Welcome

Welcome to my ever-evolving blog. It started out as a blog on Beachbody workouts and products, mainly when I was a Beachbody coach. I no longer coach, not because I don't believe in Beachbody's programs (I subscribe to Beachbody on Demand and use their workouts every day), I am just not a salesperson and hated that aspect of it. I am more than willing to answer questions about my experiences with their products and the various workouts, and I feel freer to do so without the appearance of giving a biased review of something.

I have also started adding reviews for various things I have purchased like movies, books, CDs, and other products. This was brought about by a fight with Amazon in which all of my reviews were removed over a completely bullshit allegation that I posted a review that violated their terms of service. After going back and forth with the morons in the community-reviews department (even after they admitted that my posts did not violate their guidelines) they restored my account (which took them six months to do), but I have been posting my reviews on my blog to have them preserved in case something like that happens again. And here, I will post uncensored reviews so I will swear from time to time and post reviews that may be longer than Amazon's character limit. Everything I post here on any topic or product is my personal opinion, and I take no compensation for any product reviews I post. I am a member of Amazon's vine program and because I get those products for free, I keep those reviews on Amazon only, but everything I have purchased with my own money, whether from Amazon or some other store/website/outlet, I will post here.  

I also plan to do some longer blog posts on various topics, such as how to learn physics, how to get through calculus, and longer reviews of workout programs as I do them. Basically, whatever strikes me as interesting at the time.  As you can see if you navigate around the blog, I had many years in between postings. During that time I was going back to school to get an engineering degree, and learning material that I avoided my first time through college was a different experience and one that gave me a lot of insight into how to do well in those classes, which I will try to impart here for those who are looking to get a science or engineering degree. 

Monday, November 7, 2022

Book Review: Star Wars - Thrawn

 



The character of Thrawn has been a favorite of die-hard Star Wars fans from his introduction in the now Legends novels known as the Thrawn Trilogy (Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, and The Last Command), also written by Timothy Zahn. Those novels were what many of us hoped would be made into a sequel movie trilogy, but as the actors got older (as it was set only a few years after Return of the Jedi) that became impossible. When Lucasfilm bought out Disney, it was unclear whether Thrawn would ever be included in the new material. Thankfully, he was. This novel serves as a partial origin story for Thrawn (or Mitth'raw'nuruodo), detailing his rise through the Imperial ranks from a cadet to eventually becoming a Grand Admiral.

Throughout the novel, we get an idea of Thrawn's brilliance as a tactician and master of strategy. However, that is not as much on display in this book as it was in the Thrawn Trilogy. However, that was set at a time when his skills were more refined and developed and this book is really about character development, so that does not bug me as much. The book does include minor appearances by Emperor Palpatine, Darth Vader, and Tarkin, but mostly the book is about Thrawn and his translator (Eli Vanto) participating in various missions as they rise in rank. The book ends shortly before the point where Thrawn was introduced in the animated series Rebels.

Overall the book has a good mix of the political intrigue that the novels set during the early years of the Empire have and action, whether it is Thrawn chasing down smugglers or dealing with Wookie raids. The book is clearly just setting up the character in the new canon for additional appearances (which would come through additional novels, the appearance in the Rebels series, and a very widely speculated live-action appearance in the new Ahsoka series. While I do not think it is as good as the Thrawn Trilogy from the 1990s, it does tell a very good story and sets up the "new" version of the character well. If you are someone who only reads some of the novels, I would definitely put this in the must-read category.

No comments: