Desiring to further expand their territory and explore the Unknown Regions, the Republic starts a revolutionary expedition, Outbound Flight, to colonize new worlds and build settlements.  Led by Jedi Master Jorus C’baoth, the group of roughly fifty thousand Republic citizens face problems almost as soon as they take off on the journey.  However, not only is Darth Sidious intent on destroying Outbound Flight, but they will cross paths with a species previously unknown to them: the Chiss.  Their problems are just beginning…

Did Timothy Zahn, writing in a completely new era for him in Outbound Flight, succeed with this novel?  Read on to find out!

I was very interested to read Timothy Zahn’s first novel in the Prequel era, because everything else of his I’ve read (the Thrawn Trilogy, Allegiance and Specter of the Past only for me personally) I’ve really enjoyed.  His writing definitely has a way of just… flowing.  I can’t think of a better word to describe it, and that aspect certainly shows in Outbound Flight.

Despite that, however, multiple things about the book just didn‘t work for me.

Outbound Flight starts off with a plot on Barlok, with this book being the only time the world has ever been mentioned or even referenced.  I don’t have a complaint about that either, because honestly, it’s kind of a boring world; nothing unique about it at all.  Anyway, Jorus C’baoth is tasked with mediating between two quarreling groups on the planet, and he takes along his Padawan, Lorana Jinzler; suspicious of C’baoth, Mace Windu has Obi-Wan Kenobi (who takes Anakin Skywalker along) go to Barlok to keep tabs on the mediating Jedi Master.  This part I didn’t feel really strongly for either way; at times it was a bit boring, but I did enjoy it as well.  Though some of the things leading to them solving the problems on the world were a bit convenient (Obi-Wan just happens to sense, out of EVERYONE on the planet and all the criminals, the right person to follow just randomly walking down the street?  Yay, the convenient “I can sense it in the Force” plot usage!).

Let me tackle one aspect of Outbound Flight that grated on me perhaps more than anything: the characters.  Jorus C’baoth, Lorana Jinzler, Thrawn.  I had a complaint about almost every character in this book, with C’baoth perhaps being the worst out of the bunch.  Why?  To put it bluntly, he was a jerk.  A complete and total jerk.  So much, in fact, that it was almost funny at times - like the fact that when just randomly walking down hallways or streets, he would NEVER move for anyone because he was a Jedi and therefore he believed they should be the ones to move for him.  He would practically bump into people because of this.  It was actually kind of funny, but with everything else so infuriating concerning his character, I didn’t find it too amusing as I was reading.  One example among many is, after Outbound Flight has taken off, he starts training children who are Force sensitive to be Jedi.  These are relatively old children (to take for training, at least) too - I believe it was stated they were all 4-9 years old, but I could be a bit off.  When the parents don’t want their children trained as Jedi, C’baoth steals the Jedi candidates in the middle of the night and refuses to return them.  The Jedi Council has no knowledge of this.  One thing that’s infuriating about it is that not one other Jedi tries very hard to stop him; it’s like they all just bowed down to him.

It’s so obvious he was falling to the dark side, or had already fallen, and NO ONE noticed this?  No one?  Mace voiced suspicion to Obi-Wan early in the book, but did they actually do anything about it?  No.  In fact, they let him lead Outbound Flight with multiple Jedi on it, as well as 50,000 Republic citizens aboard.  Yes, that’s Jedi Council logic for you.  Then near the end of the book, Lorana finally realizes her former Master has turned to the dark side and is shocked by it.

Really, Lorana?  You were his Padawan for your entire life.  You were really that surprised by it?  And mentioning C’baoth’s Padawan (well, Padawan for part of the book, at least) brings me to the rant about her now.  I mean, she wasn’t nearly as bad as C’baoth, but it was still frustrating to read just how weak she acted.  She was constantly doing what other people told her to do.  She didn’t even really try to persuade C’baoth to be easier on the people aboard Outbound Flight, when she had multiple chances to talk to him about it.  Though I guess, to give her a break, you could say that with years of C’baoth drumming total obedience into her that there was a reason for this aspect of her personality, but still.  I actually did like her at times, but she certainly wasn’t perfect.

