There are some things I liked about the book and some I didn'tI liked:-That Mara Jade was there of course :0)-The action sequences are outstanding. I could almost feel parts of blown-up walls and buildings flying all over me through the POV from La Rone and company.-Timothy Zahn's command of the ...
Took a long time to read but the second half finished strong! Mara Jade, The Hand of Judgment, and Grand Admiral Thrawn, 'nuff said.
4th book in a series. Read this one for the Endeavour Award. I'm guessing its a classic murder mystery set on a train - sure to be an homage to something - the only thing I've ever heard of is Murder on the Orient Express. Except that it's a galactic train with aliens. An okay read and not re...
"A Jedi can't get so caught up in matters of galactic importance that it interferes with his concern for individual people"It's had a permanent space on my top books of all time, and there is a reason. Considered by most Star Wars fans to be the best Star Wars Expanded Universe novel and the birt...
A trilogy that evolved in a wise way. But it was so artistically done. HOW A TRILOGY SHOULD BEMaybe how a trilogy should be it’s that all three parts would be the same as good. I am sure nobody would mind about that.However, if perfection isn’t in the equation, I think that a wise approach is c...
So, after my last post, I realized that I kind of liked the idea of going through a book by each of my top five authors. And since I had just done a YA Leguin novel, it seemed only fair to follow it with another YA novel; this time, I went to Timothy Zahn, specifically back to his Dragonback seri...
Danger in Paradise.The first colonists to reach Tigris thought they had found Eden... but the planet had a horrifying effect on their children. Babies born there developed frightening telekinetic powers at the age of five. No one could control them -- and as the changelings grew and became aware ...
Because of the deadly effect sphere, the only way into or out of the system containing the metal-rich Ring Mines of Solitaire is by performing a human sacrifice. Now every ship heading there carries two death-row felons. It's a bizarre, but effective method of execution--until it's discovered tha...
Damon Lathe, Allen Caine, and the Blackcollar drug-enhanced combat team want to infiltrate a Ryqril-conquered colony, a tactical center where the whole sector's military data flows through against the Chryselli. But Ryqruil Prefect Jamus Galway of Plinry has a clone duplicate of Allen ready.
For one researcher, Triplet is a marvel promising both advanced technology and magic. But a world of sinister secrets lurks just below the surface . . . Grad student Danae Panya’s dream assignment has been approved. She’ll study Triplet, the strange planetary system scarred by nuclear war and co...
Having cleared his name, Jack sets out to trace the mercenaries that blasted Draycos' people. To do this, Jack joins a mercenary organization, figuring he can use his proximity to their systems to break in and steal what he needs. Things go wrong almost from the start when Jack is prematurely shi...
The aliens were pacifists - but all living things were their friends... When humanity first ventured out among the stars, it seemed that we were alone in the universe, the only tool-users in the galaxy - and thus were free to mold the very cosmos to our heart's desire. It would take us a long tim...
When Matt Raimey had his accident, he thought his life was over. He never dreamed, in his wildest fantasies, that he'd end up in a spot like this. In the toxic atmosphere of Jupiter, born into the body of an enormous creature that looked like a cross between a manta ray and a dolphin, he is livin...
I picked this book because I needed my "dragon" spot filled on the reading bingo. I asked a friend which dragon book I should read and she said this one. You could make a case that Draycos is not really a dragon because he’s an alien. But it’s in the title! And Jack calls him a dragon more than o...
I was reading another book, but I got so tired of the issues I had with that book, I had to take a break. Plus, I got to meet Timothy Zahn on January 8th, so I was pumped to finish reading my almost complete collection of Timothy Zahn published works!Humankind (to be politically correct) has fina...
I was a huge fan of Zahn's Star Wars sequel books when I was much younger, so I came into this hoping for a cracking good adventure ... and I was both disappointed and not.The mystery and intrigue in this novel take off to a quick start when Frank Compton sees someone murdered in front of him and...
Every time I think that Timothy Zahn is done with the Star Wars Universe, he surprises me by coming back. Zahn was conspicuously absent from the New Jedi Order series (an 18 book epic that pitted the cast of the original trilogy against a race of bio-tech wielding aliens), and his Hand of Thrawn ...
(Update July 2013: The Conqueror's series is one of the most impressive stories I have ever read (I've graded ~2000). Although not all the books earned an A grade on first read because of the complexity, the overall series is a strong grade A. I suspect each story will earn a grade A on second re...
"Conqueror's Pride" by Timothy Zahn is a good, solid space opera. It's a good read for fans of the genre.By "space opera", I mean a science fiction book that doesn't really explore any hard scientific themes, but instead focuses on plot and adventure. Maybe there will be some character developm...
Former government agent Frank Compton foiled a plot to enslave the galaxy in Night Train to Rigel. But the Modhri, an ancient telepathically linked intelligence, has walkers, unwilling hosts that can be anywhere, anything…and anyone. And Compton is the only man who knows how to fight them, as the...
Every time I read this authors name I imagine fat, old Kirk shaking his fist and yelling, "Zaaaaahhhhhn".Anyway, I actually read this because Nathan was wondering if Zahn was similar at all to David Weber. I hadn't read any Zahn before (except the first 30 pages or so of a Star Wars novel, I just...
(Update July 2013: The Conqueror's series is one of the most impressive stories I have ever read (I've read 2000). Although not all the books earned an A grade on first read because of the complexity, the overall series is a strong grade A. I suspect each story will earn a grade A on second read....
