Star Wars: The Last Jedi - 10 Great (Canon) Books To Read While You Wait

5. Thrawn

Star Wars: Thrawn
Del Rey/Two Dots

Hardcore Star Wars fans will need no introduction to Grand Admiral Thrawn, a character as famous for his appearance in Rebels as much as he is for the OG Dark Horse EU comics themselves.

For those unfamiliar with the blue-skinned alien, Thrawn is the master tactician of the Imperial Navy, and one of the main adversaries to have featured in Star Wars: Rebels. Timothy Zahn's novel featuring the character, however, isn't set during this period. Instead, it examines the character's rise to power, rooting itself in both the Republic and Imperial eras.

Being such a fan favourite character, and having orchestrated many other Thrawn stories in the past, Zahn's handling of the Admiral feels both immediately familiar and infinitely refreshing. Like many of the other novels to have released after Disney's EU reboot, it again takes a look at the transitory phase between the Republic's fall and the rise of the Empire, and although the period between Episodes III and IV is well traversed territory at this point, the focus on that transition is always interesting to witness, especially though the eyes of someone who advocated that transition during the Clone Wars themselves.

If you're familiar with Zahn's work, then you'll know that the writer's reputation precedes him. As far as Star Wars novels go, Thrawn is certainly up there.

Advertisement
In this post: 
Star Wars
 
Posted On: 
Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.