Star Wars: The Thrawn Trilogy, Book 3: The Last Command

One of the best arcs in the EU

The Last Command is the third book of the Trawn trilogy, which takes place a few years after "Return of the Jedi". In this final installment of the series, full-scale war has reignited in multiple sectors acoss the galaxy, and the Empire is regaining control of planets necessary for reestablishing system dominance. The brilliant part about this final book is we get to see Grand Admiral Thrawn demonstrate his full tactical genius in combat as the Empires chief of command. Not only has be managed to make massive restorations to the empires fleet through expert covert operations resolved at the end of the second book, "Dark Force Rising", he is also able to utilize his gains with surgical precision and efficiency. My favorite part is that Thrawn establishes himself as a villain that you come to respect and believe in! Not only is he clever and effective he is also respectful to his crew and subordinates. One may argue that this is because the insane Jedi Master C'baoth is seeking to gain supremacy over the Empire and establish himself as the new emperor. Thrawn is placed in a difficult position of having to guarantee the loyalty of his soldiers by maintaining troop morale, and establishing mutual respect while C'boath uses his dark powers of manipulation in an attempt to subvert Thrawn's hard-earned authority. This is, by far the most complex and compelling villain dynamic I have yet seen in a star wars storyline!The situation with the rebels is also brilliantly executed. Mara Jade must carefully navigate her shifting allegiances as she struggles with her own challenges both internally and with her continually shifting circumstances. She must find a way to resolve the awful spell that palatine beset upon her, compelling her to kill Luke Skywalker in vengeance. She also doesn't exactly like Luke, because the death of the emperor terminated her previous position as hand to the empire, which was considerably lucrative. All of this occurred years ago, and Mara is beginning to process this anguish, which only makes the conflict within her even more difficult. It's far easier for Mara simply to hate Luke, but she finds herself needing his help in this third book, and her situation becomes only more complicated, when the alliance learns of her history with the Empire!Sadly, Winter plays a minimal role in this book. I always found her to be one of the more fascinating characters with her photographic memory. She spends most of her time caring for Leia's child in this book. Leia makes a big power play, going off on a limb to lend aid to the Noghri, a race of short lizard-like aliens that have been loyal to the Empire, but only because of their respect for Lord Vader. Leia uses her investigative and diplomatic skills to utilize this inherited esteem, which ultimately results in significant effects.Many other exciting challenges take place for Luke Skywalker in this book. Master C'boath, Thrawn and a few other surprises along the way keep him more off his feet than usual! There is so much else that happens, that is masterfully resolved in this book it would take too long to describe. The smuggler Talon Karrde attempts to rally the rest of his smuggler associates against the empire, which proves to be a very difficult task. Every storyline in this book is entertaining, and finds a way to wrap itself into the significance of the overall conclusion. I only had one problem with this book, and it has to do with a rather silly quote in one of the final chapters having to do with Thrawn's fascination with art. You'll know it when you get to it. For that to be one of the only things that really bothered me about the book though is amazing, because I'm usually really picky. This book is defiantly a good pay-off if you weren't as impressed with the first two. Timothy Zahn makes this one count, and puts in a lot of great moments as well as excellent conclusions.

Thrawn is the best part of this book. The normal heroes are just doing hero work and are a little two d occasionally.

I loved it. The build up, the confrontation, everything about this book was excellent. This is my favorite book of the trilogy.

Great novel easy read.The well known characters had their classic wit and less known fit in masterfully. I recommend this book to all looking for an exciting Star Wars story.

The thrown trilogy is the best written series in the legend cannon. The last command is s good book but not as much fun to read ad the first two

I enjoyed reading "Star Wars, The Last Command," by Timothy Zahn. Unfortunately, there seems to be a real problem with the editing of this final book in a 3-book series. Commas where they shouldn't be, periods in the middle of sentences, quite a number of contractions missing the apostrophe (well instead of we'll, for example), chapter headings broken and text warped to the next line, improper use of "an/or." As a published Author myself, I don't doubt I may notice something like this more than a casual reader, but these punctuation problems were numerous enough for me to ding the book one star for that alone. I utilize a professional production company to review/edit my work during the conversion process to Kindle files or hard-copy format. I had heard that the Amazon.com conversion program was not 100% reliable and could return such problems, and this was confirmed when a friend in writing sent me her Amazon.com 'converted' manuscript and I found numerous similar errors present. Not that I believe Mr. Zahn has used that app - I don't know personally who he uses for editing, but he needs to have a talk with them this time around.As to the story line itself...Zahn has done an admirable job of character interaction, with interplay between Grand Admiral Thrawn, Captain Pellaeon, Luke Skywalker, Mara Jade, et al, coming across quite deliciously with interesting plot twists.However, it seems trite that just about everything and anything written in Sci-fi nowadays always has "the fate of the galaxy" as its central theme. It would be refreshing to have some of these characters fighting something different for a change.

