Star Wars: Thrawn Ascendancy: Lesser Evil
The fate of the Chiss Ascendancy hangs in the balance in the epic finale of the Star Wars: Thrawn Ascendancy trilogy from bestselling author Timothy Zahn.
For thousands of years The Chiss Ascendancy has been an island of calm, a center of power, and a beacon of integrity. Led by the Nine Ruling Families, their leadership stands as a bulwark of stability against the Chaos of the Unknown Regions.
But that stability has been eroded by a cunning foe that winnows away trust and loyalty in equal measure. Bonds of fidelity have given way to lines of division among the families. Despite the efforts of the Expansionary Defense Fleet, the Ascendancy slips closer and closer toward civil war.
The Chiss are no strangers to war. Their mythic status in the Chaos was earned through conflict and terrible deeds, some long buried. Until now. To ensure the Ascendancy’s future, Thrawn will delve deep into its past, uncovering the dark secrets surrounding the ascension of the First Ruling Family. But the truth of a family’s legacy is only as strong as the legend that supports it. Even if that legend turns out to be a lie.
To secure the salvation of the Ascendancy, is Thrawn willing to sacrifice everything? Including the only home he has ever known?
Author: Timothy Zahn
Cover artist: Sarofsky Design
Release date: November 16, 2021
Pages: 416
ISBN: 9780593158326
Today marks the release of the latest Timothy Zahn Star Wars novel, Thrawn Ascendancy: Lesser Evil. The book is the final installment in the Ascendancy trilogy, which details Thrawn’s rise to prominence in the Chiss Ascendancy before his days serving the Empire. Despite Thrawn’s success in thwarting their prior schemes, Jixtus and the Grysk remain determined to continue their attempts to destabilize the Ascendancy, and it’s up to Thrawn to stop them once more.
As people who have kept up with this trilogy so far will know already, the book is very different from normal Star Wars literature. Even with a book like Ronin, readers can usually expect to see a lot of the same familiar ideas from other parts of the saga. Almost all of the important species and factions in the Ascendancy books are completely original, and they’re often deliberately unique from what we’re used to seeing because this takes place in a rarely-visited corner of the galaxy that operates much differently.
It’s not often that an author gets to create their own big sandbox separate from the rest of the galaxy like this, but it’s something that I really enjoy seeing when it does happen. It’s something that happened a lot more often in the early days of Star Wars publishing, such as with Brian Daley’s The Han Solo Adventures. We haven’t seen it as much since more and more stories have worked to define the metaphorical boundaries of the galaxy. It might take some time for readers to adjust to how different the setting feels and get all of the different new aliens straight, but I think its unique identity is one of the trilogy’s greatest strengths.
Though it may not overlap much with the normal parts of Star Wars, the trilogy and especially Lesser Evil do very much build upon groundwork laid down by Timothy Zahn’s previous novels. Longtime readers will find some parts of the story especially satisfying. Probably my favorite parts of the book were the Memories, the chapters dedicated to showing a story that played out years before the main plot. The protagonist of this book’s Memories is Thrass, a character originally from Outbound Flight that had only been passingly mentioned before this book. I had been a little disappointed at his lack of presence so far and I was very happy when I saw the role he played here. Not only is it nice to see a good character like that again after so long, but he brings an important emotional puzzle piece to this story that builds to some of my favorite moments in any of the recent Thrawn novels.
The book’s other major players are strong as well. I was surprised by how memorable some of the stories for characters like Ziinda and Thalias were. The weakest might be Thrawn himself, who sometimes feels overshadowed by the more interesting characters around him. There were a few times that I enjoyed what the book did with him, but even at its best it does still feel fairly disconnected from his onscreen depiction, a problem that could also be felt in Zahn’s other recent Thrawn stories. In some ways this trilogy feels like it exists for the purpose of writing more Thrawn books without stepping on the toes of wherever his post-Rebels story will go, and I do wonder whether whatever we see in Ahsoka or any of the other shows might prevent us from getting the intended resolution to the storylines that these books clearly set up.
Some flaws aside, Lesser Evil did end up being my favorite of the Ascendancy trilogy, and my favorite Thrawn book since the 2017 novel that helped to relaunch the character. It may be a very long book but I was impressed by how quickly it went by for me; I ended up reading it faster than I read many of the shorter Star Wars novels. I think those who have enjoyed these last few Thrawn books will enjoy this one more than ever, though it probably won’t win over those who have been unimpressed so far. The book and the trilogy aren’t among my favorites, but I enjoyed the ride and I hope Zahn gets to resolve the story he already has in mind.
Guest review by @NumidianPrime
- Hardcover Book
- Zahn, Timothy (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 576 Pages - 11/16/2021 (Publication Date) - Random House Worlds (Publisher)
