The Last Command rounds out Zahn’s Thrawn trilogy. As the climax in a series of novels, it didn’t introduce a lot of new material, which leaves this source book feeling a bit empty. A lot of the material had been already covered to some degree and not many of the events in the finale translate well, or are useful, for a roleplaying game. But you can’t just have two sourcebooks for a trilogy, of course.

Honestly, that’s the problem with West End Games’ tie-in sourcebooks. The books and comics they were adapting were, like the movies, largely closed narratives that didn’t leave a ton of room for game masters and players to explore (exception: Tales of the Jedi). Only a small amount of the material was useful for an ongoing campaign. In this way, the tie-in sourcebooks seem like they were marketed to die-hard fans who wanted MORE of whatever story they were adapting. Which is fine. I certainly wanted more Thrawn, and these scratched the itch.