Star Wars

All right, let’s get this out of the way right off the bat: I read these three books to follow along with a podcast I like. That’s it. That’s the reason I derailed the last four months of 2024 for obsolete Star Wars content. I regret my decision. Let’s move on.

If you’re not the type of person who follows Star Wars much further than the mainline movies and shows, here’s a brief overview of what this series is, so far as I understand it. Released over the early 90s, the Heir to the Empire trilogy represents a sequel to the original three films, continuing the story of the original cast of characters while mixing in some new faces, locations, and threats. It wasn’t the first of the “expanded universe” content for Star Wars, but its success launched a new wave of third-party books, comics, and games for the franchise. These three books are so renowned by the fanbase that, even though Disney decided to cut them from official canon following their purchase of the Star Wars franchise, they brought back the beloved antagonist Grand Admiral Thrawn and introduced him as an adversary in the TV show Star Wars Rebels. If you know any single piece of Legends content, it’s probably this one.

Which means I’m likely going to upset some folks by giving it a very middling review. Let me defend myself, then, by saying that this isn’t the kind of rating that means “it was serviceable enough but didn’t wow me”. Instead, it’s the kind that says “the quality was so wildly different throughout that I had to take the average”. While that makes it more fun to write about, it also puts me in a tricky spot since I can’t really form a central thesis around my review. My thoughts are all over the place on this one, and I’m going to try to organize them as best I can, but I’m only human. Also, as a disclaimer, I’m not holding back on spoilers on this one.

I think part of why these books are so well-regarded is because a lot of the “big ideas” that represent the state of the world and what the characters have to overcome are really compelling and clearly have had a lot of thought put into them. Five years following the Battle of Endor in Return of the Jedi, the New Republic is still trying to wrest the last of the star systems from Imperial hands. Zahn makes it clear at the outset that the Empire is losing the war because many of their most talented up-and-coming officers were serving Darth Vader on his huge flagship, which was destroyed in said battle along with the second Death Star. Meanwhile, the New Republic’s resources are strained trying to hold the ground they’ve won; and on top of that, now that they control the capital, their organization, which was specially-assembled for waging war, now has to figure out how to build a working galactic democracy from scratch. This perfectly sets the stage for an Imperial mastermind to assume control and upset the balance.

And yet, despite clearly showing skill in putting pieces into place, Zahn rarely sticks the landing in a satisfying way. Princess Leia comes to terms with the damage the Rebellion has caused when she meets with a species that is honour-bound to serve the Empire after Darth Vader provided aid to their people following the post-battle environmental destruction of their planet ... except it turns out the crashed ship is actually from the Clone Wars and the Rebellion wasn’t responsible, and also the Empire is screwing these guys so Leia can turn them to allies, no problem. Tensions flare in the New Republic council as we clearly can’t trust the Bothan spymaster who is obviously angling for political power and trying to oust Admiral Ackbar, even though he claims there’s more going on than meets the eye ... except there isn’t, the Bothan really is just greedy and ends up done in by his own incompetence despite being considered a master of his craft. Luke Skywalker, uncertain in his role as Jedi and fearful of his newfound responsibility to train others, seeks out more knowledge after the emergence of a dormant Jedi master who secretly thrives on dominating a person’s mind and slowly bending them to his will ... except the guy is too overtly evil right away, so Luke isn’t impressed and gets away before there’s any real sense of temptation. The Empire launches a series of drilling vehicles to bore into New Republic ships, intending to quickly hijack them for Imperial use and instantly turn the tide of the war ... except Lando owns the mining city the drills were stolen from and he knows their deactivation codes, which he can easily transmit from the Millennium Falcon. It’s just a constant stream of “ooh, how are they going to get out of this mess?” followed by “oh, well that was easy.”

