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Timothy Zahn was once the best Star Wars author in the business. However, a fixation with his own original characters lead to increasingly self-involved books divorced from the Star Wars universe. Allegiance, the book set directly before this one, broke that trend by grounding a story back in the early days of the Rebellion, between A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back. It was a welcome return to his original strengths: tightly woven plotting, solid character voice, and a sense of scne and genre firmly grounded in the pulp setting of Star Wars.
Choices of One makes three mistakes. It centers around the original characters from the last book more than the traditional heroes of Star Wars. It brings back a fixation with Zahn's darling Thrawn (a brilliant character growing stale through overexposure) and the Unknown Regions. And it attempts, very heavy-handedly, to make its title central to its theme, through hammy exposition involving an old quote. Oooooh leaders are important to large groups of people. How profound. Seriously, just bring back the pulp.
For all of that, the plotting is still tight, although it relies too much on one spoilery gimmick which it foregrounds enough to play out the suspense well before the climax. The character voices are excellent -- although there are too many of them, and we don't have reason to care about all of them. There is one subtextually gay stormtrooper couple I'm very fond of, but the focus is too scattered to let these minor characters evolve and keep us caring as much as Zahn does. The feel of the adventure is still spot-on. It's very up and down, as a whole. Can't quite decide what kind of book it wants to be. An enjoyable read, but mostly only recommended for completionists, or people who like Zahn enough to look past his faults more than I can.
Choices of One makes three mistakes. It centers around the original characters from the last book more than the traditional heroes of Star Wars. It brings back a fixation with Zahn's darling Thrawn (a brilliant character growing stale through overexposure) and the Unknown Regions. And it attempts, very heavy-handedly, to make its title central to its theme, through hammy exposition involving an old quote. Oooooh leaders are important to large groups of people. How profound. Seriously, just bring back the pulp.
For all of that, the plotting is still tight, although it relies too much on one spoilery gimmick which it foregrounds enough to play out the suspense well before the climax. The character voices are excellent -- although there are too many of them, and we don't have reason to care about all of them. There is one subtextually gay stormtrooper couple I'm very fond of, but the focus is too scattered to let these minor characters evolve and keep us caring as much as Zahn does. The feel of the adventure is still spot-on. It's very up and down, as a whole. Can't quite decide what kind of book it wants to be. An enjoyable read, but mostly only recommended for completionists, or people who like Zahn enough to look past his faults more than I can.