When orphan Jack Morgan 14 is dragged off by Golvins on planet Semaline because he smells like a Jupa (Judge-Paladin), golden Draycos, poet-warrior of K'da dragon symbiotes, tags along in the form of a back tattoo. Alison, host to newly intelligent K'da Taneem, is kidnapped by Braxton Universis m...
The Blackcollar marks the beginning of Timothy Zahn's career that would culminate in the creation of the best Star Wars trilogy on the market. As he is my favorite author, I couldn't miss out on this one.ETA 06/09/14: After reading more books and thinking back on my feelings for this book, I have...
From The Ashes, written by Hugo Award-winning author Timothy Zahn, sets the scene for the events chronicled in the movie Terminator Salvation, revealing the full story behind John Connor, the man fated to lead the human resistance against Skynet and its army of Terminators.In post-Judgment Day LA...
He'd never done a real magic show before, but it was almost as if his whole life had been spent training for one. Most of the tricks he performed were ones Uncle Virgil had taught him, either for scamming money on the streets when he was a little kid, or more recently as distractions for cons the...
It was therefore something of a surprise to discover how much ammo the Terminators hadn’t fired. Callahan put it into words first. “Good God, we’ve hit the jackpot,” he breathed as they stood together by the broken machines, gazing at all the extra magazines still strapped to the Terminators’ upp...
It was clear that he wasn’t keeping them prisoner—on the aircar flight from Stronghold to the landing area she saw a few of the people already leaving, making their wary way across the wide path that the Marines had cleared to keep Caelian’s plants and animals away. Tamu had also put four pairs o...
Perhaps it was clouds, he thought: clouds too high and too thin for his eyes to distinguish through the mists rising from the Dreaming Waters that lay to the north of the Red City. But he’d seen the sky through thin clouds before. More likely it was something their ...
"You trying to ruin what little night vision I have left?"The light didn't waver. "Who are you?" the voice demanded. "What are you doing here?""My name is Merrick Moreau," Merrick told him. "I was sent with Miron Akim—""Merrick Moreau?" a new voice cut in, the source moving as someone apparently ...
The guilty fear exploding inside her mind drowned out everything else … and a second later she was shooting down the alleyway between buildings at top speed, the nearest wall barely thirty centimeters from her shoulder. Emerging, she flashed over the next street and dodged between two more buildi...
But even as he dropped toward the rocky floor, he sensed Draycos leaping past him. A fraction of a second later, he slammed into the K'da as they both hit the floor. They rolled over a couple of times and came to a halt. "You all right?" Jack asked, wiping dust and grit of...
Or maybe it was that the traffic the past two nights had been unusually heavy. Kersh could never tell about those things. All he knew was that the lines of headlights and tail lights stretched all the way to the horizon, the headlights streaming in from New Jersey, the tail lights returning again...
As the Republic expanded via the hyperspace lanes, it absorbed new member worlds from newly discovered star systems; it also expanded its military to deal with the hostile civilizations, slavers, pirates, and gangster-species such as the slug-like Hutts that were encountered in the outward explor...
Chapter One The first thing I noticed when I opened my apartment door was the woman standing there. She was young, late teens or early twenties, her clothing a conservative dark gray, her hair strikingly blonde. She was slender, nearly gaunt in fact, and her face, while pretty enough, was drawn a...
Not a visual scanner, as Skyler might have expected, but rather the kind of microradar and materials echo-sensors designed to look for particular metals and compounds, plus power sources and other forms of radiation. The blackcollars' own equipment, of course, didn't have ...
I was a little taken aback by her enthusiasm until I discovered that Rebekah had promised her that the two girls could share a compartment, which meant Terese would have ten glorious days without having to look at either Bayta or me except at mealtimes.I wasn’t happy about that. Neither was Bayta...
Now, as he stared into Gazen's face, he could feel it going into sprint mode. "I don't understand," he said. "What do you mean, selling me to you?" Gazen gave him a smile as thin as a con man's promise. "Oh, of course," he said. "I forgot. You knew nothing about that, did you?" "I still don't—I m...
"That one's ours."Lorne half turned to bring the tomato he was holding more fully into the mid-morning sunlight streaming down across the Azras buildings. Half a block away, parked squarely in the middle of the road, was one of the Troft armored trucks he'd had way too much experience with lately...
As such, it was a military secret of the highest order, and Jody found it completely understandable that not a single Qasaman aboard the Squire would breathe word one to her about where it was being hidden.Still, from hints her parents had dropped before the trouble with the Dominion kicked in, s...
By foot, Jody knew, it would be seven or eight. On Aventine, even the longer trip would be no more than a brisk two-hour walk. With a good nine hours remaining until sundown, she had wondered earlier what her father had meant with his comment about pushing their available daylight. Within the fir...
A warm, homey sort of aroma, reminding her of the campouts she'd had as a child on Alderaan. And then she woke up enough to remember where she was. Full consciousness flooded in, and she snapped open her eyes- To find herself lying on a rough pallet in a corner of the Nogh...
Jack found himself staring down at nothing, his throat tight, his stomach twisting into a knot of fear and anger. It couldn't be. How could the mercenaries possibly have tracked the Essenay across the Orion Arm to this fifth-rate planet? How could they possibly have known ...
Thirty seconds later, Sergeant Grisko himself came striding through the door, bellowing for all the greasy maggot-infested sacks of lard to get their hind ends out of bed and stand at attention. "Sloppy, maggots," he growled when the teens were standing stiffly at the ends...
They were everywhere. Some were lounging at consoles in various rooms, their wide bulks squeezed into chairs a couple of sizes too small for them. Others were running power cables along the corridor ceilings, apparently setting up special equipment. Others were simply milling around, or watching ...