Canon Novel Review: Thrawn Ascendancy – Greater Good

– Slight Spoiler Review –

Thrawn Ascendancy: Greater Good is the second in the latest trilogy bearing the popular Chiss’ name, written again by Timothy Zahn, exploring the Chiss Ascendancy and the area of space called the Chaos they patrol. Like a lot of middle installments in trilogies, Greater Good falls into several ruts, coasting with characters and focusing on plot movement, leaving readers largely where they were at the end of the first book and potentially saving all the important, impactful stuff for the final installment.

By the end of Chaos Rising, the Chiss Ascendancy is victorious against a slowly growing external threat, while its internal family structure vies and tussles with the results, sweeping them under the rug, per usual. The remaining pockets of the threat are being dealt with by Thrawn and Ar’alani and they are no closer to understanding the larger, hidden threat arrayed against them, which we learn in the first canon Thrawn trilogy is the Grysk Hegemony. Greater Good picks up with those two dealing with the Nikadurn remnants, and as they both begin to uncover different aspects of what’s really going, we spend some time with the actual beings responsible for a growing threat of civil war within the Ascendancy. By the end of GG, the Ascendancy is no closer to understanding the threat against them and the family structure vies and tussles with the results of an almost civil war, preferring to sweep it under the rug, per usual.

What really makes a great middle installment is not only moving the story along, but it’s dealing with the characters, developing and growing them, seeing how they affect the plot and how the plot affects them. One of the best Star Wars novel examples of an excellent middle-entry is the recent Alphabet Squadron: Shadow Fall, where the characters take front and center, changing and evolving on their own journeys, which help push the plot that’s moving around them. In Greater Good, the plot takes precedence over characters, occasionally discarding them when they aren’t needed or halting or winding back progress to help suit the story unfolding around them. Both Thalias and Che’ri, caregiver and sky-walker respectively, two hidden and secretive aspects of the Chiss and how they get around the Chaos so quickly, made great and intriguing strides in Chaos Rising, but much of it is gone or forgotten in Greater Good. Thalias, who went on a thrilling journey through the Mitth Trials to become a more important part of the family she and Thrawn share, and to become Che’ri’s caregiver, gets involved with a planet’s leader in GG to try to stop her death-pact from going through, but she plays inquisitive and uninformed to everyone else’s newly superior intellect, often asking questions just so the other characters, largely male, can explain to her (and us readers) the answers, and thus it feels like her deduction capabilities seem to have been lost this book; she was also told to watch over Thrawn and his political shortcomings, but that doesn’t come into play here other than they talk about it. Che’ri, a ten-year-old who uses the Force to navigate hyperspace, learned new and interesting skills with Thrawn in the last book, and while she pulls a big new trick at the end, Greater Good spends more time talking about her like a child, needing naps or food all the time again, instead of recognizing much of the progress she made. Even Ar’alani, a fellow tactical genius amongst the Chiss Expansionary Defense Force and one of the characters I actually care about in these Chiss-focused endeavors, whose past we had glimpses of and was a vital part of the first book, inexplicably disappears a little over halfway through this book, as the plot has moved past her usefulness up until that moment. This happens to Thrawn too, who takes an even bigger backseat in this entry as Zahn explores time with those who plan against the Chiss and some smaller players caught up in said plans. It’s not a detriment to the book however, because Thrawn is the same, fully-formed, tactical genius we met in the last book and in the other trilogy which takes place during his time with the Empire/Star Wars Rebels, and since he’s protected from showing failure beyond his already known political shortcomings, he does his usual deductive madness in GG and saves the day so having less him knowing all and more of other content with other characters adds some variety to the proceedings. By the end of the book, most characters are exactly where we left them at the end of the previous, and those who do advance, it’s more because the plot dictates it than anything of their own devising.

It wouldn’t be too much of a problem if these characters were overall engaging and intriguing, but with the backtracks and stagnancy, they don’t get a chance to really be anything more than what the plot wants them to be. The plot itself sags in the middle, as the focus switches to a Chiss rancher and his family and a local councilman dealing with the arrival of the Agbui. We first meet Haplif of the Agbui in connection with Jixtus, the spooky, behind-the-scenes character who put General Yiv in the Chiss’ way last book, and we watch his plans to fulfill Jixtus’ demands unfold with the rancher family and the local councilman. The ‘Memory’ flashback sections return from the previous entry, though they focus on Haplif working his long-con game with two young Chiss to worm his way to the planet with the rancher/councilman, so since we already know the outcome these sections drag on a story we already know the end too, without adding anything new the story set in the present couldn’t explain or explore. Haplif and Jixtus’ interactions are the rare highlights here, as the slowly unfolding story of how he manipulates the Chiss is too slow for its own good, forced to take its time to allow the other plots to unfold to the same conclusion so it can all end in a somewhat thrilling crescendo. It felt like the Memory sections padded this book, rather than added to it, whereas covering aspects like Chiss history or character’s backgrounds could’ve offered new insights. In my review of Chaos Rising, I had hoped to deal with some non-military or family hierarchy characters, and while I got my wish in Greater Good, the rancher and his family, and the Agbui who come to live with them, felt more like reading a Western than anything really alien and new. In fact, we’re no closer to understanding, seeing, or dealing with the true Grsyk and their Hegemony, as while Jixtus seems to be their veiled presence in the Chaos, he only offers some cryptic words and cryptic orders, though we don’t even know if he’s a Grsyk himself, as they do tend to use client races. The fact we’ve had 5 books so far and we are no closer to learning much about them or why they are doing what they’re doing, while could be a signal of a larger, grand story, instead feels like it’s one purposefully stalled because we might have another trilogy of books on the way or it’ll be explored in Thrawn’s eventual TV presence; I don’t necessarily need answers, and the mystery is intriguing enough it keeps me invested, but if it all comes to a head in the final book of this trilogy, these first two will feel like padding themselves.

