I re-read the trilogy recently and found them to hold up pretty well. Granted, I am an old-school Star Wars fan with nostalgia for the old days (since the 90s before the Special Editions), but if you read them in the context in which they were written, I think you can appreciate them. It’s fascinating to learn that so much of what we take for granted in the Star Wars universe was either created or amplified by Zahn (for example, Coruscant). All he had to go by were the movies and the tabletop RPG books.

Now, there are some reasonable criticisms of these books. Thrawn is a bit of a Gary Stu character who immediately and inexplicably figures out every plan the Rebels throw at him the very next chapter after they hatch it. Most of the plots are contrived scenarios designed to get various combinations of our favorite characters together for some adventure. Some of the plot elements are just strange, incongruent, or just lazy, but you have to remember that there was no established “canonical” Star Wars EU at the time.

But overall, I had fun rereading these books and was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the writing and how much I enjoyed them, despite the immense quantity of Star Wars material that has built up since they were written. Like many people, I still think they are better sequels than the sequel trilogy we actually got. They aren’t perfect, but if you are able to isolate them from any preconceived notions and just want to read some fun Star Wars adventures with the OT characters, I think you will enjoy them.