Even worse, Zahn will add details that ultimately end up either forgotten or irrelevant. In Book 1, Han and Lando meet up with smuggler, Talon Kaarde, to hire a skilled hacker so that they can communicate with the capital undetected. The hacker is introduced, but circumstances change and he ends up not contributing to the plot. He’s then pretty much written out of the story until Book 3, where he shows up pretty much out-of-the-blue to hand the New Republic the solution to closing a huge intelligence leak absolutely free of charge. Or, take the two groups of alien locals that track the heroes through the jungle on their way to the Imperial base; they eventually meet up, settle their differences and vow to fight with one another, at which point the locals proceed to accomplish nothing and have no purpose. This kind of thing even happens in the same act; Han and Leia are trapped in a firefight in the capital, and Lando and Chewbacca hatch and execute a plan to escape to the Millennium Falcon, intending to fly to their window and evacuate them that way. It seems like the makings of a dramatic rescue when the Falcon shows up at Leia’s bedroom window; but then that’s as far as that idea goes, and Lando and Chewie just kind of sit there and watch as somebody else comes in to save Han and Leia, instead. It really seems like Zahn had an original solution for how to resolve the scene, then later had a better idea, but forgot to fully take out the first solution, leaving us with action that ultimately fizzles out.

A number of new characters are introduced in this book. The immediate problem that must be overcome is that these characters need to be able to stand alongside the heroes we remember from the original trilogy and hold their own. There are four characters in particular that I would consider the most noteworthy additions, and Zahn—continuing the theme I established above—gives these folks cool backgrounds and traits that, at face value, are very compelling. The problem is, based on the actions they take in the books, all of them in some way fall short of our expectations.

Grand Admiral Thrawn: Thrawn is introduced to us in the very first chapter as the new Imperial overlord. He is shown to be very strategic and excels in thinking outside the box. He has a knack for picking up on details that others see as insignificant, and using them to make deductions about the moves his adversaries are going to make. But one of his most defining traits is in how he applies his art history degree to warfare; by studying and interpreting a culture’s artwork, he is able to deduce how they think and how they will respond in certain situations, and he uses that knowledge against them. To this last point, we never actually see how this works; yes, we’re often shown Thrawn in his cabin surrounded by various artwork, and yes, we do see him go “ah, we are dealing with these people, use this tactic”; but not once does Zahn ever bridge the gap between these two and have Thrawn say, “I noticed this recurring theme across these pieces that leads me to believe...” Even if we suspend our disbelief, that a culture can be uniformly represented by their art, we’re shown that Thrawn has the answers, but not how he gets those answers ... so why even bother with the art-lover aspect at that point? He could have just studied sociology.

Meanwhile, while his deductive ability is constantly infuriating in a “I hate that he’s this good” kind of way, we rarely see it return big dividends. I think this is because the protagonists are almost never acting directly against him; instead, they’re trying to achieve their own goals, and Thrawn ends up more as a complication than an adversary. This does backfire on him too, a couple times; once or twice he makes a bad assumption trying to react to the unpredictability of the heroes who, again, are just off doing their thing with no idea he’s gunning for them. This is very fun and prevents him from seeming infallible, but I wish Zahn would have, at one point, shown the protagonists deliberately outplaying Thrawn. This would have been absolutely perfect for the end battle, which is a desperate New Republic raid to obtain a device that only exists in three systems. The New Republic is positioning all their ships as though they are going to attack the easiest target, when, in fact, they plan on attacking the hardest, assuming Thrawn won’t suspect such a brazen assault. Thrawn absolutely does suspect this and directs his fleets to guard the harder target, despite his second-in-command warning him on multiple occasions that Imperial intelligence is really, REALLY indicating that the easy target is the mark. I would have loved to see the New Republic turn around and go, actually, the easy target WAS the mark all along, and take their prize scot-free while Thrawn has to sit there with egg on his face and lose the confidence of his men. Instead, the New Republic hits the harder target and triggers the trap, and they only win because some of Talon Karrde’s men happened to already be there trying to steal the device the New Republic is after, so they strike a deal and attack the Empire from the rear to turn the tide.

(On top of that, before the raid even begins, Talon Karrde himself shows up at the New Republic and tells them they don’t actually need the device anymore. But at that point it’s apparently too late not to launch the raid. And ... too late for Karrde to tell his men they don’t need to steal it. Now we’re having this pivotal battle for no reason. You see why I get a little frustrated at this book.)

The few big victories Thrawn gets, it doesn’t feel like he earns. For his first win, not only does he activate old clone production tanks, he finds a way to produce clone soldiers more quickly than in the past (or so we’re told by the freaking-out New Republic leadership because the audience only ever sees a grand total of, like, five clone soldiers on-screen); but this mystery is practically hand-waved away with a thin explanation that implies Thrawn conveniently had all the tools he needed to achieve this advanced production capability. Two, he beats the New Republic in the race to acquire a dormant dreadnaught fleet lost in space; yet after the location is learned by both sides at roughly the same time, and despite Han and Leia disobeying orders and setting out immediately so they can get a crew out there as fast as possible to stake their claim, Thrawn impossibly has 90% of the 200 dreadnaught-sized ships already restored and moved out-of-system. Sure, the mechanics of it have a somewhat plausible in-universe explanation, but if you have to get in the weeds on details to make your plot work then it’s not a good plot.