Now, to tackle a character that I feel is actually very awesome overall, but in this book I disliked the portrayal of him: Thrawn.  Now, in the Thrawn Trilogy, he was a bit mary sue-ish (or is that gary-stu in this case?) but his intelligence is what made him so incredibly fantastic a character.  He was also quiet, almost brooding, and truly a magnificent villain.  In Outbound Flight, he definitely has that intelligence still, but he is SUCH a “perfect” character that it kind of gets tiring after awhile.  Doriana says it best in the novel itself: “Everything Thrawn does is impossible!”  Every plan against him he predicts and/or foils, every plotpoint he has to know he conveniently can guess, etc.  It was almost unbelievable.

There is never a flaw in his plans - and yes, you could say the same for TTT, but there’s also another difference here that made the gary-stu-ism less bearable.  Thrawn’s character is much more of a good guy in this novel; he’s friendlier, more welcoming to outsiders, etc.  Much different than his quiet, intimidating, awesome self in TTT, which I enjoyed reading much more than this… “nice” Thrawn.  It’s just weird how friendly he is to Car’das and his group; these are aliens who the Chiss have never had contact with, and for all they know the humans could be… telepathic aliens who will steal all the Chiss’s secret.  So why is he letting them roam around the Chiss base?  Granted, I’m sure guards would stop them before they accessed anything really secret, but still.

The only other complaints I have characters wise are Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi’s utterly pointless presences in the book.  Seriously, they serve no purpose in the plot, and about halfway through the book they just… have to leave Outbound Flight.  That’s it - they’re just gone.  I mean, if you wanted to argue that they *did* serve a purpose, I guess you could bring up their ship on Outbound Flight being used later in the book (they had to leave without it because Palpatine came and conveniently whisked them away for a negotiation on a nearby planet - another reason why their presence is pointless.  They couldn’t stay on Outbound Flight anyway, Anakin has to become Vader so he can’t be gone for several years - so why include them at all?!) by two other characters.  Still though, for me, that doesn’t cut it; it could easily have been someone else’s ship.  In the big picture, this is a minor complaint, and I do like Obi-Wan and Anakin, so to some people this wouldn’t be a problem - but it was just really annoying to me.  Some new, cool Jedi replacing them would’ve been welcome.

The main story (Outbound Flight taking off, going to the Unknown Regions, etc) is… all right.  It’s not really anything special, but I didn’t hate it; it could’ve been executed in a way that would’ve made it much more enjoyable to read, though if this was my only complaint and everything else about the novel was awesome (like the characters) I wouldn’t have minded (though at times it was boring and near the end, even confusing).

I do have positive things to say about Outbound Flight.  I do! *thinks*

The exploration of the Chiss culture was nice; in fact, I enjoyed the entire Chiss plot more than any other storyline in the book.  Car’das and his group were pretty enjoyable characters (I actually don’t have any complaints about them) and since the Chiss themselves are awesome, it was cool to be able to read about them so much.

The emotion was also written pretty well.  Not fantastically like other authors, but there are a couple of fairly majors deaths near the end that I actually found pretty sad.  You can also definitely see the tension of the people aboard Outbound Flight, and their resentment towards the Jedi (C’baoth in particular) for putting so many rules into place.  I would’ve liked this plot explored a bit more maybe, but that’s not a big complaint.

So, all in all, Outbound Flight is probably my least favorite SW book that I’ve read.  The characters were annoying, and the story was for the most part pretty boring.  There were a couple of good points, like the Chiss presence in the book, but not enough to make up for the numerous bad points.  I would recommend checking this out when you don’t have anything else to read, or if you love the Chiss so much you want to read everything with them in it.