Star Wars: Thrawn Trilogy Review
Book Series by Timothy Zahn Picks Up From Return of the Jedi
Sci-Fi writer Zahn captures the feel of the Star Wars universe and explains what happens after the events of Return of the Jedi in Heir to the Empire.
The Star Wars franchise has blossomed since its theater debut in 1976. Even more than three decades after its birth, Star Wars is still gaining popularity at an impressive rate. While the original trilogy had its own movie-to-book novelization and fan fiction was rampant in its first few years, eventually its popularity began to fade away. That is until 1991 when Timothy Zahn wrote the first major Star Wars novels that dealt with what happened to the emerging New Republic left in the wakes of Return of the Jedi. Zahn’s Admiral Thrawn Trilogy is the basis for nearly all of the novels to have come after it, and some that even take place chronologically before it.
Heir to the Empire, the first book in the series, picks up a few years after the events of Return of the Jedi. In the intervening years the New Republic has been systematically cleaning up the remnants of the old Imperial Order. Initially it appears as if the task is nearly finished, all of the Empire’s Grand Admirals had been caught and accounted for, the Emperor is dead, Darth Vader redeemed, and the vast machinery of the Empire is in shambles. The vacuum created by the Empire’s fall has provided the perfect opportunity for the fledgling New Republic to begin restoring order. It is into this social and political chaos that a new enemy shows his hand. An unheard of alien Grand Admiral emerges from the Unknown Regions. A military mastermind, whose skill rested in his ability to outthink his enemies by studying an enemy race’s artwork, Thrawn quickly begins to unite the scattered Imperial Navy and turn the tide against the Republic.
The trilogy deals with the attempts of Thrawn to recreate the Empire in his image. The admiral reveals a weapon which the New Republic is unprepared for; the Jedi master Joruus C’baoth. The returned Jedi master’s sanity is questionable at best, and he has his own plans for a reformed Empire, one in which he rules with the Force. Through sheer intelligence, a few secrets, and an ability to anticipate the moves of his enemies, Grand Admiral Thrawn manages to stay a step ahead of the New Republic and his mad Jedi master. His final discovery proves to be his most devastating. Thrawn manages to determine the origin of the madness all clones develop in time. By developing the means to circumvent the madness, Thrawn begins to create an unending supply of new soldiers for his cause. (Many of the major plots have been left out of this review so as to not reveal any spoilers.)
Timothy Zahn does an excellent job of capturing the magic we remember Star Wars fondly for. It is the perfect successor to the legacy of Star Wars and, in fact, it even feels like the natural progression of events since Return of the Jedi. It fills in the blanks in the immediate years following the final movie, and helps to flesh out more of the universe Lucas created. Since most of the expanded universe content to the Star Wars universe stems in some way from this initial series by Zahn, The Thrawn trilogy is the only proper place for a fan to start their continuing immersion into the phenomenon that is Star Wars.
