Tarkin

It was good for sure. There are some really intriguing aspects such as more lore on Tarkin (obviously!) but also on Vader-Tarkin relations, Vader-Palpatine relations and also more about Palpatine himself which was surprising. I also really liked the rebellion; Teller, Anora, Hask mainly. They were enjoyable characters to read and I found their dialogue to be better than the relatively dry and confusing dialogue of the Military and Naval Intelligence (I basically forgot who Rancit was by the time they revealed to him to be the Imperial traitor helping the rebels).

What lets me down on this book is the writing style. It's obvious that Luceno is a good writer but I just didn't like the way he wrote this story. It's also not the most engaging story; the most engaging aspects of the story for me was not the present day stuff but his flashbacks to the Carrion Plateau and his life before and during the Clone Wars. The whole story he told Vader about the Carrion Spike was really intriguing and interesting. I think if there was two books; one on his upbringing, the Carrion, the Clone Wars, etc and another book on the current affairs of the Empire it would be a better treatment.

Overall I'm happy I read it for lore reasons and for intriguing ideas (such as the idea of the Imperials being a far-right group within the Republic, of course never mentioned in the book but rather an idea that came to me while reading it).