Dark Force Rising by Timothy Zahn

The dying Empire's most cunning and ruthless warlord--Grand Admiral Thrawn--has taken command of the remnants of the Imperial fleet and launched a massive campaign aimed at the New Republic's destruction. With the aid of unimaginable weapons long hidden away by the Emperor on a backwater planet, Thrawn plans to turn the tide of battle, overwhelm the New Republic, and impose his iron rule throughout the galaxy. Meanwhile, Han and Lando Calrissian race against time to find proof of treason inside the highest Republican Council--only to discover instead a ghostly fleet of warships that could bring doom to their friends and victory to their enemies. Yet most dangerous of all is a new Dark Jedi, risen from the ashes of a shrouded past, consumed by bitterness... and scheming to corrupt Luke Skywalker to the Dark Side.

Great read, getting prepared for the next movie.

Might be a smidgen better than the first one, or maybe not. Anyway this has been around for years so I won't critique the work, what's the point??? I recommend it to anyone if you are Star Wars fan and haven't experienced yet as a solidly written Saturday matinee film in book form - a Star Wars story. I listened to it as an audio book and I am found the addition of the incidental music and sound effects a great touch.

Another fun installment of a neat trilogy I'm enjoying a lot. This book felt like a love letter to the movies, even moreso than the first book. Certain parts, particularly the rescue of Karrde from the Chimera felt pulled straight from the screen, and in a good way.

What more can I say? A very fun book, and I look forward to reading the third in the series.

Executive Summary: Not as good as the first book, this was still another enjoyable entry in this series.

Audio book: Marc Thompson once again gives a stellar performance. Add to that the sound effects and music and audio is the only way to do this book in my opinion.

Full Review
Empire Strikes Back is probably my favorite Star Wars Movie. So could the middle book of this trilogy top the original as well? No it couldn't.

I found the middle of the book particularly slow, especially Leia's storyline. However the ending of this book make up for the slow pace by being pretty non-stop action.

Apart from finding parts of the book slow, my only major complaint is the level of intuition of Grand Admiral Thrawn. There were a few parts where I was able to predict what was going to happen, not because it seemed like it was reasonable, but simply because Thrawn has rather ridiculous levels of deduction. I mean, I wonder if even Sherlock Holmes would be able to draw the same conclusions. It had me rolling my eyes and going “Oh come on” at points.

I guess though when Luke is able to see glimpses of the future using the force you have to do something to create a worthy adversary. However I just found Mr. Zahn went a little overboard in this book compared with the first.

That said, I still rather enjoyed the book. It's a lot of fun with characters I love. The story is compelling enough to keep me wanting to keep listening to see where things are going next.

I think with this book Talon Karrde has become my favorite new character, as Mara Jade's struggle with her past is starting to wear on me.

Overall I found this to be a decent entry in this trilogy with a fantastic climax making up for some of it's other faults and jumped right into the final book.

3.5 Stars rounded up due to strong finish.