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| View Larger Image | Outbound Flight (Star Wars)
by Timothy Zahn
| | List Price: | $7.99 |  | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours | | | | | Sales Rank: | 157334 | | Studio: | Del Rey | | | Binding: | Mass Market Paperback | | Number Of Pages: | 480 | | Publication Date: | January 30, 2007 | | Publisher: | Del Rey |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
It began as the ultimate voyage of discovery–only to become the stuff of lost Republic legend . . . and a dark chapter in Jedi history. Now, at last, acclaimed author Timothy Zahn returns to tell the whole extraordinary story of the remarkable–and doomed–Outbound Flight Project.
The Clone Wars have yet to erupt when Jedi Master Jorus C’baoth petitions the Senate for support of a singularly ambitious undertaking. Six Jedi Masters, twelve Jedi Knights, and fifty thousand men, women, and children will embark–aboard a gargantuan vessel, equipped for years of travel–on a mission to contact intelligent life and colonize undiscovered worlds beyond the known galaxy. The government bureaucracy threatens to scuttle the expedition before it can even start–until Master C’baoth foils a murderous conspiracy plot, winning him the political capital he needs to set in motion the dream of Outbound Flight.
Or so it would seem. For unknown to the famed Jedi Master, the successful launch of the mission is secretly being orchestrated by an unlikely ally: the evil Sith Lord, Darth Sidious, who has his own reasons for wanting Outbound Flight to move forward . . . and, ultimately, to fail.
Yet Darth Sidious is not the mission’s most dangerous challenge. Once underway, the starship crosses paths at the edge of Unknown Space with the forces of the alien Chiss Ascendancy and the brilliant mastermind best known as “Thrawn.” Even Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi, aboard Outbound Flight with his young Padawan student, Anakin Skywalker, cannot help avert disaster. Thus what begins as a peaceful Jedi mission is violently transformed into an all-out war for survival against staggering odds–and the most diabolical of adversaries.
Timothy Zahn’s unique mix of espionage, political gamesmanship, and deadly interstellar combat breathes electrifying life into a Star Wars legend.
From the Hardcover edition. |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 96 reviews)
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not as good as you are hoping it will be 
basically this book is lame. why? because it doesn't play by its own rules. no jedi would give c'boath the power to do his mission cuz he's obviously nuts. which makes the book a fan service cash in. yes obi wan and anakin are in the book but they literally dissapear some time before the end having contributed nothing to the resolution of the story. and as for Thrawn.. all i can say is 'whatever'. if you want a minor and rather cryptic spoiler here it is: isn't Thrawn was sposed to be a bad guy?. i give it two stars cuz it was at least good enough that i finished it.
June 09, 2008 | |
A Glimpse into Jorus C'baoth & Trawn's Era Prequal History 
I've been reading the novels in order, re-reading those which I've already read, and I've got to say this one was one of my favorites in that era, though I can't say I didn't enjoy any of them.
You can pretty much gather that there is a lot of back history on Thrawn thrown into this one, and this also provides you with a deeper understanding of the mind and motives of Jorus C'baoth.
In the original Thrawn trilogy, Luke's research reveals to him that Jorus liked to be in the public eye, and we get the idea that perhaps he was a bit cocky and self assured...
...which gives us a better understanding of his clones alter ego considering that the clone was suffering from clone madness.
I was also interested in the fact that even though he was not a member of the Jedi Counsel, he was able to use his weight to get what he wanted.
As for Obi-Wan and Skywalker's presence in this novel...
...well let's pretend you grew up on an island and were reading the novels in order and were not aware of anything that followed in the time line after this novel...
...well I think you would have a sence of "is Obi-Wan and Anakin going to die!??!", but then you see that they are pulled from the mission in order to fulfill there fate in the Star Wars galaxy. I dunno, I liked how they were tossed in there only to be taken off the ship, it only made this suicide mission seem all that much darker in the knowledge that bad things were to come in the events to come, and that Palpatine was behind it all.
May 19, 2008 | |
he was happy! 
took longer than expected to get here but all in all, hubby was happy with his book and said it was in better condition than he expected it to be...worth the wait in my opinion for a quality book like that.
thank you!
April 16, 2008 | |
The Point Being? 
Just a quick comment here. What was the point of this book? Was it to somehow tie the prequels, the Empire, and Thrawn into that New Jedi Order hogwash? If anything this book only confused me even more about Thrawn's character by trying to make him seem like some noble good guy. Obi-Wan and Anakin did nothing in this book and seemed to have no place in it. In short, there just seemed to be no reason for this book to exist because it really did nothing except fill in details about the Chiss and Outbound Flight, which I doubt many of us were clamoring for. Kind of a disappointment after Zahn's previous efforts. Not recommended unless you really care about this minor footnote in Star Wars continuity.
That is all.
March 28, 2008 | |
More pieces of the puzzle are filled in
Everyone knows Star Wars - and everyone knows that it was created George Lucas. But while Timothy Zahn might not be so universally famous, he enjoys a reputation among many fans of the `Galaxy far, far away' that is second only to that of the Man in Plaid himself.
Fifteen years ago, Zahn's Heir to the Empire trilogy of novels spearheaded the revival of Star Wars - arriving with all the dramatic impact of a Star Destroyer slamming out of hyperspace in front of the reader. It was these books that snared many of the saga's serious fans, hooking us deep into the `wider world' beyond the movies.