Plus, it seems like the exploration of Chiss society and its history, hinted and teased in book 1, will finally come in book 3, judging by the final line of this book, while book 2 only seems to offer more of the family in-fighting we gleaned from previous stories. As I mentioned in my review of Chaos Rising, in the end the story, characters, and setting didn’t feel that different than the rest of the galaxy and it was only Thalias’ Trials and glimpse of Csilla, the Chiss heartworld, that offered some exciting threads of Chiss to explore. GG lacks these moments, and even when there are aspects explored about the Chiss, which includes characters offering hints at the Ascendancy’s history via rumors and how many Ruling Families there were, the concrete depths GG plumbs ends up being stuff like an interesting journaling technique or antiquated laws/rules that feel convenient to the plot rather than necessary to their history.

Through new character Lakinda, an officer in the Fleet who works alongside Ar’alani on her own ship, there’s some glimpses of what someone tied to family within the military can actually look like, as both Thrawn and Ar’alani care little or aren’t attached to family and focus more on their duty to the Fleet. Lakinda still cares more about duty than family, but how the Xodlak’s point-of-view causes her to think Thrawn could steal her glory and honor, which they place above all else, and it colors some of her decisions and choices throughout. She’s an interesting enough new face, but the fact she’s another character whose biggest concern ends up being how Thrawn affects or could affect her life, it makes the Chiss world in these books so much smaller and narrow. Two Speakers, like higher up advisors/rulers in a family, Zistalmu and Thurfian return with their plotting against Thrawn, though they seem to make some logical leaps to continue to believe he’s the only thing standing against the Ascendancy’s rise or ruin. In fact, by the end one of them rises in their family ranks more so than even they hoped for, but it, like many moments in the story, feels like it happens thanks to the plot’s desires, rather than anything on their end. Again, having these two obsessed with Thrawn keeps this new culture and area of space feeling so small since it somehow hinges on one, single being; are the Chiss really that powerful and intimidating if it all could come crashing down on Thrawn’s actions or lack thereof? Or is this meant to show the fallacy of the Chiss, they believe themselves so superior (they do call the well-known parts of the galaxy Lesser Space), no outside force could be a considerable threat? If this series is meant to highlight that, not spending more time with the Grysk Hegemony, or developing them specifically or finally showing us how far they go to bring other species under their thrall, makes a smidge more sense so there’s room to show how the Chiss can make themselves fall, but having Thrawn and Co. so easily thwart all the Grysk plans so far makes this “growing” threat less and less formidable with each passing book. Will there be enough in the third and final book, out November*, to make up for this?

As I mentioned earlier with Thalias as well, not only is she often forced to ask what the male characters around her already know or often used as the character to ask what’s going on so everyone else can sound smarter, there’s also troubling undercurrents when other characters are around her, from First Officer Samanko, who often thinks little of her and talks down to her who ends the book still suspicious of her thanks to a logical leap, while Thurfian often thinks of her as something he can use still. With her losing a lot of agency this book, it feels even more prevalent and noticeable here. It was a problem I noticed even in the first book, and was called out more succinctly and pointedly in Den of Geek’s review, so to see this book double down is a disappointment to say the least.

Here are a few other things:

• *Thankfully, the wait for the finale to the Thrawn Ascendancy Trilogy won’t be very long: Lesser Evil arrives November 16! 2021 is the 30th Anniversary of Thrawn’s first appearance in Heir to the Empire, so ending his latest trilogy in such a landmark year makes sense, while I’m very sure we’ll also learn when/where we’ll see Thrawn in a live-action TV show (and potentially still an animated Rebels sequel).
• One of the more interesting story threads, where Thalias is pointing out some tomfoolery by the Chiss Ruling Council regarding regulations on sky-walkers, the young Chiss women who use the Force (or Third Sight out here) to navigate ships via hyperspace through the chaotic Chaos, is barely mentioned and quickly forgotten, but I hope Lesser Evil picks up or continues diving into the thread.
• The Chiss don’t care for or use droids, nor does much of the other species in the Chaos, but this is also something we don’t dive into and learn about the Chiss.
• If you went all out on book one and got the gorgeous put together special edition from Out of Print, there’s a chance later this year to add another beautiful edition to your bookshelf with Greater Good’s Out of Print edition. I suspect they’ll follow through and offer one for the finale as well.
• Del Rey Editor Tom Hoeler has once again released his Spotify playlist for the book!

Thrawn Ascendancy: Greater Good is full of the expected: Thrawn thwarting anything and everything that comes in his path, with lots of plot movement and little on character development, and it unfortunately doubles down on problems with the first, though its sense of mystery should help propel readers to finish in preparation for the finale later this year.

+ Some of the glimpses of Jixtus and his plans

+ Ar’alani and Lakinda’s appearances

– Thrawn remains perfect and far too aloof this entry

– Plot dictates most of what occurs

– Character development takes a backseat

– Doubling down on character treatment

Ryan is Mynock Manor’s Head Butler. You can follow him on Twitter @BrushYourTeeth. You can follow the website on Twitter @MynockManor and Instagram @mynockmanor.

DISCLOSURE: I received a copy of this book from the publisher at no charge in order to provide a review. However, this did not affect the overall review content. All opinions are my own.

THRAWN ASCENDANCY TRILOGY REVIEWS:
Chaos Rising (Book 1) | Lesser Evil (Book 3)

ALSO BY TIMOTHY ZAHN:
Thrawn (novel) | Thrawn – Alliances (novel) | Thrawn – Treason (novel)

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