Joruus C’baoth: This guy is the so-called evil Jedi Master I mentioned earlier. He starts the book exerting his control over some backwater village, which happens to be located near the hidden Imperial clone tanks; this is how Thrawn finds and recruits him to help coordinate the Empire’s fleets via Force manipulation. C’baoth is in it for the power; but not the kind of control-the-galaxy power the Emperor had. Instead, he prefers the more intimate power of dominating minds and making people bend to his will.

This is a cool way to give us a dark Jedi without rehashing Emperor Palpatine’s schtick. It also completely sucks because Zahn also introduces a way to inhibit a Jedi’s ability to use the Force (more on this later), and C’baoth is unable to use his abilities about 90% of the time he’s present, which already isn’t often. This means he’s largely relegated to making loud, vague threats at characters that he has no way to back up; although even in the finale, when he does have access to the Force, he still spends a lot of the scene making loud, vague threats at characters that he doesn’t back up. Sure, there’s a point where he basically kills a guy purely with his mind; but that’s some random Imperial, and he sure doesn’t put that same energy into trying to enthral any of the protagonists.

One of his big goals in this trilogy is to acquire Luke, Leia, and Leia’s unborn twins as apprentices so he can mold them to his whims. Despite being billed an ever-present threat, he only ever gets Luke under his wing; and even then, Luke never seems in any real danger of being lost to the Dark Side. When Mara Jade later comes seeking Luke’s help, he acts as though he was about to leave of own accord the next day, anyway. Funnily enough, this guy really only ends up hurting Thrawn’s plans more than anybody else’s.

Talon Kaarde: Zahn has an answer as to who filled the power vacuum left behind in the criminal underworld after Jabba the Hutt was killed in Return of the Jedi. Talon Kaarde is that answer, so we’re told. However, despite how ruthless the industry is and how savvy somebody would have to be to rule the roost, Talon Kaarde never seems like any more than an affable small business owner. The guy’s worst crime is smuggling items that aren’t technically illegal, just inconvenient. Meanwhile, employee satisfaction at Kaarde, Inc. is through the roof because of how good a manager he is, and it’s explicitly stated in the text that he’s the only crime boss who is clever enough to diversify his business assets so that one bad investment doesn’t tank the whole operation. Anyway, Zahn clearly wanted to set him up as the play-both-sides kind of loose cannon, but he makes one deal with the Empire early on before inadvertently getting on Thrawn’s bad side and indirectly batting for the New Republic the rest of the series.

For all that, this trilogy has a character that makes a better Talon Kaarde than Talon Kaarde, and that character is Lando Calrissian. At the start of the books, Lando is likewise heading his own—albeit legitimate—business operation, before eventually being goaded into helping the New Republic again. But even though we fully trust Lando because he’s one of our returning heroes, and he’s always helping out Luke, Leia, and Han, he somehow still feels way shadier and more connected to the underworld than Kaarde is. I’m pretty sure Kaarde mostly exists because Thrawn needed his numbers on the scoreboard pumped up but it can’t be our main cast taking the Ls all the time.

Mara Jade: It takes us a while to learn this, but we find out that during the original trilogy, Mara Jade was working as “The Emperor’s Hand”, a position that is never fully explained but likely involved some hyper-competent military and infiltration action and sharp political manoeuvring. Sort of like Palpatine’s version of James Bond, I’d imagine. Nowadays, she’s working as Talon Kaarde’s second-in-command, her insight and skills fully earning his trust within a time frame of mere months. But as soon as Luke Skywalker enters the picture, the girl has no game. She has a huge chip on her shoulder owing to his destruction of the emperor, and wants Skywalker dead, and then hilariously finds herself in situations where she needs him alive. When this happens, Luke is just so wholesomely accepting of who she is that anytime she tries to prove herself superior in any way, she just comes across like a whiny teenager whose parents won’t let her drive the car. Meanwhile, since she’s working for Karrde, she has to suffer with his losses for about a book and a half; but after that, she splits off to interact with the original heroes for a while, so she has to take a backseat to them, too. Nothing about her hints at the cunning, reliable woman she supposedly was prior to these books; sure, she’s perfectly competent in a firefight, but once the guns are holstered, she is just angst and poor decision-making.

