Rating: 
Summary: Wow! Another Great story from the best Star Wars Writer ever
Review: Tim Zahn returns of the Star Wars universe with a bang. Survivor's Quest follows the adventures of Luke & Mara Jade Skywalker several months after their marriage. This books is vagualy along the lines of Tatooine Ghost by Troy Denning which took place a few months after Han & Leia were married. In many ways, it is the completion of Zahn's Hand of Thrawn series. The Chiss major players in the recently concluded New Jedi Order series, and the native race of the greatest tactician in Star Wars history, Grand Admiral Thrawn, take center stage as does the Outbound Flight project brought up in Zahn's very first Star Wars series. Luke & Mara are contacted by the Chiss who discovered the remains of the OUtbound Flight project, a fleet of 6 massive ships supposedly destroyed by Thrawn 50+ years ago. Along for the ride are Chiss with hidden agenda's, con men, alien worshippers, intrigue & deception. The book is a taut thriller, full of twists and turns and focuses on Luke & Mara, none of the other mainline Star Wars characters make an appearance except for Talon Karrde & Booster Terrik. This works to the books advantage, because many times with so many characters, storylines get too conflicted. Overall this is a great and fun look at the Skywalkers as a couple and helps to answer many questions posed by revelations from the prequal movies. Just as Tatooine Ghost did, Survivor's Quest incorporates information found in both The Phantom Menace & Attack of the Clones to form a more complete Star Wars novel. Is it better than Zahn's other work? Not better than his original Thrawn trilogy, but certainly equal to his Hand of Thrawn series. And that ladies & gent's is not too bad!
Rating:
Summary: Wow! Another Great story from the best Star Wars Writer ever
Review: Tim Zahn returns of the Star Wars universe with a bang. Survivor's Quest follows the adventures of Luke & Mara Jade Skywalker several months after their marriage. This books is vagualy along the lines of Tatooine Ghost by Troy Denning which took place a few months after Han & Leia were married. In many ways, it is the completion of Zahn's Hand of Thrawn series. The Chiss major players in the recently concluded New Jedi Order series, and the native race of the greatest tactician in Star Wars history, Grand Admiral Thrawn, take center stage as does the Outbound Flight project brought up in Zahn's very first Star Wars series. Luke & Mara are contacted by the Chiss who discovered the remains of the OUtbound Flight project, a fleet of 6 massive ships supposedly destroyed by Thrawn 50+ years ago. Along for the ride are Chiss with hidden agenda's, con men, alien worshippers, intrigue & deception. The book is a taut thriller, full of twists and turns and focuses on Luke & Mara, none of the other mainline Star Wars characters make an appearance except for Talon Karrde & Booster Terrik. This works to the books advantage, because many times with so many characters, storylines get too conflicted. Overall this is a great and fun look at the Skywalkers as a couple and helps to answer many questions posed by revelations from the prequal movies. Just as Tatooine Ghost did, Survivor's Quest incorporates information found in both The Phantom Menace & Attack of the Clones to form a more complete Star Wars novel. Is it better than Zahn's other work? Not better than his original Thrawn trilogy, but certainly equal to his Hand of Thrawn series. And that ladies & gent's is not too bad!
Rating: 
Summary: skywalker meets agatha christie
Review: Timothy Zahn hooked me with his original Thrawn Trilogy, but I was ultimatly dissapointed with this outing. I give it 3 instead of 2 stars only because there are some interesting action sequences, and in the end, it is a moderatly fun book.
My dissapointment arises because the mystery aspect of the book is so implausible. I enjoyed seeing the mystery set up, and was interested to see a SW novel written with that genre in mind, but either the Jedi have super-human deductive capabilities, or Timothy Zahn doesn't get the idea of drawing logical conclusions. There are several moments when Luke and Mara see a set of clues and draw some wildly implausible conclusion, which then turns out to be correct. There is, therefore, no sense of discovery for the mystery, as the Jedi are drawing conclusions and making deductions that would be impossible for the reader.
Zahn's dialogue is also quite bad, as I had difficulty imagining the character actually speaking as they do in this novel. Also, much of the 'married couple' banter was kind of trite and smug. Next, Zahn has this annoying habit of giving names to even the most periphary characters, such that they seem like they'll be important, even though they more times than naught dissappear never to be seen again. And while I like the 501st Stormtroopers squad, I would have preferred more menacing monichers than "Cloud" and "Grappler" and "Watchman". Finally, the villians' reason for engineering the entire affair is kind of lame. When they're first suspected of trying to discover a route into the Chiss' stronghold, I was sold; but to have them just seeking droid technology was a bit anti-climactic.In the end, I personally prefer the far superior Thrawn Trilogy, or the recent mega-epic New Jedi Order series. I guess I'd rather my Star Wars be more serious and epic instead of just quick popcorn-type fun.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: Timothy Zahn is probably the man we should all thank for bringing the star wars saga back to life with his bestselling "Heir to the Empire" Trilogy, but he certainly lost some of his ability in the Force between his last Duolody ("The Hand of Thrawn" books) and this latest adventure with the cast of his creation we have all come to like.
