Allegiance: Star Wars Legends

I enjoyed the various threads spun in this book. A bit predictable, but it is Star Wars. The story provided some background for future events and some of the main SW characters, such as Mara and her bad self, and it also gave the stormies a warm fuzzy lovable side. I picked this up during a flight delay and found it hard to put down. Definately a good read.

Overall, I found `Allegiance' one of the more exciting tales to grace the SW universe in a very long time and I'm somewhat surprised by the lukewarm response other reviews have taken to it. It's my feeling that recent authors who have tried to wrangle up a compelling story in the SW universe continually fall short. Convoluted storylines are typically rehashed; characters are shoehorned into plotlines for appearance sake only, and dialogue becomes unrealistic or out of touch to the core character. Not so with `Allegiance'. Author Timothy Zahn does an exceptional job of exploring untapped pockets of cannon lore here in the time just after A New Hope and introduces new characters and motivations unseen here before. While Han, Luke, Chewie and Leia are present in this novel, they take on only a supporting role to Zahn's fleshing out of one young Mara Jade (aka "The Emperors Hand") and a rouge detachment of Storm trooper's known as the `Hand of Judgment'. That's not to say Han, Luke, and Chewie are not important, but Zahn now creates an actual purpose for them to be in this novel and it makes logical sense. We get some nice insight into Han's viewpoint of his motivations for possibly joining the Rebellion, plus a still wet-behind-the-ears look at Luke who's trying to find himself a place in the galaxy after Ben died not too long ago. The story itself is also a major departure for most SW novels as there is no new `major threat' to the galaxy, some mysterious new villain, or the usual quest of light over dark. Instead, Zahn focuses on the political greed, and unscrupulous behavior of Imperial Moff's, governors, and ISB agents within the various echelons of the Empire itself. This is more of a cloak and dagger type of novel about the power struggle, cover ups, and clamoring for political clout amongst those supposedly running the Empire, but have their own personal agenda's in place. It's up to Mara, and even Vader to some extent, to clean up the ranks. Mara's portrayal as one of the central characters is both intriguing and spot on in developing more of her back story and origin here. This in turn helps explain many of her actions and mindset in the years to come that are relayed in other novels, but never really defined and explored. Her interactions with Vader are great, and I had a sense of gratification on now knowing why Palpatine had yet another besides Vader to carry out his orders and will. You can understand why she was chosen at the Emperors Hand, her skills, and her sense or moral code and contact. The other main set of characters is actually five Stormtroopers who find themselves in a moral quandary, as to how to best serve their oath to the Empire. They begin to discover for themselves that while they aren't fans of the Rebellion, that not every Imperial ideal is always best for the `people'. They have their own brand of justice to dispense while on the run from those they once served, but to also want expose the most w

This book was awesome, I loved the storyline and the overall flow of it. I enjoyed watching what happened to LaRone and his fellow Stormtroopers. And there were just so many thing I did not expect, twist and turns but I never really got confused. One point I lost track but it was shorter than a page. The second Star Wars book Ive read, I dont really remember the other, but Im deffinitly buying more. I would recomend this to Every star wars fan...

This is a return to the original serial style of first movie episodes 4, 5 & 6, cliff hangers and last second escapes. The new angle is an early exposure to Mara Jade, the Emperor's Hand. Until now we only new Mara Jade from her battles with her soon to be famous husband and later as the mother of a new generation of Jedi. This story gives us a perspective of Mara's naive views of Darth Vader, Palpatine and the Empire. I look forward to additional stories that further develop her ultimate conversion.

As books go, I found Outbound Flight rather on the boring side, not so with Allegiance. This book, I finished in 2 days. The characters are a mite on the flat side, but Mara Jade pulls through fine. Everything ties together neatly in the end...perhaps too neatly but heck, that's most good fiction out there. The dialogue's decent, the actions great, the plot twists are good. Overall, Zahn pulls off another lovely star wars novel. BTW, the idea of including non-clone stormtroopers is only logical, this is a long time after the clone wars. Palpy wouldn't be spending credits on more clones when he can just invest in some nice propaganda and get lots of youngin's ready to defend the Empire.