I mentioned earlier about a circumstance in which a Jedi could be denied their ability to access the Force. Think like Kryptonite to Superman. This is admittedly kind of a problem with Force-users as a whole; once you give them amazing unstoppable powers, you then have to figure out a way to make anything they face a challenge. But Zahn doesn’t want to rip off Kryptonite wholesale, so his solution is some sort of lizard-sloth creature that happens to project a Force-nullifying aura around itself.

This is very silly

Because what this means is, anybody who wants to limit a Jedi’s power needs to have at least one of these lizard-sloths hanging around in the scenery nearby. Preferably more, to cover a larger area. Now, consider that Thrawn is the one employing these to keep his pawn C’baoth in check, so you have to imagine a half-dozen of these things lounging around the cold, gray bridge of the Star Destroyer. God forbid you want to travel anywhere, because then you need to put on a special backpack to haul one of these things around with you; the visual does not pair with Thrawn’s pristine white Grand Admiral uniform at all, and it is very funny.

Oh, and another example. Many, many years ago, skimming through Wookieepedia, I came across an event from Expanded Universe material in which Luke was cloned from his hand that he lost in Empire Strikes Back, with the end result being a dark Jedi named Luuke. At the time, I thought wow, that’s so ridiculous that it must be from one of the really bad books that nobody ever reads. Nope. That, uh, that happens in this one. Luke and Luuke duel each other in the climax. We all recognize the “evil clone” as a comedy trope, right?

But where the silliness really gets out of hand is in how characters try to solve their problems. Thoughtful, practical solutions are frequently tossed out the window. Imperials are waiting for Luke and Mara to come out of the jungle? Let’s rub poison ivy all over Luke’s face so he looks like a different person (he ends up just looking like a person who rubbed poison ivy all over his face). Imperials are coming into the great hall and we need to hide? Quick, have Chewbacca climb up the wood columns and toss C-3PO into the chandelier (did you know wookiees can climb with their big long claws since they’re native to a forest planet? Too bad there wasn’t a forest planet in the original trilogy where Chewie could have made use of this ability). We need to sneak these aliens into the capital? Let’s try dressing them up as those little robed Jawas from the first movie (that won’t raise suspicion at all). Even Thrawn isn’t immune from this (I want to conquer this shielded planet really quickly? Let’s shoot our lasers at the shield, and then have cloaked ships inside the shield fire their lasers at the planet with such perfect timing that it looks like we just shot through the shield) (or alternately, I want to control this dark Jedi who could easily destroy me, better fill my ship with lizard-sloths). This feels like the kind of crap that my Dungeons & Dragons players come up with on the fly. You know, stuff that makes me ask, really? That’s what you’re going with? And that I then have to let them get away with because they end up rolling a 19? That’s what Zahn is doing all through his books.

Oh, and don’t even get me started on Chapter 2, wherein Luke wakes up in the middle of the night, puts on his bathrobe and slippers, and makes hot chocolate. Nope. I draw the line at hot chocolate.

Despite the 3500 words of criticism I’ve levied against Heir to the Empire, I can’t give it any fewer than two and a half stars. Is it dumb? Yeah. It’s dumb quite frequently. It is constantly fumbling the ball. This is in no way good literature. But I kept reading anyway, because it was fun. Look, if you finished watching the original trilogy and you wanted more Star Wars, this is more Star Wars. If you want more Luke, Leia, Han, Lando, Chewbacca, C-3PO, R2-D2, you can get it here! I haven’t talked about them much so far because, to Zahn’s credit, he handles them all exceedingly well; their identities are maintained, and they feel so much like the characters from the films that I can forgive the fact that they never reference any events that occurred outside the timeline of the original trilogy.

And, let’s be real, the movies weren’t without their share of issues, either. Jawas, chicken walkers, and ewoks are silly. Lucas re-used the Death Star as the big bad doomsday device in Jedi. And remember how Leia kissed Luke in Empire, an entire film before they discovered they were siblings? But we loved those movies anyway because they were fun. These books are fun. Star Wars is fun. Perhaps it’s not always the most well-crafted, but as far as I’m concerned, if something is fun enough, it doesn’t have to be.