On this opportunity, there are several things that set the book apart from the rest:
1) all the main characters except Luke were totally erased from the story, even the very necessary and plot enriching droids, not even Luke's faithful Artoo made it in this time, which is quite odd.
2) Zahn's "Band of Brother's" approach to the gruop of Imperial Stormtroopers, which he said were part of the Five-O-First (501st...), was pretty lame and even though he wanted to give them this intriguing side to them they were just a couple of grunts with A LOT of equipment on them and quite invinsible, which doesn't go right with the image of Princess Leia dropping them like flies on the original trilogy movies.
3) the bad guys are as plain and uninteresting as you would get them to be; and when they finally reveal themselves it seems that the whole time almost all of the other characters knew about them but didn't do anything. To what purpose they didn't do anything is still to be defined.
4) The main reason I thought the book might be interesting was because finally we got to see the very talked about and quite interesting Outbound Flight and what it actually happened to it, but TOO BAD because the book merely talks about the layout of the ships that made out the whole thing, and also talked a little about the people that survived and how they hated Jedi, BUT IT DOESN'T SAY WHY THEY HATE THE JEDI, DUH!!!So it leaves you with a feeling that the whole book was for nothing.
5) Even though Luke or any of the original characters didn't really know anything about what had actually happened during the Clone Wars, all of a sudden he and Mara Jade seemed to know a lot about Battledroids and Droid Armies and Destroyer Droids, as if they had been briefed on them by watching Episode I and II (????) and they also seemed to know a lot about Jedi Knights and what they used to do, which is totally wrong compared to what the rest of the expanded universe stories have let on. You also have to consider Luke's fascination with ancient Jedi lore, BECAUSE HE'S NOT REALLY SUPPOSED TO KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THAT TIME TO BEGING WITH!!
6)and last but not least, the character Card'as (or something like that) is this omnipresent know-it-all that nobody has seen but all the other characters seem to recognize instantly, and all have to do with him in some way or another, which makes me wonder if it's a why for Zahn to put himself in the story and in a very amateur kind of way play out all the characters like puppets, which is quite bad because you get the feeling that the characters have a quite unavoidable purpose, and this in turn takes away their ability to have the kind of freedom we can all appreciate and relate to.
So, those are my views, take them into consideration and find out for yourself what to think about it. If you're a Star Wars fan you should buy the book just so you know what I'm talking about, but if your new to Star Wars I would suggest you start with something better, like "Star Wars: Splinter of the Minds Eye"
Peace
Rating: 
Summary: Money for Nothing
Review: Wasn't I excited when I found out that Timothy Zahn would be writing a new Star Wars novel. Great I thought. One of my favourite authors writing for my favourite past time again. I devour Star Wars literature at an expensive rate. Also it was to be about the Outbound Flight Project. Another Great. How was my dissapointment after I read it. Not up to Zahn's usual high standards. What does this novel tell you. Nothing much except contardict a lot of established expanded universe information. The fact that nothing much is revealed is the big killer. All it is, is an excuse to forfill a contract. Living in Australia books are expensive. Paying $40 for a hardcover that wasnt any good is very frustrating. Like Planet of Twilight all over again. Zahn let himself down and he let down a lot of star wars fans. It wasn't a "fantastic read" or deserved the comment "zahn is back", no the comment that it really deserves is this. "Lucasbooks and Timothy Zahn suck people in again with crap"
Rating:
Summary: Zahn is Back & Zahn is Still God
Review: Zahn is back! I had to go to 4 bookstores on February 3rd to find a copy of this book, and the reward more than justified the efforts. Zahn writes with his usual clarity and intelligence, creating a book that is saturated with action, mystery, political intrigue, and the eerie elements of a ghost story. Zahn is the master of writing Jedi who are extraordinarily powerful, but whose superhuman abilities have limits and therefore do not overshadow their more impressive minds and characters. This also makes him one of the rare Star Wars writers who can create non-Force-sensitive characters who are as worthwhile and interesting as his Jedi. This sense of balance is also apparent in Zahn's handling of the usually very black-and-white politics of the Star Wars universe--that is to say, as fans already know from his earlier books, his Imperials can be at least as fascinating and sympathetic as the more stock Rebels. In this book, through the intelligent, young Commander Chak Fel (son of the Baron Soontir Fel and older brother to Jaina Solo's later love interest, Jag Fel) and an elite cadre of stormtroopers who are interesting and individualized, Zahn gives his readers a sympathetic view of what the Empire could have been in the hands of a man like Thrawn. But Survivor's Quest isn't just a smart, multifaceted book--it's also a complete page-turner. I read the last 300 pages without any breaks longer than about two minutes, and that's not my normal style. The last book I can remember being this impossible to put down was Matthew Stover's Shatterpoint. In summary, Zahn is back, and Zahn is still God. Survivor's Quest was well worth the large, hardcover price tag, and I'll gladly pay that much again when the sequel comes out. Because there's going to be a sequel, right Lucas Books?
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