The Last Command is the conclusion to Timothy Zahn's trilogy, and I would have to say it filled the role of a final book. Believe it or not, at this time, I don't have too much to say one way or another about the book. Not that I'm saying it was bad. On the contrary, I thought it was very good. I just don't have too much to say on it right now. I will probably come back and write a much more thorough review of this book some other time, but after this read-through, I only have a few things to say right now.
A lot of the things that were set up in Dark Force Rising came to fruition in this book. Most noticeably is the Noghri situation. I have seen many complaints about how Thrawn died. I thought this was set up nicely in Dark Force Rising and was convincingly done. Think about it. Any plan that could have been thought up a long time in advance could have been thwarted by Thrawn because he seems to cover for every contingency. His trust in the Noghri was his one weakness, and they weren't watched as much as they could have been. Rukh probably had just found out not too long before the Battle of Bilbringi of the Empire's treachery, and then just had to wait for the most opportune time to strike back. The attack came without warning. There was very little way for Thrawn to defend against this setup, and that is the only way it was possible to stop the threat he posed to the NR.
The storyline surrounding Mara Jade also came to a satisfying end. She was finally able to confront her past, and therefore was able to free herself from its influence. On my first read of the trilogy, I never believed for a minute that she would actually kill Luke. I was kind of surprised that she did actually get to kill him. Or, should I say, his clone. Not until the clone was introduced did I know exactly how she would resolve that conflict. The receiving of Luke's old lightsaber at the end was a nice bit of symbolism that indicated she could now start planning for a future. Being Luke's, anybody who has read far more recent books/comics will add another connotation into this.
Speaking of adding extra connotations into things, Zahn leaves himself a couple of nice little hooks for future novels. Most notable is the entire motivation behind the actions of a certain Bothan Councilor. He remains silent the entire book, except when it comes to the subject of Wayland. He begs the NR to send ships to blow up the Emperor's storehouse there, and even is willing to pay any price for Karrde to go do it, because he's afraid of the information contained in the storehouse. In this book, we never find out what Borsk's so afraid of, but we sure do in the Hand of Thrawn duology. In the meantime, the reader gets to enjoy seeing Borsk beg, plead, and cajole a smuggler to help him.
Another bit that is ultimately expanded upon in the Hand of Thrawn books is an offhand comment that Thrawn makes about C'baoth. He contemplates cloning C'baoth on a deserted world out in the Unknown Regions. He never does this, as far as we know to date, but this whole idea comes back concerning another character in the duology. A few characters, actually, but one in particular comes to mind. Too bad that this clone never emerged in light of events in the New Jedi Order series.
The one slight quibble I have with this book is very slight, very minor, and probably only of interest to the denizens of alt.fan.wedge. Wes Janson is out of character. The entire reason for this is, obviously, because Zahn was the first author to write about him. The Wes Janson that we've come to know and love from the X-Wing books did not exist yet. Even so, I still have to cringe when I read that Wes does not hesitate to support a supposed drunk that just happens to hang himself onto Wedge. I picture Wes immediately putting his hand on his blaster in case the guy is not a drunk and means trouble. Wes is also pretty serious in all his appearances, although this could be explained because they're out putting on a show for Imperial Intelligence. Maybe he was told to be on his best behavior. 8)
All in all, a very exciting conclusion that is guaranteed to keep the reader guessing and interested up through the last page.
Reviewed July 7, 2000 by Kelly M. Grosskreutz.
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