Wars was known for; he also compliments the character of Mara Jade for improving the perception of female characters in the franchise and not adhering to "damsel in distress" stereotypes. Zahn's use of supplementary material from Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game has been credited for creating a sense of unity between different publications, allowing for a more believable shared universe. Some reviews have been more critical, with prolific fansite author Jonathan Hicks saying that the Force is trivialised and that there were too many references to the original movies, in a 2000 review republished by starwars.com. The trilogy allowed Lucasfilm to expand their non-film media into the mainstream, as opposed to the more niche comic book and roleplaying game markets they were previously focusing on. The success of the series prompted Lucasfilm to immediately commission more books to continue the Star Wars story. Legacy The Thrawn trilogy is widely credited with revitalizing the Star Wars franchise, although Zahn himself was skeptical of this. In The Secret History of Star Wars, Michael Kaminski suggests that this renewed interest was a factor in George Lucas' decision to create the Star Wars prequel trilogy. The trilogy's success has been cited as beginning the Star Wars Expanded Universe. Zahn would go on to write a pair of sequel books, in the Hand of Thrawn duology (Specter of the Past (1997) and Vision of the Future (1998)), expanding on the background of the Thrawn character. He would later develop Thrawn's legacy further by writing Survivor's Quest (2004), and subsequently the prequel novel Outbound Flight (2006). Although Lucas did not consider the Expanded Universe to be canonical, he adopted the name Coruscant for the galactic capital in the prequel trilogy, which was created by Zahn in the Thrawn Trilogy. Additionally, the character of Thrawn would later be officially canonised by Lucasfilm as he was introduced into Star Wars: Rebels. While the Thrawn Trilogy would be rendered non-canon following the Disney acquisition of the Star Wars franchise, Zahn would later return to write an alternate trilogy surrounding the Thrawn character, in Star Wars: Thrawn (2017), Thrawn: Alliances (2018), and Thrawn: Treason (2019), and would later create a prequel trilogy about the character in the Ascendency trilogy. References Notes Thrawn Books based on Star Wars Novels by Timothy Zahn American science fiction novels Science fiction novel trilogies 1990s science fiction novels