'Snort' I'll probably die and not have read the books in my to-read shelves. I don't have to-read stacks anymore; I have to-read shelves. ![Smile :) :)](/styles/flatawesome/xenforo/smilies/smile.gif)
![Smile :) :)](/styles/flatawesome/xenforo/smilies/smile.gif)
^Heir to the Empire is the first book of Zahn's "Thrawn Trilogy," which was the beginning of the modern age of Star Wars tie-ins (before then they were intermittent and lacked the modern interconnectedness) and is generally well-regarded in fandom. Be aware that the three books tell a single really long story a la Lord of the Rings. Heir to the Empire is just the first act of the story and isn't a complete tale in itself. Parts 2 & 3 are Dark Force Rising and The Last Command.
I actually never finished the Thrawn Trilogy. I read the frst two when they originally came out, and I was so frustrated with book 2 just stopping at a random point, not having any resolution of any kind but just breaking off and leaving me to wait a year for the conclusion, that I just walked away.
I actually never finished the Thrawn Trilogy. I read the frst two when they originally came out, and I was so frustrated with book 2 just stopping at a random point, not having any resolution of any kind but just breaking off and leaving me to wait a year for the conclusion, that I just walked away. (I had the same reaction to the supposedly-cowritten-by-Arthur-C.-Clarke-and-Gentry-Lee-but-really-almost-entirely-by-Lee Rama sequel trilogy, though that had the added problem of being thoroughly unpleasant and depressing.)
I actually never finished the Thrawn Trilogy. I read the frst two when they originally came out, and I was so frustrated with book 2 just stopping at a random point, not having any resolution of any kind but just breaking off and leaving me to wait a year for the conclusion, that I just walked away. (I had the same reaction to the supposedly-cowritten-by-Arthur-C.-Clarke-and-Gentry-Lee-but-really-almost-entirely-by-Lee Rama sequel trilogy, though that had the added problem of being thoroughly unpleasant and depressing.) Naturally that wouldn't be a problem for anyone reading it today, when it's easy to get all three parts. But it was those books that made me decide that if I ever did a trilogy, it would be a genuine trilogy, three complete stories that formed a larger arc, rather than just one really long book arbitrarily cut in three by page count. If you're going to do a work that way, then at least all the parts should come out within a month of each other.
Of course, I could always go back and read the whole thing now if I wanted to. But what I realized at the end of book 2 was that I just wasn't invested enough in Star Wars to be willing to bother with the third book, or with SW literature in general.