When I first read the Thrawn trilogy, I read Heir to the Empire first, then skipped to The Last Command, then finally picked up book two -- Dark Force Rising -- about a year or so later.

And now, having read Vision of the Future many years ago, I've finally got around to reading Timothy Zahn's Specter of the Past.

In this way I continue my odd habit of reading series backwards, skipping the second book in trilogies, disregarding the way books are supposed to be read and making use of whatever I have on hand.

Zahn's books are good. His writing style is interesting -- I like to think of it as "simple." He doesn't mess around with big words or page-long descriptions of plants, he just gets to the point.

But his books are not perfect. Zahn has a certain fondness for using the same phrases time and time again, until they become cliche, which can start to give me a slight headache unless I consciously ignore them. When I ignore that part of Zahndom and focus on the actual plot and characters, the reading experience is considerably more pleasurable.

And Zahn portrays his characters fabulously, a feat which a stunning number of expanded universe writers have failed miserably trying. Some have said that having the same Mara Jade who at first wanted to kill Luke marry him is unrealistic -- and they've frankly missed something I like to call "character development." Honestly.

I think the reason the Thrawn trilogy, the Thrawn duology, and Surviver's Quest are so popular -- and so good -- is that something about Zahn's writing pulls you in, turning what might have just been an average expanded universe novel into a veritable page-turner. And by the first chapter of Specter of the Past, I was hooked yet again.

Yes, I admit it, I'm a sucker for a Timothy Zahn novel.

His next novel, Outbound Flight, which takes place during the Clone Wars, was going to be released in October, but for some reason has been delayed till next year. Which sucks.

:-D