Dude... after the cluster of sadness and nostalgia that has been the past few recent posts, we then get a ray of Sun Crusher-esqe (OMGWTFBBQ!!! IT BLOWS UP SUNS!?!?!?!?!!!11!1ONE!~) brilliance*. A new fan to properly introduce to the EU.

Demons In The Night, your coming here to ask about this versus seeking out that wretched hive of villainy and evil that is a good majority of the rest of the community (who suck every noob saber-swingers dick) is like a baby being born in the most pristine and welcoming of environments, as compared to one born in a mudpile.

Also, X-Wing Alliance = :awesome It was the first Star Wars game I ever played! Why wouldn't you wanna take however many friends you could fine and run your ragtag starfighter fleet against the Death Star for crying out loud!? Good times... good times.

*(Referring to luminescence generated, not to the relative lack of awesome that was the Sun Crusher)

 

Yeah, I know necroooo.

I just caught up on the Fate of the Jedi series and guess what... it wasn't terrible, not at all. Whether this is due to the fact that there isn't an idiotic fangirl of a Star Wars writer typing with one hand sabotaging every third book or because this is the kind of story I can get behind idunknow. Jedi v. Sith never gets old for me, and seeing Daala get her dues whenever the Jedi strike back makes up for the annoying moments.And the fact that SW actually has some sort of Great Jedi Hope once again,now that Ben Skywalker doesn't make you want to throw your book through the window.

What pisses me off for some reason I can't put my fucking finger on is that they seem to be moving towards the comics set in the future, which I despise irrationally despite never having read a single one.


So anyone read the FoTJ series? Thoughts?

I'm thinking of going back and reading some books but for some reason I can't get behind anything pre-NJO, and I certainly don't want to go through those again. Are there any good books in between NJO and FOTJ?

I recently started blasting through the Young Jedi Knights series but it just got too melancholy for me. Death troopers and Darth Bane: Dynasty of Evil weren't bad but now I'm wondering whether to invest in Crosscurrent (since it seems to tie into the Lost Tribe issue) or Millennium Falcon, but I can't decide. Any suggestions?

 

No. Anything between those two are irreparably tainted by Darth Jacen and the murder of Mara Jade. :|

Lord, I can't stand the Darth Bane novels. Not just that I don't like Bane for killing the order, but because they were genuinely terribly written.

Lost Tribe, on the other hand. Some of the Fate stuff I don't mind, surprisingly. Ves, for what I have read of her, I like....

Falcon... I kind of liked it, its a good read, but ... May not be for everyone.

 

You enjoyed Death Troopers? Really? Its badly written predictable horror fiction with the names of SW characters spliced in for brand marketing.

 

Regardless, it was the first Star Wars book to scare me in a long time.

And as much as a Stu as Bane became I stayed a fan because I loved the first book so much. And I liked the Sith focus.

I didn't mind Ves, but I do mind how fast the relationship with Ben progressed.

Also: WTF happened to the Sith on Korriban? I take it they have some place in the Legacy comics so no one will touch them but damn, a four-way battle would raise the stakes.

 

Happens often, but always annoying, yes.

The problem with the Sith on Korriban and the Legacy comics is it kind of locks down a lot of Sith activity to any sith franchise not associated with the One Sith and Krayt.

With Krayt being in suspended animation after the Vong fuck his shit up hard, the sith ... do a lot of nothing while he sleeps. He supposedly pops out every once and again to stomp some bitches into submission, but really does nothing.

The comics kind of mean you can't really do a lot with them anymore, since they have to be ready to get into gear for Legacy and druggie Cade. >_>

 

In my opinion, blunted horror is unscary.

Spoiler

After all, you find out in the end that the creatures can't escape the Star Destroyer, and that it would be an ineffective biological weapon.

 

Allow me to reiterate...

 

Indeed, Jenos.

Also to whoever read Death Troopers and enjoyed it. Just an FYI. Red Harvest came out ... december-ish? Its either a prequel or a sequel... Can't remember.

Might check it out.

 

Personally, I'm a big fan of Jacen Solo, his whole character is just so... complex? I think he's the most unique character there, a person with a loving family, turning evil for good reasons in the beginning, it's a lot like Anakin Skywalker, but at the same time it's a nobler reason than "I don't want my wife to die" which is what I like, as to me -- sorry if I anger anyone -- Anakin's love for Padme seemed more like a pre-teen lust.

