Star Wars Novels/Graphic Novels

[C.T. Phipps]

13 hours ago, Spaßvogel said:

The only problem is that it's *not* cerebral at all.  Everything gets spelled out, there's no subtlety.  There's almost zero suspense either, for what is supposed to be a political thriller, it's just not thrilling.  The conspiracy also isn't really very complex.  In fact, The dots don't even need to be connected because they're introduced in order!  And the person who turns out to be directly involved with the First Order is telegraphed from a zillion miles away. 

Well, no it's not Kissenger but I'm fairly of the mind this is a good deep more political than your typical Waru and Hoojib affair.

[First of My Name]

Based on the reviews I'm definitely going to buy Bloodline, but probably a few weeks from now. I still have Twilight Company lying around too.

[Joe Pesci]

5 hours ago, First of My Name said:

Based on the reviews I'm definitely going to buy Bloodline, but probably a few weeks from now. I still have Twilight Company lying around too.

I just finished Bloodlines, it's not your typical SW book, more politics involved front and center, but I enjoyed it. Twilight Company is also pretty good as well.

 

[First of My Name]

16 hours ago, Joe Pesci said:

I just finished Bloodlines, it's not your typical SW book, more politics involved front and center, but I enjoyed it. Twilight Company is also pretty good as well.

 

Nice, good to hear. I usually enjoy the politics-oriented SW stories too (Luceno's, at least, he's good at them), so I don't mind.

[Joe Pesci]

Anyone else start Life Debt yet? I'm not a quarter of the way through yet, but Wendig is at least using sentences that have more than 6 words regularly in it. It's a little slow so far, but ok.

[Spaßvogel]

I just finished Life Debt.  It has a lot of the shortcomings of the previous book (huge amounts of info-dump, lack of focus, sometimes boring prose) but I think it was slightly better.  The endless scenes of the point-of-view characters being on the brink of death and saved at the very last possible second got a little old, and eventually it made the drama disappear completely. 
 

Spoiler

 

The discovery of Norra's husband/Snap's father was predictable since she had finally moved on and had started a thing with Wedge, and furthermore the big twist with the other prisoners rescued was telegraphed a mile away.

The main reveal here is that Jakku is an even more important planet than we thought.  The end of this book is right before the big final battle that occurs in Lost Stars, but we also learn that the Emperor was digging around for something very important on Jakku and that he found Gallius Rax there as a child, who most likely grows up to be Supreme Leader Snoke. This makes me wonder about Rey more.  Did Palpatine leave her there on Jakku?  Wouldn't that be something if he was her father? 

We also have Hux's father, who runs a Stormtrooper academy introduced, along with his bastard son, who is probably General Hux from TFA. 

 

Anyway, plenty of reveals, but the book is a slog to get through at times.

[Darth Richard II]

Spoiler

I don't think he could have left her there, she would be in her 30s by now, wouldn't she?

 

[Spaßvogel]

6 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

  Hide contents

I don't think he could have left her there, she would be in her 30s by now, wouldn't she?

 

Yeah, you are probably right. I forgot it had been that long. For some reason I thought there was only 10 years in between, but it's 30 isn't it?

That narrows down the list of suspects considerably. 

[Darth Richard II]

THRAWN IS BACK MOTHERFUCKERS

[Joe Pesci]

1 hour ago, Darth Richard II said:

THRAWN IS BACK MOTHERFUCKERS

https://m.reddit.com/r/StarWars/comments/4t5278/heres_the_cover_of_the_new_thrawn_book_by_timothy/

Good to see that Zahn will be involved with SW again, same with Luceno writing Rogue One: Catalyst. 

[Darth Richard II]

Maybe they can bring back Mara Jade and, you know, not completely ruin her character this time.

[First of My Name]

Excited about Thrawn. Nice to see Zahn returning, he's the only real choice for that book.

I also read Bloodline five weeks or so ago but forgot to post about it, short version is I really liked it and Leia has never worked better as a character for me than she did there.

