The peace of the Ascendancy, a beacon of calm and stability, is shattered after a daring attack on the Chiss capital that leaves no trace of the enemy. Baffled, the Ascendancy dispatches one of its brightest young military officers to root out the unseen assailants. A recruit born of no title, but adopted into the powerful family of the Mitth and given the name Thrawn.
With the might of the Expansionary Fleet at his back, and the aid of his comrade Admiral Ar’alani, answers begin to fall into place. But as Thrawn’s first command probes deeper into the vast stretch of space his people call the Chaos, he realizes that the mission he has been given is not what it seems.
And the threat to the Ascendancy is only just beginning.
Fucking Thrawn, man. Wow.
I’ve got my own complicated feelings about this legendary Star Wars character, but as I write this, there’s a whole lot of discourse about him happening on Twitter. I follow a lot of different Star Wars-related accounts on Twitter & the overwhelming majority of them don’t know I exist. There are some extremely passionate Thrawn/Chiss fans that I follow, which is a lot of fun to see.
For whatever reason, Thrawn has just never been a Star Wars character that really captured my imagination. I’ve read the Legends Thrawn trilogy as well as the new canon trilogy (the THRAWN ASCENDANCY trilogy is a prequel to the new canon Thrawn trilogy, which is maybe not as confusing as it all sounds? I don’t know, maybe it is) and it’s all just been…fine for me.
Where I really enjoyed Thrawn a lot was on Rebels! And I’m excited at the prospect of seeing a live-action Thrawn at some point here, no doubt!
Anyhow, I went into CHAOS RISING, the first book of the THRAWN ASCENDANCY trilogy, hoping for something wildly different than the previous Thrawn books. Or at the very least, having a very different reaction to the story. And I think? I kinda did! Which is pretty rad, and I’m excited to read the rest of this trilogy!
This one details Thrawn’s meteoric rise through the ranks of the Expansionary Fleet, the military wing of the Ascendancy. Through a series of flashbacks spread out over the book, we see his military career advance at an incredibly high speed, while his ability to play politics is…not what he’s known for.
The Chiss refer to the Unknown Regions as the Chaos, and it’s where they make their home. So it’s a very different vibe from a lot of Star Wars, because it’s very cut off from what we’ve known. The Chiss are aware of the ongoing galactic wars, but they stay secluded…for the most part.
But Thrawn is intensely motivated by curiosity, as well as an almost fanatical desire to keep his people safe. Which leads to some…challenging situations.
What interested me most in CHAOS RISING was getting to explore the role of skywalkers in the Expansionary Fleet. There’s a flashback scene in THRAWN: ALLIANCES (at least, I’m fairly sure it’s in that one) that we see again here (as it happens), and Zahn has a lot of fun with the whole skywalker v. Skywalker thing, and well…it’s pretty silly.
But anyway. Lower case skywalkers have nothing to do with upper case Skywalkers, and are really fucking cool. They are young people who can masterfully navigate a ship through the unforgiving emptiness of the Chaos, but it’s a skill that they age out of. The skywalkers seem to be in the 8-12 range, though I might be mistaken.
Che’ri is the young skywalker assigned to work with Thrawn, along with Thalias, a woman with a really cool link to Thrawn’s past who is assigned the role of Che’ri’s caregiver.
Pretty much any scene with any combination of Thrawn, Thalias, or Che’ri wound up being a favorite for me. There’s the suggestion that other people consider the skywalkers to be somewhat disposable, just another component of a ship. But Thrawn treats Che’ri with respect & consideration for the toll that this all takes on her. The process is physically exhausting for the skywalker, and Thrawn never pushes Che’ri beyond what she (and Thalias) is comfortable with. I really liked that aspect of his character in this book!
And Che’ri is just a really fascinating character, trying to navigate (pun intended) a really dangerous world at a very young age. She’s pretty independent, and has sadly seen various caregivers come and go. Which makes the relationship between Che’ri and Thalias somewhat precarious.
This was just a really cool Star Wars book & gave me a very slightly different perspective on a character that has not exactly been a favorite of mine. I can see this easily being “my” Thrawn trilogy, and maybe it’ll make me reconsider some of my lukewarm feelings on some of the other Thrawn books. In the end, I think any Thrawn book is going to ultimately boil down to this: Thrawn is more clever than his enemies, and Timothy Zahn is going to make sure you know it. Even though we see Thrawn make some less-than-ideal choices in this one, he is always going to be the character that’s playing (holo)chess while everyone else is playing (holo)checkers.
But yeah, I dug this a whole bunch! Really excited for the next two books in the trilogy!
May the Force be with you!
Grimdark Dad 