Star Wars: The Last Command (The Thrawn Trilogy, #3) in The Expanded Universe

Apr 09, 2015 Josh Lewis rated it it was amazing

Shelves: sweu

All I have to say about this one is wow! Timothy Zahn proves to me once again why he's one of the franchise's best authors (if not the best).

*SPOILERS*

In this conclusion to the Thrawn trilogy, plots are woven under and on top of each other, clashing furiously and unexpectedly like Han's (first) shot to Greedo's face. The New Republic is quickly losing ground to Thrawn's strategic genius on one end, and facing a questionable alliance with the galaxy's most famed (and credit-hungry) smugglers on t All I have to say about this one is wow! Timothy Zahn proves to me once again why he's one of the franchise's best authors (if not the best).

*SPOILERS*

In this conclusion to the Thrawn trilogy, plots are woven under and on top of each other, clashing furiously and unexpectedly like Han's (first) shot to Greedo's face. The New Republic is quickly losing ground to Thrawn's strategic genius on one end, and facing a questionable alliance with the galaxy's most famed (and credit-hungry) smugglers on the other. All the while, Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade are working under the radar to bring an end to Thrawn's personal army of clones. It's a thrilling battle of wits and will on all sides, which Thrawn appears to have won when he deduces that the New Republic is going to strike Bilbringi. But not even he guesses at the rebellion of the Noghri assassins.

I was able to guess some of the events that had taken place, both because it was a little obvious and others because I was already in the know. The one event I knew about was the Luuke clone: based on my reading of later books without knowing exactly what would happen, it was easy to surmise that Mara would strike him down instead of the real Skywalker and quell the Emperor's voice in her head. The conditions that could only be guessed at (albeit accurately) were those surrounding Thrawn's death. As soon as it was established in the previous book "Dark Force Rising" that the Noghri rebellion was his ultimate blind spot, it could also be easily surmised that it would be so in his death. Even with these guesses, Zahn's writing didn't disappoint: Thrawn's death is one of the best written in the franchise for its timing and his last words. The battle with C'Baoth and Luuke is also very exciting.

One thing that Zahn has done in later writing is create a web of plots that all join coherently and fluidly in the middle. To me, it's sometimes a little contrived, but the fact that the smugglers were accidentally going to arrive in the same place and time as the New Republic to face Thrawn in this story felt so natural!

The foil between Thrawn and Pellaeon got somewhat tiresome near the beginning after two books, but it was fixed later as Pellaeon took a more active role in the relationship.

Overall, definitely one of the best EU books I've read, and I highly suggest Timothy Zahn to anyone interested in reading the EU or Sci-Fi in general. ...more

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Nov 19, 2013 Mark rated it liked it

Shelves: fiction, science-fiction, star-wars

Got to admit that the end was quite good and I understand what people mean when they say that this captured the spirit of the films, as the finale did very much remind me of ROTJ.

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