Thrawn is a highly creative blue humanoid smurf-like creature from the Star Wars universe.

You can’t take this book too seriously, knowing it’s part of the Star Wars universe. However, Zahn gave his best here and the story significantly exceeded my expectations. It is a fine quality space opera, with a charismatic main character, whose superpower is his military skill. He’s a mix of Ender and the Stainless Steel Rat.

The supporting characters aren’t two dimensional and I suspect we’ll see some of them again in the sequels. Vanto, in particular, could have his own book. There is no mention of the force anywhere, no midichlorians, no magic at all. The storm troopers are able to hit their targets. This is an improvement over the usual trope in the Star Wars universe I’ve seen so far, where the final battle is decided by use of the force, rather than skill.

The print quality is superb and despite that it’s possibly targeting teenage readers, I enjoyed it. 5*/5 and will order the continuation soon.