Rating: 
Summary: Hah, hah! FINALLY!!!
Review: Took y'all long enough! And in reference to those of you who are mad about the Mara/Luke pairing... I mean, come on, Callista? Who's CALLISTA?!? (For you Calli fans, that was a rhetorical question and I DON'T want an answer!) Thank goodness Zahn has his head in the right place!! Luke's half on the way to a nervous breakdown already! He DOESN'T need some little goody-two-shoes wimpo bimbo hanging around him! What he (and every other guy, for that matter) needs is a strong, intelligent woman who can kick him into shape and actually have the guts to TELL him when he's acting like a total idiot! (Which, I have to admit, happens rather quite a lot... ahh, what can 'ya do. They're guys. It's just the hormones working against them.) I was starting to lose my faith in Star Wars books, what with Barbara Hambly, Kevin J. Anderson and all those other folks running around like mad. Scary enough as it is, just thinkin' about it! I am SO glad Zahn is back, it ain't even funny! I'm just hopin' Vector Prime is as good as this was... PS... Translation: If you, Salvadore, kill Mara, then not only I but half the online community will be devastated. So PLEASE don't!!!!!
Rating:
Summary: People LISTAIN UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
Review: Alright i just have a couple of words to say one iv read a lot of these reviews and i can honestly say half the people dont know what there talking about.two i think Timothy Zahn did a great job writting this book. I like how he left so many possable squals for other books like when it shows pellaeon about to talk to that to Patrick and then it doesnt talk about it the rest of the book so you know the empire knows of the Hand of thrawn now a perfect setting for a new book.So that makes this book not the end but the beginning.also everyones mad at the fact that it did not show Luke and maras wedding but if you well remeber in the end of the book it showed mara saying that she had responsablites to her crew and could not just drop every thing and go get marryed.so they could make a hole book out of that right there.just one other thing.this book takes place 15 years after return of the jedi so some time between 15 years after and 21 years after maras going to die.because if you think about it 21 years after is when the Young jedi knight seris came out and in them theres no metion of her alive or her beening lukes wife.so all around i think this book is great and hope every starwars fan reads it.
Rating: 
Summary: This book is not very good at all.
Review: I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that there have probably been a few too many pieces of Star Wars material put out in the last five or so years. Lucas has even said as much in interviews that he has given. Why do these Star Wars tie-ins continue? Because idiots like me continue to buy into them. I bought this latest Timothy Zahn book once it came out in paperback. I justify my purchases by not buying the ridiculously overpriced hardcover versions of these things. This is the second book in a series of two which considering the second book was 700 pages long could probably have easily been made into a series of three. Yes, another masterwork by that impresario of Star Wars, Timothy Zahn. Basically, Zahn has made his name off of doing these books. He got the privilege of doing the first of these new Star Wars books to be published and of course it was a bestseller, even though it wasn't very good, because people had endured a drought of Star Wars material for about ten years. Now Zahn, an average writer at best, is lauded for his masterwork with the Star Wars series. Whatever. The post Return Of The Jedi plot line which Zahn and all the other writers work in is becoming tiresome to say the least. Lucas as far as I know has never acknowledged any of these stories to be anywhere close to his vision, the only reason these books are allowed to continue is because he has no desire to continue the series after Jedi. Of course, there are the hefty royalties that he collects as well. This current story line is set nineteen years after the first Star Wars film. Great, so what? Well, once again the New Republic is in trouble, a couple of Imperial remnants have managed to cook up a scheme to bring back the dead Grand Admiral Thrawn by using an impersonator and round up the remaining Imperials for one last strike at the New Republic. At the center of the plot are the Bothan people mentioned in passing for their spying abilities in Jedi. Some Bothans have been revealed to be responsible for the destruction of a peaceful world called Caamas. They gave the Empire codes to open up Caamas' planetary shield so that the Empire could destroy their planet (I guess this was pre-Death Star). Anyway, a lot of the races of the New Republic are up in arms about the situation, quite literally actually, as Bothan supporters and detractors have surrounded the Bothan planet in a tense standoff. Meanwhile our heroes are off looking for a document that contains the names of all the Bothans that conspired with the Empire in this heinous deed, so they can implicate them instead of all the Bothans. Luke though is off on a quest to find Mara Jade, the former Emperors Hand that is now his friend and occasional companion, she has disappeared on an unexplored planet. There are several other plotlines going on in the book which really are not of note, but some actually relate to the aforementioned plots. If none of this makes sense to you, go ahead and read the first book in this series and all the rest of the post Jedi novels as you won't have an inkling who some of these characters are without said context. Also, this book makes very little sense even with all that context so you might as well just keep on reading anyway. Zahn has one of the more annoying styles of writing that writers with way too many characters tend to employ. He writes several pages using a character or set of characters and then will switch to the next character and situation and then the next and the next and so on until he returns back to character and situation number one. This can be done, but not easily, and it doesn't make for a book that flows very well, and usually it requires cohesive elements linking each character and situation and a very good ending that