 

All respect, and any change of earning it, gone in a single sentence. How does that feel?

Hnnn... Not so much. And the Evil for the Greater Good shit.... Nothing infuriates me more. Are you authors so fucking gutless, dickless worms that you can't make a character evil ... for the fuck of it?

"Hey, I can move shit and torture people with my mind! You know what would be a great idea? Fucking rock up, take over the Exchange and fucking living like a god!"

But instead you need morals and values and fucking looooooove, like that Pacifistic cunt Duchess of the New Mandalorians.

It was. Along with short-comings of the Order and how it handled such situations, is more than likely a contributing factor to him going balls on chin crazy.

That, or Lucas is just an idiot.

A lot of it can really be explained well through the ever-wise, every-witty, most-awesome-jedi-ever Jolee Bindo:

"Love doesn't lead to the dark side. Passion can lead to rage and fear, and can be controlled, but passion is not the same thing as love. Controlling your passions while being in love, that's what they should teach you to beware, but love itself will save, not condemn you."

"The capacity for good or evil, like the Force itself, is in all living creatures. And belonging to the Jedi Order, or the Sith, or any group, won't change what you are at your core."

Lashowe: "Do you know how many Sith there are on this planet?"
Jolee Bindo: "Twelve! No, wait! Thirteen!"
Canderous Ordo: "Nice one, old man."
Jolee Bindo: "Thank you. It takes effort to be properly irreverent at my age."

... Wait... not that one.. The most important of all of them, which Lucas and everyone else needs to learn by heart before writing evil characters:

"Nice…nice…nice…nice…Should we next find some insects to pull the legs off? Sounds fun doesn't it?"

 

My heart just breaks.

I understand what you mean about most villians, 50% of them have good reasons for being evil these days. I remember my little brother watching Naruto and the main villians wanting peace.

I'm curious though, what do you think of Revan?

 

Revan is awesomesauce incarnate!

 

Meh, Jacen's complexity (to me) is completely and totally forced. It's a contrived manipulation of someone who should've ended up like a hippy-Yoda-esque character after the NJO ended.

Jacen
Has an affinity for nature
Does some creepy, OTW Force stuff
Has a sister
Has a kid

Yoda
Lives in a damn swamp
Can catch Force Lightning
Has Yaddle*
Teaches loads of padawans


*

 

Oh no, not the y!

(Think you got cut off. )

 

...

Uh, no. As much as Lucas can't write dialogue to save his life, Anakin's fall to the dark side was still better executed than Jacen's - namely because you didn't have the idiotic twinned specters of bad writing and editorial mandate hanging over the whole thing, not to mention an authorial pissing contest.

Don't believe me? Okay, let me explain further.

At the end of the NJO series (started by Salvatore, who had never written a SW novel before and had no fucking clue what he was doing, I might add), we had a radically different galaxy than what we once had, and one that was completely unrecognizable from the one Zahn had tried to create when his duology paired Mara with Luke and tried to effectively end the series. And probably the characters that went through the most (not counting the characters that died, both the good ones (Fey'lya) and the bad ones (Chewbacca, Anakin Solo)) were Han Solo and Jacen.

Now don't get me wrong, I still think Traitor (the book that focused on Jacen and Vergere) was one of the best books in the NJO, at least in terms of writing. But the caliber of writing was not consistent across the entire series (Stackpole and Allston tried, but we still had to deal with the terrible writing of Troy Denning), and the way the Jedi viewed the Force changed with that story - only to be effectively retconned away with the next two major series.

So let's take the series that directly followed NJO - the Dark Nest trilogy. Three books written by Troy Denning - and they all SUCKED. I think at this point Denning realized that Jacen had become massively overpowered at the end of NJO, so much so he became a 'luminous being of Force energy' - so he compensated by making Jacen a massive douchebag. It was here we got the first evidence of it, when Jacen tortures Tenel Ka's grandmother to death, and while Ta'a Chume was a despicable woman, the fact Jacen still chose to torture her to death with Force Lightning begins to slam a few massive holes in the new theories surrounding the Force.

But let's say we'll forgive Jacen that, and instead consider the LotF series (a series that I consider analogous to the DC Universe's Countdown, both in tone and in writing quality). This was a series controlled from the very beginning by crass editorial mandate, and given to three authors of wildly varying ideas and themes.

