Star Wars, Thrawn

Eli had almost managed to convince himself that the group would merely be meeting with some Palace official when they were ushered past a pair of red-robed and red-helmeted Imperial Guards into the Emperor s throne room.
 
Even more than Coruscant itself, the holos and vids Eli had seen of Emperor Palpatine paled in comparison with the real thing.
 
At first glance, the Emperor didn t seem like much. He was dressed in a plain brown hooded robe, with no ornamentation or glitz of any sort. His throne, while massive, was solid black and very simple, again with no ostentation about it, raised a mere four steps above the floor. In fact, the darkness of his robe made him almost disappear from sight into the black of the throne.
 
It was as the group drew closer that the eeriness began.
 
First was the Emperor s face. The holos and vids always showed him as a dignified, older man, aged somewhat with the experience of life and the cares of leadership. But the holos were wrong. The face beneath the hood was old; old, and creased with a hundred deep wrinkles.
 
Not ordinary wrinkles, either, the kind Eli s grandparents had earned from years under the open sky. These creases were less like age, and more like scars or burn tissue.
 
The histories stated that the Jedi traitors last attempt to seize power had been an attack on then-Chancellor Palpatine. The histories hadn t mentioned that his victory over the assassins had come at such a terrible cost.
 
Perhaps that was also what had happened to his eyes.
 
A shiver ran up Eli s back. The eyes were bright and intelligent, all-knowing and utterly powerful. But they were . . . strange. Unique. Disturbing. Damaged, perhaps, by the same treachery that had ravaged his face?
 
Intelligence, knowledge, power. And even more than with Thrawn, a sense of complete mastery over everything around him.
 
The Emperor watched in silence as the

Timothy Zahn is the author of more than forty novels, nearly ninety short stories and novellas, and four short-fiction collections. In 1984, he won the Hugo Award for Best Novella. Zahn is best known for his Star Wars novels ("Heir to the Empire", "Dark Force Rising", "The Last Command", "Specter of the Past", "Vision of the Future", "Survivor's Quest", "Outbound Flight", "Allegiance", "Choices of One", and "Scoundrels"), with more than four million copies of his books in print. Other books include the Cobra series, the Quadrail series, and the young adult Dragonback series. Zahn has a B.S. in physics from Michigan State University and an M.S. from the University of Illinois. He lives with his family on the Oregon coast.

The origin story of one of the greatest Star Wars villains . . . a book that fans have wanted for decades. The Verge

A satisfying tale of political intrigue . . . Thrawn s observations and tactical thinking are utterly captivating. New York Daily News

Quite the page-turner. Flickering Myth