I am a big fan of Mara Jade, and get annoyed when people impugn her worth as a character. A fair amount of people, seemingly often prequel gusher types, rag on her for being a 'Mary Sue' and being oh so perfect and diss Zahn for making the story 'revolve around her' or some such nonsense. I think these people suck hairy ass through a straw, frankly. To me Mara Jade was always an intensely interesting character, deeply flawed but with enormous potential, and her practical cynicism ends up being the perfect counterpoint to Luke's idealism. Sure, when I was young and naive I couldn't wait for her to get hers, but that was only an automatic reaction against anyone who professed to hate Luke. Does she fit into the world of Star Wars as presented by the OUT? Your mileage may vary. Is she an exceptional character who makes the later stories that much better? Absolutely.

Of course, nobody but Zahn could write her worth a damn, but then, he's one of the only SW authors I find worthwhile anyway (Brian Daley being the other).

The idea of her being Luke's love interest took me by surprise at first, but I came to see that it actually made a lot of sense. I never remotely thought of the Jedi as being constrained against relationships, which was one of my biggest complaints about AotC and a major factor in turning me against the prequels. (Neither do I see them as spacefaring pimp daddys.) When I heard that she had been killed off in the recent books, I was absolutely furious. I have a very nihilistic view of what 'counts' in Star Wars, negating the validity of anything I don't like. Original unaltered trilogy, Han Solo adventures, Zahn books . . . everything else is just bilge. I adamantly maintain that Luke and Mara are still out there exploring the Unknown Regions . . .