the reason I'm giving this book the 5 star is simply out of appreciation for the author's fantastic work. Like all the books of the Thrawn Trilogy, it was fast-paced, witty, action-packed, and compelling. Everything in the Star Wars we know and love. This one however eclipsed the past two completely. The conclusion involved the internal struggle of Mara Jade as she wrestles with the decision of fulfilling her dead master's last command and Luke prepares for his final battle with the psychotic dark jedi Joruus C'baoth. The battle against the empire seemed hopeless as we keep seeing the new republic pounded by Thrawn's clone troopers and dark force fleet to the point where the reader thinks: Are they going to do it? Will the New Republic prevail? What's going to happen?! Zahn does a good job of building up all this hatred toward C'aboth and yet understanding why he is what he is. I liked seeing what was happening in both fleets and every move they pulled. Nice that the military theme in Star Wars was expressed. Something that was glossed over in other books. Last thing, my most favorite part of the book was the events speeding up to the end and the most epic conclusion in science fiction; including the last battle against C'baoth which brings out a big surprise. I won't give spoilers but I'll give you a hint: A duel of the soul in a dark cave. Thank you Timothy Zahn for writing such a great book worthy of Star Wars! Thank you and may the force be with you!!!

This isn't just for the last command but for the trilogy as a whole, this is some of the best Star wars writing you can find on the market. What a trilogy, I haven't been this thrilled by star wars content since Revenge of the sith (maybe even Jedi fallen order)or in any media. It continually impressed and threw surprises at me whenever I read, whether it's with the new characters or the known characters we already love.The story rounds itself off very well, every arc felt satisfying when it ended and it was more interesting with the descriptive writing, you knew exactly what every character was going through in detail and actually cared. There was bits that were obviously foreshadowing the future in legends, whether it's Luke and Mara or Palpatines plans.Although I praise this book series immensely, I have to say, they did my boy Thrawn dirty. A character as well written and attention grabbing as him should not have gone out like that...in general I was wishing Thrawn would live through it, a character such as him should have won out in the end but sadly it never came to be.A brilliant story throughout, I don't regret buying as I thought I would, The new Jedi order novels are my next target and I hope they won't disappoint.

This book have a well drove eggs top stock a good trilogy of books that left me shocked, surprised and satisfied. This book had some well set up moments and twists that not showed just how much Luke and Leiar has grown I the force but also how much Mara Jade grew as a person. I loved her journey off overcoming her past and breaking free from it all. Yet I found Leiar giving both to meet children in this surprising yet tense too. All in all this ended well!

This is a well-written and entertaining Star Wars story, set a few years after the events seen in Return of the Jedi. The rebels have been victorious, and set about building a New Republic. Meanwhile the defeated Empire has sought to bring together its remaining remnants, under the leadership of Grand Admiral Thrawn - who serves as a central antagonist of this novel.This is the third and final entry in a trilogy of books; it follows on from  Star Wars - Volume 1: Heir to the Empire  and  Star Wars - Volume 2: Dark Force Rising . These were the initial instalments of the Star Wars Extended Universe, as represented canon while George Lucas owned Lucasfilm. Disney have sought to re-write what's known as "canon" - nonetheless this book, as with many others of the Extended Universe, is well worth a read. If you're a fan of the original trilogy of films then I recommend it. Star Wars - Volume 1: Heir to the EmpireStar Wars - Volume 2: Dark Force Rising

An overall nice finale to the original Thrawn trilogy, and overall I enjoyed it, however - and it feels like quite a big however - It does end rather abruptly with what feels like little closure.Without being too spoilerific, the final battle starts out well for the Imps, goes a little wrong, then suddenly they are in retreat and it's over. No middle ground, just a seemingly spontaneous rout. I re-read the chapter in case I'd missed a page or two, but that was it - quite disappointing after being invested in the story. Several loose ends are left dangling. It gave me second thoughts about The Hand of Thrawn two-book series, as Zahn seemed to be bored with it.

I never saw myself as someone who'd read Star Wars fiction, but these books from Mr. Zahn took me way back to my childhood watching the original and best Star Wars movies. A must for anyone who loved that series of films.