Title: Specter of the Past (Part 1 in a duology) (Kindle version)
AUthor: Timothy Zahn
Published: June 28th 2011
My Grade: B-
This duology is a sequel to the Thrawn trilogy, and takes place a decade later. My favorites from the Thrawn series return, Palleaon is now a Admiral and head of the Imperial Navy. He doesn’t see a happy ending for the Empire if they don’t make peace with the New Republic. However not everyone agrees with him and he must search out some treachery on the side of the Empire.
On the New Republic side, Leia is dealing with mulitple issues as an old tragedy is brought forward when documents implicating the Bothans in the genocide of a species. Everyone ends up in the mix as tempers rise and accusations are thrown. Han is implicated as shooting into a protest, Karrde is accused of being behind the reapperance of Thrawn, and Lando is accused of going along with it.
Meanwhile Luke is trying to figure out a few things, including his new equilibrium with the force and his connection to Mara Jade, whose investigating the Thrawn situation herself.
This book was good, but a bit of a disappointment as well. It sets up the second book for the most part. It is essieintally a 400 word lead-in. It explains the political situation, updates us on the characters lives at the moment, and prepares us for whatever is going to happen in Vision of the Future which I”m currently reading right now.
It does reference things that have happened in books published between the trilogy and the duology. Including Luke’s brush with being on the dark side. However I think, its brief enough that you can still read and enjoy without having read those books.
I bought this on Kindle, and that edition has a timeline of the Legends Universe. My paperback copy of Visions of the Future that I bought many years ago but never fully read has a timeline too (although its called the expanded universe, because they hadn’t shifted the canon yet).
Sokorra Lewis 