[C.T. Phipps]

Star Wars: Aftermath: Life Debt review

    I wasn't a big fan of Chuck Wendig's Aftermath novel. I really wanted to know what the situation was after the Battle of Endor but it seemed focused, instead, on a ragtag band of misfits trying to disrupt an Imperial conference. Really, it drew unfortunate comparisons with Heir to the Empire, which was the beginning of the Star Wars Legends universe. Heir to the Empire starred Han, Luke, and Leia who are a hard act to follow when you're beginning a new Expanded Universe.

    Bluntly, I read Star Wars novels to read about the Original Trilogy characters and a handful of others who have earned my interest. It's not enough to put your story into the Star Wars universe, you have to compete with some of the most likable characters in fiction. Some of the original Legends characters suceeded: Mara Jade, Nomi Sunrider, Bastilla Shan, Zayne Carrick, Corran Horn, and a few others but these were rare corusca stones in the sand dunes.

    Still, I didn't dislike Aftermath. It just wasn't what I wanted and I wanted to give its sequel a try. I'm here to say this is much closer to what I wanted and the prominent presence of Princess Leia, Han Solo, and Chewbacca plays a large part in this. Luke Skywalker is curiously absent but I'm willing to make allowances for the fact it's a combination of OCs with the Original Trilogies heroes.

    The premise is the New Republic has hammered the Empire badly but this has resulted in it being distilled into a solid steel blade which is much more dangerous than its parts. Admiral Rae Sloane, my favorite character of the previous novel, has since become Grand Admiral Sloane and is now leading the New Empire. She is nothing but a catspaw for Admiral Gallius Rax, a mysterious underaged Imperial officer who is pulling the strings on her forces.

    I like Gallius Rax as a character because he's not the schemer Emperor Palpatine is but is obviously a student of his methods. He's more a Kim Jong Il figure in that he inherited his position while also being raised to it. I won't ever rank him with Grand Admiral Thrawn or Isard (he's far too normal for the kind of cosmic villainy which Star Wars thrives on) but he's entertaining as a contrast to Rae Sloane. Sloane, herself, is a much more interesting figure and someone I think actually might be the first OC to rank with the more beloved of the old universe.

    Rae would very much like to seize the Empire from Rax and rule as more than his figure-head but doesn't really comprehend the bizarre web of manipulations going on around her. The fact Rax is probably answering to Supreme Leader Snoke shows just how out of her depth she is in this game. Despite this, she comes off as an extremely competant character and the kind of Imperial you'd might admire if they weren't fascist scum.

    The rest of the books plot is the aforementioned ragtag band of misfits being sent by Princess Leia to rescue Han Solo. This leads to some very funny scenes like the fact they find Han after about a day and a half with no detours or troubles along the way. It's a wonderful subversion of the usual way these things go and just opens the door for the real plot. Chuck has a good grasp of these sorts of twists and makes use of them to appropriate effect. We all know how a "typical" Star Wars story is supposed to go and the story sometimes zigs when previous ones would zag.

    Of the original characters starring in the Aftermath trilogy, I have to say I've come to like them all. Norra Wexley, her son Temmin, and Sinjir Rath Vellus are all entertaining characters. I admit, I would prefer if Chuck would use more Earth names. Norra is the one who sticks out most in my mind because that rolls well off the tongue. I also liked the Zabrak bounty hunter Jas, who is always good for a self-interested laugh. Weirdly, I think this group would work better in a video game where you got a chance to know and adventure with them. I'm intrigued by the possibility of Norra and Wedge Antilles becoming a couple but that requires me to shed some of my Legends prejudices (No! Iella is Wedge's wife!).

    I had some issues with the book when a main character used torture to get information. I've made my opinion on the subject clear multiple occasions. Torture is an unforgivable crime only usable by villains and I can no more have sympathy for a hero who does it than I would one who does sexual assault. Second, torture doesn't get any actionable intelligence in real life and is in fact a stupid way of interrogating a single person because pain doesn't actually make people less likely to lie. I'm deducting a point from the book for that, which is a shame because I otherwise support it as well as the increased presence of LGBT characters in the setting.

