Sarah's Reviews > Star Wars: Heir to the Empire

It's been five years since the second Death Star exploded. With the Emperor and Darth Vader both dead, the remaining bastions of the Galactic Empire have fallen easily before the Rebels, now the soldiers of the New Galactic Republic.

Luke Skywalker is rather busy, being the last surviving Jedi, who is now instructing his sister in the ways of that ancient practice. Leia Organa Solo is a stateswoman, a Jedi apprentice, and an expectant mother of twins. Han Solo uses his smuggling background to negotiate with shady underground figures. Lando Calrissian has become even wealthier through investing in mining.

Considering that the oppressive Empire was only toppled half a decade ago, things are going pretty well for the New Republic. But it's a big galaxy, which means the war isn't quite over yet. In the far reaches, there are disturbances. And closer to home, there's a group of scary aliens stalking the Skywalker-Solo family from planet to planet...

Under the Republic's radar flies Grand Admiral Thrawn, the last Imperial leader, with a master-plan to reforge the Empire...

Lurking on a backwater planet is Joruus C'baoth, a deranged Jedi with a convoluted past and some sort of evil plan involving the Dark Side of the Force...

In the middle lies Talon Karrde, a smuggler just out for his own benefit, and his employee, a haunted young woman named Mara Jade, whose secret vendetta is gnawing away at her soul...


Content Advisory
Violence: It's implied that the Noghri kill their prey in gruesome ways, although we are given no description of their killing methods and only a vague idea what their victims look like afterwards. Luke and Mara kill a few predatory beasts. Some spaceships blow up, as you would expect. There is no gore.

Sex: It's implied that the Emperor had a harem, and Mara might have been among their number before being promoted to assassin. One shudders imagining what she might have endured. Thank God Zahn doesnt give us any details. Lando thinks he might have met her once, which is a bit suggestive, knowing Lando.

Language: Nothing, not even of the "made-up words" variety. You know all the goofy gibberish in the Disney EU that's supposed to be swearing? That's not really a thing in this book. Which I appreciated, because a character who repeats "oh, kriff" every three sentences winds up sounding like a moron.

Substance Abuse: Nothing.

Politics and Religion: Just the usual about the Force, which is so vague I can't imagine it offending anyone.

Nightmare Fuel: A character gets stuck alone in deep space, which goes on for two nail-biting chapters. Also Thrawn and the Noghri are kind of creepy-looking.

Conclusions
Heir to the Empire is a gem among media tie-in books. It's true to the characters and setting, smoothly adds new material, and proceeds in a logical way from where we left the story.

Obviously, a story about a happy galaxy with no evil or danger left in it would be dreadfully dull. But the Disney sequels, by simply relaunching the Empire under a new name, made Return of the Jedi seem a bit pointless in retrospect. (view spoiler)[ (This was compounded in Rise of Skywalker, since the head honchos in their creative bankruptcy brought Emperor Palpatine back from the dead, without even explaining how. I do not like any of the choices made in that movie. Even the redemption of Ben Solo and his romance with Rey were handled horribly). (hide spoiler)] And I really liked The Force Awakens!

Zahn's idea was the best way forward. He acknowledges that a galaxy is a big place, and it would be hard to depose every member of the old regime at once. He preserves the momentum of the characters from the films, without repeating their arcs or regressing their development. And he gives them a villain to fight who is menacing and mysterious without being anything like either Vader or the Emperor.

I am a big fan of Grand Admiral Thrawn. He's not really evil, so much as a grimly effective man in honorable service to an evil cause. He wants to take over the world but doesn't seem to desire power for its own sake, only to restore the order he feels was lost. He's always ten steps ahead of every other character - in fact, he is the only character in any Star Wars media I'm familiar with who could truly be called smart.

I loved Thrawn's theory that a culture's art tells you the strengths and weaknesses of that culture, and therefore what might be the best route to allying with or conquering them. Throughout everything that happens he stays cool as a cucumber. I really enjoyed the many scenes where he explains his reasoning to the befuddled Pellaeon. Their dynamic reminds me of both Holmes and Watson, and Captain Hook and Mr. Smee.

Joruus C'baoth is more of the standard power-mad, demented villain that I was expecting going in. I'm very glad he was not the main villain, but he's fine as both the foil and pawn of Thrawn. How a crazed Dark Jedi clone who wants to enslave the Skywalkers fits into Thrawn's master plan, I have no idea, but I can't wait to find out. That clones usually wind up losing their minds was a fascinating worldbuilding tidbit that I wish the films could have worked in somehow.

Karrde's all right - pretty much your standard amoral black marketeer who's out for his own gain. It will be interesting to see where his arc takes him, because he was having faint stirrings of integrity at the end of this book.

Mara Jade is what Celaena from Throne of Glass should have been: a gifted, troubled young woman, broken and bitter beyond her years by the abuse she's endured and the guilt from her own crimes. She is, at the moment, evil - but redeemable. She and Luke play off each other really well, and the chemistry between them is palpable. As for Luke, he turns into Gilbert Blythe with a lightsaber when Mara walks into the room. Pretty much every conversation they had went like this:

MARA: I'm going to kill you eventually. I can't wait.
LUKE: Why? I've never met you. Why do you hate me so much?
MARA: Ugh! You know why.
LUKE: Well, if you ever get bored of hating me, I'd happily be friends with you. Thanks for saving my X-wing, by the way!
MARA: Ugh, insufferable man.

Luke's adventures in this story are varied and exciting. He faces some major challenges in this story. There were even parts where I was really worried about him. Han and Leia are often in danger, too, but as expectant parents they've got a lot more plot armor. (This was written before shock value deaths became the norm). Leia, particularly, uncovers something rather fascinating about her father that I hope gets expanded upon in the rest of the trilogy.

The non-human film characters - C3PO, R2D2, and Chewbacca - are all utilized well. Just like in the original movies, they are a lot more than appliances or pets. They are actually characters rather than props.

My only gripe with this book is the pacing. Most of the chapters are long, and space battles can get rather monotonous without the visuals and music. It seemingly takes forever for Luke to fall into the hands of Karrde and Mara. The book ends with the other main characters only just finding out that a Grand Admiral Thrawn is behind their problems.

I can see why Disney decided to scrap the EU when they bought Lucasfilm. It would have been very difficult to incorporate hundreds of books, comics and games into a narrative that casual moviegoers could still follow. And adapting this specific novel and its two sequels would probably not have worked, given that the original cast were several decades older and recasting them probably wouldn't go over well (I think that that had more to do with the box-office failure of Solo than either Disney or the fans are willing to admit).

But I don't understand why they had to scrap the whole post-Return of the Jedi canon. I don't see how the existence of Thrawn or Mara Jade would mess up the plot of The Force Awakens. (Certainly no worse than the subsequent movies did!). I think most viewers could accept that other threats had arisen in the thirty years between films, and that (view spoiler)[Luke had married a woman named Mara Jade, who had once served the Dark Side. Heck, Disney could have used Luke and Mara's relationship as foreshadowing and precedent for the similar attraction between Kylo and Rey. (hide spoiler)]

Unlike either the prequel trilogy films or the sequel trilogy films, Heir to the Empire is consistently true to the characterizations, worldbuilding and feel of the original three Star Wars films. It's well-written, intriguing, sometimes poignant, and just fun to read. I can't wait to see where this story goes.