Greater Good is the second book in the Thrawn Ascendancy trilogy by Timothy Zahn. It's a fairly unique entry in the greater Star Wars canon in that it exclusively explores Grand Admiral Thrawn's past in the Chiss Ascendancy. The Ascendancy exists completely outside the realm of the Republic or Empire.
This is the second book in the From a Certain Point of View series of anthologies that take place in the Star Wars universe. The books follow the events of the movies (here Empire Strikes Back) from the point of view of characters in the background. For example, here you get to experience Hoth through the eyes of a tauntaun, Cloud City through the eyes of an ugnaut, the escape from Hoth through the eyes of the Millenium Falcon's computer (L3), etc...
Chaos Rising is the latest Thrawn-focused entry in the Disney Canon series of Star Wars novels. Again written by Thrawn's creator, Timothy Zahn, Chaos Rising serves as the first book that truly explores the Chiss Ascendancy prior to Thrawn's encounter and joining of the Empire. The first Thrawn trilogy in the Disney Canon explored Thrawn's rise to power leading up to his inclusion in the Rebels animated series. In this newest trilogy, Zahn will be turning back the clock even further to focus on Thrawn's earliest military days and the political and military inner workings of the Chiss Ascendancy.
Here are my favorite things that got put up on Marvel Unlimited this week. All of the X books continue to be mostly excellent. I'm not looking forward to the upcoming break as the Marvel Unlimited release schedules approaches when the COVID shut down began.
Coming on the heels of the completion of the final season of the Clone Wars animated series, Disney Lucasfilm has published The Clone Wars: Stories of Light and Dark. The book is an anthology of stories that take place in the same time as the Clone Wars series with contributions from a wide range of authors including Jason Fry, Rebecca Roanhorse, and Lou Anders. Most of the authors have written for Star Wars in some capacity, whether it's full-blown Disney Canon novels or shorter YA and all-ages fare. I love Clone Wars and it was fun to dive back in to stories with some of my favorite characters from the series.
Queen's Peril by E.K. Johnston is the latest entry in the Disney-era line of Star Wars novels. It's the second time that Johnston has penned a novel about Queen Amidala, after writing Queen's Shadow last year. Whereas Queen's Shadow found Johnston expanding on Padmé's time in the Galactic Senate after stepping down as Queen of Naboo, Queen's Peril bookends the Padmé story by going back to the time immediately after she was elected Queen. Johnston again focuses heavily on Padmé's relationship with her handmaidens, and fans of the series are sure to recognize some familiar faces as the Queen assembles the group. Much like Queen's Shadow, Queen's Peril is mostly targeted at a YA audience.
I'm a subscriber to both Marvel Unlimited and DC Universe, so I'm perpetually behind current releases, but I get to read just about everything from those two companies at like 10% of what it'd normally cost. Every week I peruse the "new" releases to the services and catch up on most of what gets added. This week, I figured I'd do a roundup of the comics I read that finished up some volumes and give a brief review for each. Check them out below!
kylereads.com 