And right from the beginning, despite Aaron Allston's desperate efforts to salvage something from this mess, we got character death and derailment by the dozen. Most of this we can place squarely at the feet of Karen Traviss (a woman who has a hard-on for the Mandalorians bigger than a Imperial-class Star Destroyer) and Troy Denning (who is a shitty author, period), but one has to remember this entire series was a massive editorial mandate, intended to 'modernize' the SW universe and completely destroy the idyllic setting crafted by Timothy Zahn - all while making commentary on the Bush administration.

Seriously, go back and reread 'Bloodlines' and 'Sacrifice' if you don't believe me. The parallels and language is stark as fuck, and it pisses all over the legacy of the great characters that died (Mara Jade, Pellaeon, the list goes on) or were derailed (Jacen, Jaina, Leia, TAHIRI (I will never forgive Troy Denning for what he did to Tahiri's character)) because of this idiotic mandate.

And Jacen? His fall to the Dark side is precipitated by a 'vision' of Luke dying by his hands and the galaxy in flames if he doesn't turn - and to do so, he gains a fetishistic attraction to military security forces, his own fucking fleet (I don't remember how the fuck he pulled this off, but it was dumb, I remember that), and becomes the Bush/Cheney analogue with a lightsaber and worse writing. And this comes out of fucking nowhere! What happened to the kid who loved animals and the natural spirit of life and the Force? Believe me, I know Lumiya was a persuasive bitch, but even she couldn't have masterminded the epic character derailment of Jacen Solo.

I really don't have the time or patience to go through every way that Legacy of the Force FAILS (go look on TVTropes, it's there), but to summarize, Jacen's fall to the dark side wasn't because he loved Tenel Ka or Allana (the novel 'Fury' was proof of that), or because he wanted to save the galaxy (see 'Inferno' and 'Revelation'), but because of editorial mandate and shitty authors, nothing more, nothing less.

EDIT - yeah, browser crapped out on me - didn't think the post actually happened. If an admin can delete that fragment, that'd be nice.

 

This. So fucking this.

I absolutely loved NJO; back in the early 2000s, it was what got me back into the Star Wars EU after I'd left several years before due to boredom and disinterest. The Thrawn Trilogy had been the height of the EU, and until NJO, no story really got me interested (though I did enjoy KJA's Jedi Academy trilogy, but I read that about the same time I read The Thrawn Trilogy).

So I was fucking let down when the Dark Nest trilogy came out. When LotF came out, I tempted fate and thought to myself that it couldn't be any worse than Dark Nest. Oh, how wrong I was. To be fair, LotF did have its good points (I enjoyed most of Fett's storyline), but after LotF, I just can't go on reading the books that come after. I hear that some of them are pretty good, but after Jacen's fall and death, I just don't give a fuck what happens anymore. Interestingly, this also parallels my thoughts to the Star Trek EU after the Destiny set of books came out; while Destiny was well written, it just so changed the setting of the Star Trek universe that I have a hard time caring what comes next.

But yeah, LotF ruined the Star Wars EU for me. As far as I'm concerned, the Star Wars EU started with Heir to the Empire and ended with The Unifying Force.

 

They had the chance to turn Jacen and Anakin into something more than what they were. Anakin died because Lucas didn't want an EU Anakin being better than his, and Jacen got butt raped from terrible authors. Then the whole, I must keel my aunt crap and sacrifice people because that is what a True Sith does. Even though he wasn't really a Sith and just became one to save the Galaxy..Also, Karen Traviss fucked the Mandalorians over by trying to make them deep and complex instead of a race that loved to fight. :facepalm

 

So, I've decided to start reading the SW and it's a gorram jungle. It's like the Lovecraft Mythos. Where do you even start? The books who take place first? The ones who were written first?
Let me know what you guys think.

 

Well, if you've watched all the movies... Hm.
Well a good place is, in my opinion, the X-Wing series. Its written by two of the upper-echelon authors of the Star Wars EU, and provides interesting background for the EU in general. It also has no prerequisites as far as I can tell, which is good. After that, or before it, I guess, read the Thrawn Trilogy: Zahn is a fucking boss.
After that... well, for me that was nearly a decade ago, so I suppose NJO?
Edit: Actually better idea: Read some within-canon timeline books. In specific, read Shadows of the EMpire and Allegiance. The first because it has some interesting insights into various characters the second because its by Timothy Zahn and a fucking awesome book.