Allegiance

While not as great as his "Thrawn Trilogy" or as good as his "Hand of Thrawn" duology, I still find this an enjoyable book. Since the book is set between "A New Hope" and "The Empire Strikes Back", it's kind of hard for the story or characters to develop too much. Han and Leia can't fall in love because they aren't at that point yet. Luke is still a budding Jedi instead of having powers. Most of the development needed to fall on the characters not seen in the movies. In this case five disillusioned storm troopers and a more capable than she probably should have been Mara Jade. First though, the basics of the story. The five storm troopers become involved in an accident and desert the empire only to stay idealistic enough to want to continue defending the citizens of the Empire; their disillusionment is rooted in the corruption of power with which they must deal. Trying to be true to their ideals, they take it upon themselves to track down some pirates who are smuggling Imperial supplies. Meanwhile Mara Jade, acting in the role of the "Emperor's Hand," is tracking down a world governor who is stealing Imperial tax money. There is a lot more to the plot as Han, Luke, Leia and Chewbacca become first indirectly involved for political reasons and then direct participants. The story is tightly written with multiple angles and views to the events. Unfortunately the characters end up a bit flat. I think most of that is due to the timing of being squished in between two of the movies. I did find it difficult to remember key characteristics of each of the five troopers but if you consider the size of the cast (at least 15 different key characters), it's hard to give each of them something unique and easily memorable in only 400 pages. ( )

Not Zahn's best work, but still an enjoyable read. It was an interesting (and ambitious) plot element to focus so heavily on a unit of stormtroopers who had deserted due to misgivings about the orders they were to carry out. I like the way things were left with them - Zahn didn't take the "easy" way out in crafting the conclusion of their story arc. ( )

Taking place between New Hope & Empire Strikes Back, this follows 3 different storylines and tries to tie them all together.
Enjoyed this more than the Hand of Thrawn duology, but if he'd gotten rid of 1 storyline and focused more on the other 2, it would have been a better, tighter, story. ( )

Timothy Zahn Star Wars = an excellent read in my book. It was great to see Mara in action as the Emperors Hand and the book really delved into areas that most during the Rebellion novels seem to miss. This book was about people rather than a mission, with the characters' individual missions almost seeming second rather than the main focus of the novel. Zahn successfully showed several things; the unease of some Imperials following the destruction of Alderaan, Leia coming to terms with that and the growth of the rebelling, Han's argument for/against joining the Alliance and Chewie's POV and while he also showed Mara's strengths we also see her naivety at 18. She remarks that there is only one 'Hand' in the Empire which most Star Wars readers will know isn't necessarily true :P

Really glad to hear there's a sequel as I loved the Hand of Judgment and the whole setting of the novel. ( )

My first Star Wars read in about 5 years, I am really glad I picked up Zahn to continue this journey. To me, Zahn is the master of the post-classic trilogy canon novel. His grasp of the SW universe and the way he really charges up the characters makes, to me, for the more enjoyable SW novels. This one takes place between Episodes IV and V, and makes the interaction between a lot of the classic characters very intriguing and enjoyable. A clever plot twist allows for Imperial stormtroopers to actually find themselves sympathizing with the Rebels in their quest to find star systems to join their attempts to fight the Empire. One of the more interesting post classic trilogy characters, Mara Jade, is introduced in this novel as far as the timeline is concerned, and she more than holds her own in a friendly showdown with Vader. Zahn should be required to write at least one of these a year. ( )