I finished reading the Hand of Thrawn Duology, and I have to admit, I've begun to see why people like Timothy Zahn so much.

After reading the first Thrawn Trilogy, I was frankly unimpressed. Great story for the most part, Zahn's greatest strength, I feel, is coming up with good ideas. But other than that, I didn't see the big deal. I suspected however, that it had a lot to do with being one of the earlier (and more ambitious) forays into the Expanded Universe. And the duology of ten years later has confirmed that for me.

Zahn still comes up with great ideas, and expands on others. While he is obviously a bit in love with his own creations, it's kind of hard to complain when I'm just as enamored with Thrawn's story myself. There are still some unnecessary and gratuitous references to events in the movies, but they aren't done in the painfully clumsy way that was my main complaint of the Thrawn Trilogy.

The story , specifically the many simultaneous storylines, was an amazing display of the chaos in the galaxy at the time. I mean that positively: the storytelling was great, but all the characters were off going in so many different directions that it was very entertaining to see unfold. The second book was incredibly intense (and long), which explained why it wasn't a trilogy.


But the duology is a passage, in many ways. It represents the last conflict of the Galactic Civil War, the last book published before Del Rey took over Bantam's job, the last story before the Yuuzhan Vong show up. The Vision of the Future has an eerie ominous message about something scary on the horizon, the upcoming invasion. And after reading that, I now enter the world of the New Jedi Order. It's big, it's threatening, and I haven't touched it before. But now, I'm well into Vector Prime, and beginning the new era.