Thrawn: Treason

2019 novel, third in Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy.
==First read (July 2019)==
Read when it came out in July 2019, while travelling through Ireland looking for Star Wars filming locations :P
At first I was really turned off by the ridiculous lengths the book started off taking to - for the third book in a row - highlight Thrawn's intelligence and coolness. They literally had a POV character who worshipped Krennic constantly comparing Thrawn with his high opinion of the Stardust director. However, honestly, I did find it fairly amusing after a while.
By the end of the book I was really enjoying reading it. The action and descriptions of Star Wars space battles from the side of the Imperials but with a competent and organised cast of characters is great fun to read.
It was set in the run up to Rogue One which was fun. It had a few references to the Rebels TV series which I don't know but I'm sure thrilled anyone who's into that.
I had the same criticism as usual though, with Thrawn being utterly unphased and with a plan that always works, no matter how absurd it really is that he should be able to manage that. However, if that's the name of the game, I can live with it. On top of that usual problem though, are two major issues.
Firstly, the twist that we had literally no way to see coming but which he, obviously, did. That was lame by its nature, and worse in its reveal. Thrawn was in the middle of a conversation with someone we'd been lead to believe was his ally, and suddenly says something critical of him with no foreshadowing, revealing that actually this conversation was Thrawn's confronting and beating him in one fell swoop. So we go from not even knowing he's an enemy to him being soundly defeated in like one chapter.
Secondly, his sudden and unexplained giving in at the end to Ronan's MUCH foreshadowed betrayal. The whole novel was about Thrawn agreeing to a deal which would get his TIE Defender project funded. And it was so frequently made clear that Ronan was going to try to stop Thrawn from managing to complete his side of it. Then, right at the end, Ronan predictably finds some nitpicky way to claim Thrawn's technical failure, and Thrawn's friend is all disgusted and outraged, and I'm waiting to see what Thrawn has planned this time and he just GIVES UP WITHOUT A FIGHT. What??? It was like the author obviously had to have the Deathstar project go ahead and Thrawn's obviously better idea of diversifying the funding (a rational criticism of the Deathstar I've heard before) had to fail. But there was no good reason for it to happen! At least the Emperor should have just stepped in and gone "nope, I want a big battlestation, Thrawn shut up you lose anyway".
Anyway, I still enjoyed reading it a lot, to my surprise.
1, high
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