    In conclusion, I really liked this book except for some small bumps. I have an idea of where the story is going now and am interested in what's being set up. I like the villains, the protagonists, and there's some genuinely touching moments spread throughout. Still, it was off to a slow start in the first book and the use of torture by a protagonist is not appropriate for Star Wars.

8/10

[Maia]

So, after dipping my toes into Star Wars books earlier this year and finding them to be either quick, but utterly forgettable reads - i.e. "A New Dawn" by J.J. Miller (Rebels crew origin story) and "Outbound Flight" by T. Zahn or downright boring, like J. Luceno's "Tarkin", I have succombed to blandishments of the internets and of an RL friend and borrowed some SW books of his... with the predictable result that as always with franchise fiction I found them over-hyped and somewhat disappointing, though at least entertaining enough to go down quickly. But all the repeated assurances that they are good even by non tie-in standards turned out to be so much gaff yet again. Well, at least I didn't hate any of them with a passion, like I did a certain Babylon 5 tie-in trilogy...

There are, IMHO, certain commonalities that keep franchise fiction shallow, and general insistence on small mis-matched casts that get to save the day against overhelming odds via repeated acts of daring derring-do, even when by all logic more people/professionals who are actually supposed to to take care of the thing should also be involved,  is certainly part of it.  And it is entirely possible to do this, to balance minimal believability with letting the protagonists shine, as any number of original works prove.

In fact, the source material sometimes does so as well! But of course, being a different medium it also needs to take short-cuts - that are perfectly fine in film/TV-show where limitations are clear, but feel painfully contrived in written fiction.  You'd think that working in an already established and fairly detailed universe would allow for extra depth, but paradoxically, the opposite appears to be true. This also seems to be the case in fan-fiction -  maybe due to shared origins? Having to include canonical characters by hook or by crook doesn't help, of course, but still.

And Star Wars fiction in particular has a pecular struggle with depicting a redeemable/idealistic Imperial, which is just odd. Like, there are so many RL examples of decent people being loyal to problematic causes, some of them important historical figures, lots of them leaving memoirs and correspondence that illuminate their mind-sets behind. I mean, apparently the Clone Wars were supposed to have killed billions, so _anything_ that promised order and stability would have been preferrable to another civil war in the minds of many/most people. And given that under the Old Republic, planets were largely left to their own devices, if one belonged to a traditionally oppressed group and the Empire changed that... well. Ditto if one was a native of a world that had really suffered from Separatist attacks. 

For that matter, even with characters who are designated villains, but aren't supposed to be personally sadistic/vicious, it is not made clear in the books that I have read so far, exactly what they see in the Empire. For that matter, what did Palpatine and Vader see in it? Why did they handle the things like they did? Personal power, sure, but given that Palpatine intended to live and rule forever if he could swing it, his slash-and-burn tactics on many worlds don't seem to make much sense.

There is also a perpetual disconnect re: Imperial training, which is very demanding when protagonists are undergoing it, yet zero use against any malcontent who choses to pick the blaster or any weapon, really, for the first time. I know, the movies, the series. But that's just one of the things that doesn't translate well between media, IMHO. Ditto armor. I actually like how in TCW and in Rebels armor does protect to a certain degree. Sure, because in the former the clone troopers are actually the good guys and in the latter because of intended audience. But still. It actually makes sense and I dislike it when respective novels undo it.

Oh, and one last thing before I talk about specific books - some of the stuff I have read is EU, so I googled what post-ROTJ continuity was supposed to be like there and... no wonder that it was abandoned. Stuff became utterly ridiculous by that point. Biographies of Solo kids are just utterly crazy and one war or Galaxy-shattering crisis relentlessly succeeding another for 30 or so years is completely WSoD-exploding and often downright stupid, IMHO. Clearing the board for the new films, series and books was absolutely neccessary, how could so many fans not see it? 

