Star Wars in Prose
‘The Thrawn Trilogy’ presents a great option for continuing the saga.
When I first got into Star Wars, we had neither a prequel trilogy nor a sequel trilogy. There was only the Star Wars trilogy. So, if we wanted more, we had to look to other mediums.
Books delivered the goods. Beginning in 1991, Bantam Spectra published a series of Star Wars novels that continued the saga beyond the events of Return of the Jedi and filled some other gaps in the timeline.
Timothy Zahn wrote the first trilogy of novels that came out in 1991–93: Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, and The Last Command, which are known collectively as The Thrawn Trilogy. The books take place five years after Return of the Jedi, and they move the saga forward, building on what came before without merely rehashing past successes.
I’m not sure whether this novel series was ever considered the “official” continuation of the movies, but that’s beside the point. These books acted official. The writers took them seriously and crafted plausible storylines that felt like authentic Star Wars, which is doubly impressive when you consider that they couldn’t rely on assistance from any John Williams score.
None of this is a dig at Disney Star Wars. The sequel trilogy rendered all the ’90s novels as non-canon, so those books received new branding beneath the Star Wars Legends banner as new books emerged from the new continuity. This gives fans choices. You can imagine that the Legends books are how it all continued, or you can imagine that the sequel trilogy and subsequent books are how it all continued. Or go back and forth between the two, depending on your mood. Take your pick. Enjoy what you enjoy. It’s all fantasy anyway.
The now-Legends books were my best option as a teenager, and the series was already pretty far along by the time I started. I recently reread just The Thrawn Trilogy for the first time in many years and can happily report that all three books hold up wonderfully.
Zahn introduces a new villain, the trilogy’s namesake, and wisely avoids bringing anyone back from the dead. So, Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine are no longer available to plague the galaxy and hinder the efforts of the fledgling New Republic. Instead, we meet Grand Admiral Thrawn.
Heir to the Empire establishes that the Imperial fleet was led by a dozen elite grand admirals. Thrawn is the last of them. His survival alone hints at his skill. So does his blue skin—the Emperor was bigoted against non-human species, but Thrawn rose all the way through the ranks despite that prejudice. Zahn quickly establishes Thrawn as a credible threat to the New Republic, and a very different threat than Vader or Palpatine.
Thrawn has no access to the Force; he can’t lean on that particular crutch to dominate or awe others. Instead, he relies on his own intellect and cunning. Thrawn does his homework—he studies the different art that each species produces so he can better understand how his enemies think. He’s a master strategist always thinking multiple steps ahead and planning for contingencies. He’s like the Lex Luthor of Star Wars.
Writing a superhumanly intelligent character is not easy. It essentially requires writers to pretend to be smarter than they actually are, and it would be all too easy to slip up and let the seams show. Zahn avoids that (or perhaps he just is that smart).
One effective tactic he employs: Thrawn is never a viewpoint character. His scenes are often narrated from the point of view of a subordinate, Captain Pellaeon. While Pellaeon seems reasonably competent, he’s ultimately a fairly ordinary Imperial captain and not in Thrawn’s league. Through Pellaeon’s eyes, we see how impressive and multifaceted Thrawn is, and we maintain just enough distance that we can’t spot any chinks in Thrawn’s intellectual armor.
Thrawn can be firm and harsh, but he also makes a point to commend his subordinates when warranted, especially for any clever outside-the-box thinking. He’s no cartoon tyrant imposing his will on everyone. He understands the importance of morale, realizing his people should want to serve him and the Empire. At no point is the reader baffled as to how this guy rose to such an esteemed position in the Empire.
The books aren’t just about Thrawn, of course. Zahn gets all the characters right, including the preexisting cast. Luke, Leia, Han, and everyone else sound exactly right. It’s easy to imagine Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford speaking this dialogue.
For the nonverbal characters, particularly Chewbacca and R2-D2, an author could choose to get inside their heads and show us their literal thoughts, or even just translate their dialogue into English for the reader’s benefit. Zahn, thankfully, doesn’t do that, and the effect remains similar to the original movie trilogy, allowing us to preserve our own conceptions of the characters.
The five-year gap gives the novels room to do their own thing while remaining close enough to Return of the Jedi to retain plenty of familiarity. Luke is still adjusting to his role as a Jedi Knight—and getting used to how people perceive him because of it—and he doesn’t yet have all the answers. Leia and Han are starting a family even as they remain heavily involved in getting the New Republic up and running. Lando is in the mix as well, complete with a new business venture, just as we’d expect.
Zahn expands the cast with interesting new characters. Among the most prominent is Mara Jade, a mysterious and bitter young woman with a connection to the Emperor and a burning hatred of Luke Skywalker. But, importantly, she is not evil. We gradually learn more about her throughout the three books, and she grows and changes along the way. A worthy addition to the franchise.
But one new character is straight-up evil, and that’s Joruus C’baoth, a mad clone of an old Jedi Master. This clone sees himself as the true heir to the Empire, and he has designs on Luke and Leia as well as Leia and Han’s unborn children. He fills the Darth Vader void. And while he’s not Vader, he is at least distinct, and his origin lines up with some of the details laid out in the earlier movies.
As a nice bit of world-building (or galaxy-building), Zahn introduces a species of alien animals, the ysalamiri, who have an innate ability to block the Force. This allows Thrawn to exert some control over the powerful mad Jedi. The ysalamiri resemble the concept of kryptonite without copying it. The creatures aren’t poisonous or anything like that, but they occasionally require Luke to rely on his natural skills instead of the Force.
Together, the three books are fairly lengthy and feature quite an ensemble, including multiple viewpoint characters, so there’s far more than I can get into here. For any Star Wars fan, they’re worth reading—or rereading if it’s been a while.
Zahn’s Thrawn trilogy was my core Star Wars story outside the original three movies for decades. Maaaaybe the first couple of seasons of Mando has since caught up to it, but I still place it on a pedestal.