A new Zahn book, in short, is an event that for some people is almost comparable to a new Star Wars movie - and we all know what that means. Of course, this also means that there's an immense weight of expectation involved. It might seem simple to say `this is a Star Wars novel', but like the grand exploration mission that gives it its name, Outbound Flight has to fulfil a myriad of different hopes and dreams.
It has to be Star Wars, recapturing the feel of the movies. It has to reflect Zahn's own distinctive style, adding depth to the characters and mysteries that he has been developing through his work in the franchise for fifteen years. It has to tell a good story. And, above all, it has to be fresh - it can't just be a tired re-tread of what we've seen before, it can't just be storytelling-by-numbers.
Taking all this into account, it seems mind-boggling to dare that Outbound Flight will fly at all - and all the more impressive when it soars.
There's an old saying among Star Wars fans: "Space is Big"; and what sends Outbound Flight soaring to success is that it has the majesty and grandeur of a story told on a truly Galactic scale - not a Galaxy in which every planet is simply another nondescript part of the same familiar matrix, but a Galaxy that is vast and mysterious like a cavern or a cathedral, and strewn all across with diamonds...
And in this Galaxy, there are people.
A Corellian smuggler captain, his idealistic co-pilot, and their curious, inexperienced navigator. A young Chiss picket force commander with an insatiable interest in the unknown. A proud Jedi Master and his nervous padawaan. A very different Jedi Master, and his brash young apprentice. A ruthless secret agent working for the Sith.
A Republic that spans a million worlds. An enigmatic alien civilization. A savage nomad race of spacefaring pirates and slavers.
And whereas Zahn's six previous Star Wars novels have all been set after the defeat of the Galactic Empire in Return of the Jedi - largely focused on Luke Skywalker, and chronicling the creation of a new political consensus and a new Jedi Order - Outbound Flight represents his first extended foray into the timeframe of the Prequel movies, before the rise of the Empire.
But, paradoxically, by taking a step backwards, a wider perspective opens up in front of the reader. The reality, the truth, turns out to be much bigger than we realised - and so much more fun!
If there's a theme to Outbound Flight, it's the sheer, untrammellable vastness of reality. Most of the characters in this novel think they have some grasp of the way the Galaxy works, of what's important, and of what direction they're headed in; but the sheer range of different communities who we encounter completely undercuts that, and the individuality of the people who make up those communities makes them seem like absurd illusions in their turn.
Not since 1977 has the bluster of a cynical smuggler deserved such respect; never before has the craven lack of vision of a Neimodian in a silly hat illustrated the beauty and variety of existence.
On another level, of course, there's much that is familiar in Outbound Flight; Obi-Wan Kenobi and young Anakin Skywalker play significant roles that enrich our understanding of their actions in the movies; Palpatine and Mace Windu have well-studied cameos. Several of Zahn's own recurring characters from his earlier novels reappear, most notably the alien military genius Thrawn.
The theme of the Outbound Flight Project itself - a grand mission of exploration into unknown space - originated in a throwaway line early in Zahn's first novel, and has been steadily developed in his work ever since.
But there's a newness, and a freshness here, as well. It helps that the characters are young men and women here, and that Outbound Flight takes place early in the chronology of the Star Wars saga, when Darth Vader is just a fourteen-year-old boy; but that would mean nothing if the author didn't have the vision and skill to let his characters' distinctive voices speak in turn against a vast backdrop of stars and darkness, and to create a grand symphony from the interplay of their differing points of view.
But although this is a novel about differences and distance, about encounters with the unknown, Zahn has always deliberately avoided alien perspectives as foreign and untranslatable. Instead, he tells the story through the eyes of ordinary men and women, creating an unspoken dialogue between foreign civilizations and the very human characters who encounter them.
Of course, there is much in the writing here that is, in a sense, familiar. Brief descriptive motifs echo like the recurring visual and musical phrases of the movies, and like the Star Wars movies, this is a story that aims to be accessible to children and adults alike. The prose is often minimal - but it is assured, too, and the occasional flashes of detail are deft and adept. I suspect there is a deliberate intelligence behind the pattern of omissions - drawing the reader's imagination into the story, asking us to fill in the gaps in our own minds, and make our own voyages of discovery and speculation.
For about three hundred and fifty pages, Outbound Flight is a strange and wonderful novel set in a well-loved Galaxy far, far away... a story with an immediate intimacy and panoramic sweep that are both impossible on the screen.
And then, about a hundred pages from the end, things change. Palpatine intervenes to pull Obi-Wan and Anakin out of the novel, and everything starts to get out of control.
People die; individuals, and tens of thousands... yet somehow, their dreams remain.
The ending is as at once poignant, personal, and heroic. It serves as a fitting cap for the story we've just been told, but it also asks us to reassess everything we thought we knew, giving new levels of meaning to Zahn's previous novels and adding deeper layers of understanding to our appreciation of the story he has told.
At least, that's my reading of it. Other people I've spoken to who've read this book have interpreted the ending in totally different ways. And they enjoyed it just as much as I did. That, too, seems very appropriate.
It's impossible for me to really say how Outbound Flight will work for someone who's new to Zahn. I've read and reread his earlier novels with great pleasure over the years. But I have a hunch that the sense of wonder, fun and mystery will still be there. There's a whole great Galaxy out there to explore in the `wide black' - and all sorts of different ways to get into it.
March 15, 2008 | |
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