 Anyway:

"Bloodline" by Claudia Gray. Leia dealing with being Vader's daughter and her general frustration with the New Republic. This book was touted to me as great and I was certainly interested in the premise. Leia has been shamefully robbed of any meaningful reaction to the bombshell of her true parentage in RoTJ, which was par for the course for her general marginalization and lack of agency in that film.

And IMHO the author succeeds very well in capturing Leia's "voice" and character in this novel, which is the best part of it, IMHO.  Unfortunately, in what is supposed to be a book that dives into politics that led to the situation in TFA, Gray really fails in  depicting politics and choses to send the characters on a series of mediocre adventures instead. Yawn. It can't be so hard to depict politics in an entertaining way - I have watched Spielberg's "Lincoln" the other weekend and it certainly managed to be gripping and tense despite the foregone outcome. Why do SF authors have such problems with the concept? Why can't they file off the numbers of some historical crisis, like they routinely do with battles, and incorporate it into a story, if they can't come up with something original?

Oh, and this novel really fits the mold that I complained about above - too few characters involved for WSoD and only a couple or so of them truly fleshed out, the rest being pretty much background color and/or cardboard.

 

Spoiler

Casterfo is another of them, and I really liked the developing working relationship/friendship between the 2. Unfortunately, Gray failed to explain his belief in the possibility of a "good" Empire. As far as we know, they don't have any examples of even somewhat functional/benevolent empires, the only precedents being the Sith ones. Sure, paralysis of the New Republic is daunting, but him being an Imperial fanboy when the Empire had basically destroyed his world and never gave it or him anything positive in return seems incongrous. Like, why would he think that it was all solely Vader's fault, rather than a systemic issue? Particularly with abundant examples of the Empire sucking other worlds dry ditto without the Dark Lord's personal involvement?

Greer Sonnel is decent as well, but all the other characters are really flat, which hurts the book a lot, given it's failure at both intrigue and adventure. If the characters and their relationships are the main draw of your narrative, you'd better have more than just 2-3 of them.

Oh, and royal families having no real power anymore doesn't jive with the other SW material. 

 

To be continued...

 

[Darth Richard II]

With regards to the royalty comment, you know all the pre TFA books are non canon now, right?

[C.T. Phipps]

Honestly, Maia, one of the biggest issues I have is the assumption we need to have people who are working for the government for ideals. The vast majority of Imperials probably serve the Empire because they're conscripts, it's a paycheck, or because it allows them to get rich. I sometimes think people have difficulty comprehending the banality of evil sometimes.

[stonebender]

Ah, Star Wars novels.  Always will be a heavy source of nostalgia for me.  Haven't followed them for a while now.  I got out around the time theforce.net was very angry at Karen Traviss.  Hopefully Stover and/or Stackpole don't come back, or else I'll find myself being dragged back into it.

 

[Darth Richard II]

Well they got Zahn writing a new in continuity Thrawn novel, and I think Stover is working on something. Stackpoie I doubt will come back, from what I understand the fucked him early on in TNJO series.

Yeah. "angry" with Travis. That's one word.

[stonebender]

Is that confirmed Stover is working on Star Wars again?  He seems to have disappeared from the Internet as of late.  There were rumors he was going to finish Traviss's Clone series.  That didn't come about.  I recall him mentioning an unnamed tie-in a few years back.  Stackpole has always been pretty positive about his Star Wars experience.  But I'd rather he find a way to release his final Crown Colonies book.  I've been waiting for that one since all that Night Shade stuff went down. 

[Darth Richard II]

Last I knew he was but yeah I haven't heard from him in aw hile.

I believe NIght Shade is going to release Stackpoles final Crown Colonies book, last I heard. I actually have no idea what Stackpole has been up to lately, he seems to have also gone quiet.

 

Edit: I can find zero info on the third crown colonies book. I can't even find out if he's going to write it.has written it. I remember he was one of the key people that helped authors negotiate a better deal when night shade got bought and he said he was going to stick with them but since then all I can see he's published is a pathfinder tie in. Not exactly encouraging as I think book 3 was planned for late 2012.