The Star Wars Three-Book Cycle
                            by Timothy Zahn
		
                 Review copyright (c) 1994 by Doug Ingram

[Bibliographic information at the end of the article.]

	Maybe the biggest obstacle I had to overcome in writing this
review was trying to figure out what to call this series.  "The Star
Wars Trilogy" is certainly inappropriate since that's how I usually 
hear the three movies named.  In the end, I chose to just use the
descriptive phrase from the cover.  Future trilogies (like the
"Jedi Academy Trilogy") will probably avoid this, just so they can
be differentiated from Zahn's books.

	So...if you're like me, you're a big Star Wars fan.  When
_Heir_to_the_Empire_ first hit the stores, I was very happy.  I
definitely wanted to devour as much as possible about the Star Wars
Universe, but I had always been reluctant to buy and follow the
comic book continuations of the Star Wars story.  I really wanted
a novel, and a well-done novel at that.  When Timothy Zahn brought
his Hugo credentials to the table, I figured it would be good.  All
I had to do was wait two years for the whole thing to come out in
paperback.

	The setting is shortly after the events in "Return of the
Jedi".  The Alliance (or the Rebel Alliance, if you prefer) is
trying to consolidate government in their galaxy in the wake
of the chaos caused by the collapsing Empire.  Several factions
in the alliance are demanding more power, and there is a lot of
distrust between races in the government itself, which is leading
to a lot of headaches and intrigue for council members like Han
and Leia.

	Meanwhile, the new Head Bad Guy representing the Empire
is Grand Admiral Thrawn, who takes the title by virtue of his
commanding ability, his military rank, and his control of the
last several remaining star destroyers from the Empire.  Thrawn
begins attacking the Alliance by trying to exploit weak spots,
such as planets or shipyards rich in materials to support the
Empire's war effort.  Thrawn is an incredible military genius,
and he uses his unorthodox talents and methods to get a lot of
bang for his tactical buck, slowly building himself into a
serious threat to the Alliance.

	One of Thrawn's gambits is an attempt to recruit a dark
jedi living in seclusion and long thought dead...C'baoth.  Thrawn
wants to use C'baoth's mental powers to instantaneously communicate
with his fleets both near and at great distances for an enormous
tactical advantage.  In return, Thrawn promises to send his
Imperial mercenaries to capture Luke and/or Leia and deliver
them to C'baoth, who wishes to subvert them to start a new 
generation of dark jedi.

	Eventually, Han and Lando share a mission to attempt
to recruit help among their former smuggling community while
Leia tries to keep the Alliance government from collapsing due
to internal strife and sabotage.  Meanwhile, Chewie is trying
to protect Leia from the Empire's mercenaries, and Luke is trying
to help everyone and still track down C'baoth.

	The main thrust of most of the books' plot threads goes
like this:  Thrawn tries some clever gambit to get a leg up for
the Empire.  The Alliance tries to either escape the trap or
set up a counter-attack to defeat Thrawn.  Zahn is very adept
at writing a plot that evokes a good chess match, and the twists
he throws in are genuinely unpredictable, which is no small feat
given the serious constraints of having to write within the
context of the Star Wars universe.

	The subplot involving the Alliance's interactions with
the smuggling community are the strongest.  The characters are
fairly realistic and well-drawn (except for the excessive
melodramatics from Mara Jade, the only really disappointing
character in the entire series, arguably).  It is amusing to
watch Han and Lando attempt to talk a bunch of cynical old
smugglers (just like Han used to be) to follow in Han's
footsteps.  There are some very good skirmishes over a large
derelict fleet and a few vital worlds Thrawn tries to attack,
perhaps the most entertaining parts of the series.

	The subplot involving internal council politics and
Leia's encounters with the Empire's mercenaries are also fairly
entertaining.  There was the suspense of hunting out spies and
saboteurs while at the same time being hunted by a very 
interesting new race that acts as the Imperial mercenary army.

	Perhaps the least satisfying subplot had to do with
Luke and C'baoth.  With Thrawn finding a way to partially
neutralize C'baoth's powers, C'baoth loses a lot of the presence
Vader or the Emperor could command, both among the reader
and among the rank and file of the Empire.  Even when uninhibited
and confronting Luke, C'baoth comes across as slightly more
threatening than a doddering old man, though this may well be
intentional on the part of Zahn.  The long-awaited confrontations
in the latter part of the series just didn't amount to all that
much, unlike the Vader/Luke confrontations in the original
Star Wars series.

	On the other hand, what was lost in the transition from
Vader/Emperor to C'baoth was perhaps gained in going from someone
like Grand Moff Tarkin (from Star Wars IV: A New Hope) to Grand
Admiral Thrawn.  Thrawn commanded every single scene he was
in and was definitely the best new character introduced by Zahn
in this series.

	In sum, I definitely recommend this series as a great
way to enjoy an entirely new Star Wars story.  Zahn remains
true to everything that made the original trilogy so popular,
though these novels are probably a bit too complex to resonate
with the same popularity as the storylines of the original movie
trilogy.  I only hope that future attempts at Star Wars continuations
will meet up to this same high standard.  

	As a side note, allow me to comment that Alan Dean Foster's
_Splinter_of_the_Mind's_Eye_ that was released around 1979 was
also quite good and is now widely available as a re-release.
It doesn't take in to account the revelations about Vader/Luke
in the "Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi", but that
is only a minor point and easily overlooked.

Doug Ingram // d.ingram@tcu.edu // "Carpe Datum"
	http://personal.tcu.edu/~dingram/books.html (for more reviews)

%A Zahn, Timothy
%T Heir to the Empire
%I Bantam Spectra
%C New York
%D 1992
%G ISBN 0-553-29612-4
%S The Star Wars Three-Book Cycle

%A Zahn, Timothy
%T Dark Force Rising
%I Bantam Spectra
%C New York
%D 1993
%G ISBN 0-553-56071-9
%S The Star Wars Three-Book Cycle

%A Zahn, Timothy
%T The Last Command
%I Bantam Spectra
%C New York
%D 1994
%G ISBN 0-553-56492-7
%S The Star Wars Three-Book Cycle