Today's review we're doing star wars outbound flight by Timothy Zahn my favourite star wars author. This story is set in 27 bby around five years after the battle of naboo in the phantom menace and follows the stories of Jorj "notice me thrawn-senpai" Car'das, Jorus "one u this time so you know I'm the real deal" C'baoth, his padawan turned jedi knight Lorana "I'm not a side character I swear" Jinzler and our collective favourite strategic mastermind/art fetishist Thrawn with guest appearances by obi-wan "best beard" kenobi and his padawan anakin "I'm a person I swear" Skywalker (with reference to a pretty important character for the njo books. Yknow the one that got ruined in literally every story that came after njo). In the story we spend most of our time learning about how cool the chiss are as a species (but mostly thrawn) and how cool/a terrible idea the titular outbound flight is.
You might be inclined to say "But Raz, you magnificent mastermind you, this just sounds like setup for the Thrawn trilogy,' and you'd be mostly correct though it does enough on its own as a story to be worth a read even without riding the coat tails of the forever awesome Thrawn trilogy. It also serves as a brilliant introduction to the chiss culture which, for nerds like me and presumably you if you've read this far, is just marvelous. Try talking about the intricacies of the chiss naming conventions next time you don't go to a party with your friends. They'll love it.
One of my favourite parts of this book, and this is the most spoilery I get so if you don't want spoils then skip this paragraph, is what we find out about C'baoth in that the insanity and ego that burns through the clone jedis essence is barely an exaggeration from the original evil looking santa clause. This guy is the anti-kreia and believes the jedi, and by extension him, are the ultimate authorities of the galaxy due to their powers in the force and anything that dares stand in their way deserves death. He is very fun to watch as he's just a complete jerk to everyone he sees as beneath him(which means everyone) and really deserves a slap.
Overall outbound flight is a fun little side note in the galaxy far far away. If you, like me, have a never ending pain in your chest that screams "More star war NOW" constantly and agonisingly then you will more than enjoy this title. Alright that's all from me. Have the day you deserve!
