. But this time, he's sending them to stop an invisible danger, the Gyrsk, a species of alien who study others in depth from the shadows before launching attacks on them by infiltrating from within, influencing others and … sounding familiar yet? Not unlike Thrawn's mission, given to him by his faction of the Chiss Ascendency, right? In this, I'm reminded of the axiom, "Fight fire with fire." And thus, Thrawn's placement in the Empire's Navy.
But this time, you learn, over the course of the two timelines, that Thrawn is about two decades ahead of Vader figuring out the Emperor's role in this.
While I loved Thrawn's characterization, I was admittedly disappointed in Vader's. He's still, for all he's developed a split-personality over it, Anakin -- prone to brash, unexpected actions that have unintended consequences and that eventually will catch up to him. He's also loyal to a fault, which I really cringed to read, because there's a part of me that still remembers Revenge of the Sith and I just can't see how that loyalty comes to be, but… well. Enough of my pontificating. I'm eagerly awaiting the third book, Treason, on hold at my library!
This book takes Thrawn where we knew he was headed, to a showdown with the Grysk, who have indeed infiltrated the Empire, and it really made me wonder about Thrawn's Force sensitivities, or lack thereof.
Once again, Thrawn is able to stay two steps ahead of the Grysk because he's been integrated and learning about humans for decades and knows how the aliens will attempt to undermine human civilization from within.
And although he never suffers any setbacks, it's nail-biting each time to see who will come out on top -- Thrawn or the Grysk.
He has a tad bit of help, a commander of the Chiss Navy, and Zahn brings back Eli Vanto, now embedded with the Chiss Navy and seen as a deserter by all in the Empire -- except Thrawn, who of course arranged his desertion and subsequent education by the Chiss.
I loved this as a series finale, and can't wait (crossing my fingers) that Thrawn at some point will warrant on-screen time worthy of this military master-mind.
