Quote Originally Posted by hamishspence View Post
Seen from the point of view of his apprentice, who can sense his thoughts:
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he outright took the plunge in that confrontation.
Quote Originally Posted by Peelee View Post
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He's climbing the diving board at the start of the book. By the time the end rolls around, he's not talking a plunge, he's firmly underwater, and deep.
Ah, right. It's been a while since I read the book.

Quote Originally Posted by Sapphire Guard View Post
Thanks for reading this far, everyone. What did you make of this? Too whiny? Let me know. What would you recommend reading from here?
I found it enjoyable. I'm really bad at actually thinking ahead and wondering what's going on when I read books, or play games - 90% of the time I just end up going along for the ride - so it was nice actually seeing the thoughts of someone doing that kind of postulation. I didn't find it too whiny - while hearing the same gripe over and over again did occasionally get tiresome, it was pointing out issues that you found that didn't get fixed by the end (even if I didn't mind them so much on my own readthrough).

As for further readings, any of Zahn's other books are at least decent. The Hand of Thrawn duology has a lot of continuity with this series (at the very least referentially), and it doesn't have the issues that you had with Thrawn (at least, not that I can recall) - the antagonists don't need to be contrasted constantly to the movie Empire, because there was a lot more EU by that point, and the antagonist doesn't make the perfect in-contradictable decisions.

Outbound Flight and Survivor's Quest I also found decently enjoyable. I read Outbound Flight first, but Survivor's Quest, though a (technical, though very, very time-separated) sequel, was released first - so, it might be better to read it in proper Star Wars fashion, with the second half first.
(Not knowing how the stuff went down in one to affect the other probably makes for a more interesting read.)

He also wrote also Allegiance and Choices of One - I've only read the former, and, while I found it weaker overall, it was still enjoyable (at least to me). There's some PoV from more traditional Rebellion main characters, but there's also a group of Stormtrooper main characters, and Mara Jade in her days as an Imperial Agent.

Anyways, that's probably enough recommendations.