Thrawn

My hands are warm, I hold my mouse tight, my eyes squint at the Goodreads form.

Argh. I wanted to love this book. I love Thrawn and Zahn and still think the original Thrawn series is the best Star Wars prose we've had to date. While there is nothing wrong with this book, Zahn remains an able writer, there just isn't any real development of titular character. It's a weird sort of origin story in that Thrawn does not change over the course of the book. Sure, his human apprentice goes full circle, but I really couldn't care at all about that. We don't really get to know Thrawn as anything more or less than what we already got in the previous EU or Rebels. Ironically, the most well-developed character in the book is Governor Price!

This is not a bad book, but it's also not a particularly impressive one either. Thrawn is a novel that seems more like a necessary work to establish the credentials of the Grand Admiral in the new canon, rather than a truly engrossing take on the character. Why Zahn could not be unshackled to do both is what puzzles me.