[Mithfanion]

Has anyone read his works, and what did you think of it. Particularly his Conqueror's trilogy, or his recent Star Wars efforts like Outbound Flight. Or perhaps the series he is so famous for ( I believe they are regarded as the best SW novels), The Thrawn trilogy.

Are they the best SW novels, and why? What of his non-Star Wars work?

[Werthead]

The best Star Wars book ever written is Matt Stover's Traitor. However, the Thrawn Trilogy is up there simply because Zahn channelled the spirit and feel of the movies in these books so well. He had a brilliantly charasmatic villain in Grand Admiral Thrawn (who is far more morally grey than Vader and the Emperor), he introduced some excellent recurring characters who went on to be generally badly handled by other writers (Mara Jade and Talon Karrde) and he basically created Coruscant and did such a great job on it that Lucas later used his ideas lock, stock and barrell for the prequel movies. I also like the fact that each of the three books, like each of the three movies, starts with a 'shot' of a Star Destroyer. Little details like that make the books fun.

Today, when there's a new Star Wars book out every month, it's difficult to think of a time when there had been no new Star Wars fiction at all for eight years before Zahn released these books to enormous fanfare, and Bantam gave him a year each to write them (they'd be churned out in a few months today) and do a really good job on them. Sadly, his later Star Wars books lacked the same magic. The Hand of Thrawn Duology was one book badly padded out to two, for example.

The Conquerors Trilogy, the only other series of his I've read, is similarly fun with less black-and-white characters (the humans and alien Conquerors are drawn into war by accident, and there are good and bad characters on both sides). Neither series is deep, but if you want a good, "Sit back and enjoy," SF series, both are great.

[Whelp]

Instead of repeating - I agree fully with Werthead.
Sad, how the new SW books of his are but shadows of the earlier works

[Obdigore]

Thrawn Trilogy is great.

Only other SW books I have read (and I certainly have not read all of them) that were close is some of the Rogue Squadron books.... was it called like the X-Wing series? Written by 3 or 4 different over the 9? books?

I picked up a couple of the others, and they are trash.

[Abyss]

Thrawn Trilogy are the only SW books i have read and enjoyed.

- Abyss, is now suspicious of art.

[QuickTidal]

Abyss;139011 said:

Thrawn Trilogy are the only SW books i have read and enjoyed.

- Abyss, is now suspicious of art.

Agreed.

[Varunwe]

It took me a year to get through the Trawn Trilogy. He had some nice ideas (anti-Force creatures, the origins of Trawn's bodyguards whose species name I can't remember), but the book failed to capture me. I didn't buy Thrawn's way of forming an attack strategy, which always failed because of some small stupid little thing, and was really annoyed at Pellaon (sp?), whose only purpose clearly was to make Thrawn look smarter.

[mxlm]

I liked the first and last book of the Conqueror's trilogy. The middle book didn't do much for me (I didn't really care about the alien society, or culture, and wanted to get on with the war).

By and large, his non-SW stuff has been good but not great (A Coming of Age, the Cobra books, Deadman's Switch, Cascade Point, Icarus Hunt, and so on). Haven't liked his last few (Manta's Gift, especially The Green and the Grey) nearly as much, but maybe I'm just getting older; books I liked a lot five years ago don't do nearly as much for me now. Have to go reread some of his earlier stuff and see if I still like it.

Quote

Only other SW books I have read (and I certainly have not read all of them) that were close is some of the Rogue Squadron books.... was it called like the X-Wing series? Written by 3 or 4 different over the 9? books?

Stackpole's books (did the first four and the eigth) were mostly fun, Allston's books were much more fun (did the rest). Mostly because Allston's were consistently hilarious.