An Endless Universe

[Stele]

I just finished Outbound Flight. It took me a while with work and all.

I will give you a brief review with no spoilers.

It takes place between Episode I and II, in which the Outbound Flight is a designated colony ship with a secret Jedi agenda. Our movie favorites Obi-wan and Anakin are in the book and play a somewhat side role, but they are influential in the book.

Expanded Universe characters we see from the original Thrawn trilogy are Thrawn, of course, and C'Baoth. Thrawn comes across as the intelligent, calm, reserved, and professional military leader we've always known him to be. However, he is portrayed a bit more personal in the book as he has deep conversations with some of the characters, and he is an extremely curious young officer. Because of his curiousity, he uses it to gain a wealth of knowledge and understanding of the unknown as well as being extremely resourceful given the rank he has in the Chiss fleet; something he takes a step further than his race the Chiss. As always, he manages to stay two or three steps ahead of the game in the book despite some difficulties he later experiences, but in the end he counts on his careful and calculated planning to win over any obstacles.

C'baoth, in my opinion, is much more different than the clone we know from the Thrawn Trilogy. Instead, I see him far more dangerous, although he is a Jedi. The clone C'baoth was rash, while the original uses the Jedi code as well as his own experiences to justify most of his actions throughout the book. Most of the time the other Jedi surrounding him are somewhat shocked by his actions but not surprised when C'baoth quickly corrects them from his deep knowledge of the Force. C'boath displays an awesome power of the Force in the book that is definately worth reading.

The struggles in the book have an eery parallel of world events today. In one chapter Thrawn discusses his beliefs that contradict what he's been ordered to obey; throughout the book they are played out. The Chiss have a stern doctrine for rules of engagement but Thrawn manages to dance around it very dangerously, and even when he does so it is very hard to denounce his actions, especially the Chiss. When I say that this book parallels world events I am not saying that Timothy Zahn had a secret political agenda to label some characters as those in the world today or that he has a certain political bias. Instead, I'm saying that Zahn took everyday world struggling incidents that we know of and applied them to characters we already know, and based on their character how they might respond to such situations. In any event, whatever your beliefs or ideals are, you will be simply blown away by this book.

I know I was, and from what I've seen from the ending I hope Zahn has the intent to give us more Thrawn!


biggrin  

[Robin the Aussie]

Well Stele beat me to it.  

[Aleksandr Dyatlov]

Plus all the stuff about the Outbound Flight ship.

I like Timmy Zahn's books. Havent read any of the Star Wars ones. I have read The Conquers books though.  

[FrozenPhoenix32]

Zahn's are some of the best SW books actually.  

[Krazzed]

i think some of the books were better than the movies, like the episode III book, that was pretty good, and the episode VII book-i forgot what it was called-was good.  

[FrozenPhoenix32]

VII? there wasn;t one.

But the RotS novel was better than the book IMO.

It only lacked the Kashyyyk but it made up for it.  

[Mercury33]

I don't want to give anything away, but i have to know. Did anyone else read "Legacy of the Force: Betrayal" and feel completely blindsided by the ending?  

[FrozenPhoenix32]

I READ IT!

AND IT WAS GOOD!

AND THE ENDING WAS CRAZY!

Did you hear that Taun We is in the Dramatis Personae for Bloodlines?

I don't think I can wait two months...  

[Robin the Aussie]

FrozenPhoenix32

Robbin: I have a full summary in the library, but yeah there were some survivors. I don't remember if Lorana made it or not, but I remember that Chas Uliar (that techie rebellion leader who like hated Dillion Presser) becomes the selfappointed governor of the few survivors, and he has this crazy anti-Jedi fervor, like on a C'baoth level but reversed. He quarrantines anyone that demonstrates Force-sensitibity.

Hey PF remeber this post from the hangar.
Well we find out the fate of Thrass and Lorana.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorana_Jinzler  

[FrozenPhoenix32]

Yeah, that was at the end of OF right?  

[Robin the Aussie]

FrozenPhoenix32

Yeah, that was at the end of OF right?

Apparently yes and Luke and Mara find their skeletons in survivor's quest also...
So that pretty much says it.  

[FrozenPhoenix32]

Robin the Aussie

FrozenPhoenix32

Yeah, that was at the end of OF right?

Apparently yes and Luke and Mara find their skeletons in survivor's quest also...
So that pretty much says it.

Yeah, it was apparent in OF.

I thought you said you read it?  

[Robin the Aussie]

FrozenPhoenix32

Robin the Aussie

FrozenPhoenix32

Yeah, that was at the end of OF right?

Apparently yes and Luke and Mara find their skeletons in survivor's quest also...
So that pretty much says it.

Yeah, it was apparent in OF.

I thought you said you read it?

I did read it I mean sure Dreadnaught 4 was crushed but that doesn't automatically mean they died instantly.  

[FrozenPhoenix32]

Oh. well, it seeme dliek to me they were sure they were going to die.

But now that I think about it I must have been utterly confused the first time I read survivor's quest.

Because they left soo many questions unanswered, such as why there was a Charric next to Lorana's lightsaber, and what exactly OF was doing in the damn redoubt.  

[Robin the Aussie]

FrozenPhoenix32

Oh. well, it seeme dliek to me they were sure they were going to die.

But now that I think about it I must have been utterly confused the first time I read survivor's quest.

Because they left soo many questions unanswered, such as why there was a Charric next to Lorana's lightsaber, and what exactly OF was doing in the damn redoubt.

Yeah I suppose in your case reading Survivor's Quest it seemed weird.
While on the other hand with me reading Outbound Flight it just leaves one half unanswered but Survivor's Quest fills in it like the fate of the survivors ect.

Oh well Zahn has a nack for still making some good Star Wars books.