ties all the disparate situations together. Neither of these are present here. Some of the plot lines occurring in this book seem so far removed from each other that they could have been written into another book. Take for instance the Luke and Mara sub-plot. This has no real connection to the other parts of the story at all. There are only the thinnest strands that connect this portion of the story in some way to the rest of the book and then only half-heartedly at the end and in vague reference in the middle of the book. The other problem besides all the plots flying around is that the overall plot and therefore the sub-plots are just plain uninteresting. The Star Wars characters that we know and love have been reduced to absolute stinking wretched levels of boring stupid caricature. Zahn's portrayal of Luke Skywalker is even more wooden and uninteresting than Mark Hamill's was. Is that possible? Read and find out, or don't and save yourself some time and aggravation. A testament to how boring and uninteresting the overall plot of this series is, is that the whole thing is resolved in the span of about three paragraphs at the end of this book. I think, unfortunately, that these books are some sort of lead in to another big plot that Zahn has in mind for another series of books, as there are several threads left hanging at the end of the book with heavy foreshadowing. If Zahn had been smart he would have chopped about three hundred pages out of this book and either put it into another book or thrown it in the trash and then it could have been something tolerable. As it is, all I can say is, where are the editors when you need them? 1.5 out of 5
Rating: 
Summary: A great story with less to like about the characters
Review: We get some huge events here. A detente offer from an Imperial admiral who's starting to trust the Republic more than right-wing elements in his own military. The discovery of a new species whose children are its best diplomats. But there are some major characters here who are definitely off their game. For instance, Mara Jade, who I'd once thought of as a love interest for Luke (after all, his first love turned out to be a long-lost twin sister). But Mara and Luke go on a mission together, and she constantly disses Artoo as a burden--with little regard for the bond he and Luke share. She gets petulant when she can't speak telepathically to the above new species like Luke can. And she's still making self-serving excuses why she washed out of Luke's Jedi Academy. It's an interesting spin on the "sensitivity" and "civility"--maybe instead of a huge evolutionary step by the time we're all roaring around the galaxy in X-wings and TIE fighters, NEITHER gender will be worth a damn at it. Which is a bummer out of the Star Wars universe--on the whole, ever since George Lucas thought up Princess Leia, his followers into print have always been better than the Star Trek crowd at coming up with strong women characters who are gutsy ladies like Mirax Terrik (Mrs. Corran Horn) who don't have to compromise their feminity, while the Trek bunch gives us the alpha-female Seven Of Nine. Maybe that's who "The Jadester" is--Star Wars' Seven Of Nine.
Rating:
Summary: A great book even if you are not a Stars Wars fan!
Review: Timothy Zhan is so good at writing science fiction that people will enjoy reading this book even if they arent science fiction fans.I cant wait to see Hand of Thrawn made into a trilogy!
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful, the best Star Wars book ever
Review: Wow. I didn't think it could be done, but Zahn exceeds his original trilogy. For sure the best Star Wars book writen, and it also makes the best Star Wars series ever. The climax was done wonderfully, and was very tense and exciting. And the extra background we get on Thrawn is great, and gives many new insights into his charecter. And the story of Yoda's battle with the Dark Jedi was also very good. And of course, the ending with Luke and Mara Jade was done very well. I am happy for Luke that he finnaly found someone. And great supporting charecters in Pelleaon, Karde, Bel Iblis, Corran Horn, Wedge, and Booster Terick. A must read for all Star Wars fans.
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Summary: It's about time!!!
Review: This was one of the most awesome SW books I have ever read! Like I said, it's about time Luke and Mara got together. Mara has been my favorite character ever since the Thrawn series. Callista was just a whimp, and the books she was in I just didn't get. I'm sorry, but she pretty much dumped Luke to look for her Force powers. I hope to God there are sequels, I've got to know what happens. Question: I've been trying to find out, what's the book when Luke goes over to the Dark Side? (temporarily)
Rating: 
Summary: A fitting end to a new beginning...
Review: Having only read the "Thrawn trilogy" and the Hand of Thrawn set, I was quite intriqued. After readin g the reviews of all the other books in the "expanded universe", I am glad I only read the Zahn material. Apparently, Stackpole's work is supposed to be pretty good, but now that I read the end, why bother reading the in-between stuff. That said, this book wrapped up everything pretty nicely. For the most part. There were a few loose ends left out there but nothing major. It's nice to see that it looks like age is catching up to the much beloved characters and it's time for settling down. The whole Unknown Regions plotline opens up a new threat and so and so forth but at least Luke is finally settling down and not trying to save everyone from now on (by the way, he and Jade do get married, that's a fact, and no one dies in the new del rey line). I was kinda hoping Thrawn would return but it all worked out pretty amusing in the end. Oh, well. Read this only to put an end to what was started so long ago.
Rating:
Summary: Best SW Book yet
Review: This book is a must-read. I loved the whole Luke and Mara relationship. I can't wait for Vector Prime to come out. BTW-The Lando/Mara thing was during the Jedi Academy Trilogy and Children of the Jedi.
Rating:
Summary: Question ?
Review: In reading this duology, and only having read the "Thrawn triology", where did the Lando/Mara thing take place (which book[s])? Just curious.
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