After abandoning the EU years ago, I recently decided to get back into it and read Outbound Flight.

I had already read the Thrawn trilogy, but that was it for Zahn. It was nice to get Thrawn’s origin story, and there were some really good ideas in the book, but other than that I was lukewarm on the whole thing. Zahn’s books seem like an excuse to set up intricate strategic battles which end more often than not with deus ex machinas in Thrawn’s favor. This is no exception, but it’s fun to see the clockwork battles and hear our military genius explain his brilliance at length.

One issue was the ending. There wasn’t one. I assume this ties directly into Survivor’s Quest, but it’s still a poor way to end a novel.