Daley and Zahn

[Falconer]

A few months ago I came across a striking article, the gist of which was that Brian Daley (The Han Solo Adventures) and Timothy Zahn (The Thrawn Trilogy) were great authors for kicking off the Star Wars novels because they were honest-to-goodness science fiction authors. I can’t seem to find this article anymore. Anyone have any idea where I can find it, or want to try their luck in finding it? I hope it wasn’t some obscure Usenet posting or Amazon review.

[tkdco2]

I especially liked Timothy Zahn's work. Thrawn was a quality villain, which is more than I can say about Kylo Ren.

[randyb]

Zahn made, IMO, one major mistake. He was the one who established that Leia had not been trained by Luke. If she had sufficient potential for Luke to contact her in ESB, she should have been trainable. (And in later EU works, IIRC, she was.)

Aside from that, I enjoyed Zahn's work greatly.

[Falconer]

IIRC Leia was being trained by Luke throughout the Thrawn Trilogy.

[Deleted]

Yeah, Falconer is right - IIRC the gist was that Leia was less powerful than Luke, but this was also expanded on in later novels - it was a plot seed, not an established convention. I also thought Mara Jade was a mmuch better female lead for SW than Leia, in this case. Leia, especially in the novels (and movie novelizations), is a very bland character, which doesn't do her much justice, IMO.

FWIW, A C Crispin's Han Solo Trilogy is also well worth reading, for a SW book, even though the premise of the books is surely different.

[randyb]

Dec 9, 2016 13:29:27 GMT -6 Falconer said:

IIRC Leia was being trained by Luke throughout the Thrawn Trilogy.

I believe that you are correct. I did not recall that.

My contention is, given the passage of time between RotJ and the start of the Thrawn trilogy, she should have been trained already. And her power level relative to Luke was terra incognita, as Zahn was the trailblazer for the post-RotJ era.

Eh, roads not taken.