I am once again begging Timothy Zahn to let Thrawn fail at anything, and suffer an whole consequence. 

Though I guess it's unfair of me to say that in a book where we're clearly setting up SOMETHING, or a whole lot of things--there's a lot of pieces moving, and, as other reviews have pointed out, not much Thrawn though we are establishing more and more his messy relationships with others, and how much other Chiss hate him, which--relatable. I can't believe I have to wait ANOTHER whole entire book for this to fall apart and him to have any consequences, but that's the way the cookie crumbles I guess. 

Unlike many other folks, I actually did enjoy the other characters--I liked seeing into their worlds, the conflicts people have. Whole book series about Thalias, thanks. But for the most part, I spent this book whining about how much I don't like Thrawn and then waiting for something to happen. And we're starting to see it, but oof, so slowly.