Star Wars

Agreed, and by no means is Kyp resolved of any responsibility for what he did (except by Luke apparently on everyone's behalf.) But he's not necessarily a bad person anymore than someone who drunk drives and kills someone is necessarily a bad person... but still a criminal and still deserving punishment.

Whoops wrong forum..

edited 2nd Sep '16 4:25:26 PM by RussellStar5641

Now, that is something I can agree with.

I finished reading Aftermath earlier today.

You can tell Wendig was following the trail of Zahn when he wrote this, but it falls flat for me. I was raised in the school of novels being written in the past tense, and I while I understand the author's experience with script writing, I just can't get past the present tense he uses. Plus the childish words ending in y kind of broke the mood for me. He tries to fake us out with people dying a few times and on occasion it seems outlandish those didn't actually happen.

I have no problem with characters being gay but the little reveal scene feels tacked on. It comes out of nowhere since there's no other mentions of either character even thinking about sex. Plus they were on the mission at the time. It just feels like it was shoehorned in in the wrong spot and could have been added to the end if it needed to happen at all.

Eh, plenty of novels have the beautiful female and male agents deciding to hook up ala James Bond. It's just, well, one is an alien and one is gay this time so they don't.

Indeed. At least they don't make a big deal out of it. They just have a guy go "Sorry, I'm gay" and then move on except when he and his boyfriend are having a tender moment.

That must be in the second one because he was single in the first. At least, the boyfriend wasn't present.

ETA: And it's not so much a problem with hookups, it's just that it came out of left field. They were in the middle of the mission, and there's been no indication whatsoever that the woman was even thinking about sex. A sentence or two here or there beforehand would have been nice, is all. As it is, it just feels like it was shoehorned in somewhere for a little comedic relief.

ETA: It's not a big deal. It's just something that came off wrong to me, is all. So I mentioned it. And I only continued talking about it because folks commented.

edited 11th Dec '16 7:35:17 PM by Journeyman

I was pawing through ''Aftermath: Life Debt" in the bookstore today, and is it just me, or did the Empire get hit with Adaptational Wimp in the new continuity big-time compared to the old one? There's mention of the Empire losing valuable materiel like Star Destroyers and even friggin' Super Star Destroyers left and right to the nascent New Republic, can barely control their own citizenry anymore, no longer have enough manpower to operate their war machine despite it only being months since the Battle of Endor, and this not-Thrawn Fleet Admiral is presumably about to demonstrate why he is, well, not Thrawn at Jakku. The old Empire was able to still fight on for almost another decade and a half even with loss of territory, depleted resources, and many of their best and brightest going rogue. I would almost pity this new post-Palpatine Empire if they weren't so pathetic.

Well in Lost Stars it's mentioned that in the year after Endor the Empire was, in addition to fighting the New Republic, also cleaning up a number of warlords that popped up like in the old canon (just none as powerful as things like Teradoc and Harrsk). When you've got a simultaneous civil war and another war against a growing power going on, attrition is gonna be nuts. Not to mention all those planets that likely started rebelling after news got out about the Emperor's death.

Plus, that admiral dude is apparently turning other factions in the Empire against one another, so that's another factor, plus the Imperial Ruling Council is apparently gone and Mas Amedda is the only one in charge, and he's apparently hopeless.

edited 11th Jan '17 9:32:24 PM by theLibrarian

Adding to that, a lot of things went differently-in addition to Thrawn, a reborn Palpatine and a whole string of disasters and costly battles dragged the war into a campaign of attrition, one that took more than a decade to reduce the Imperial Remnant to 8 sectors. In the new canon, it seems they instead used economic power to capitalize on much more severe losses immediately post-Endor culminating in Jakku; and accepting a huge chunk of the galaxy nominally under Empire control, albeit with heavy sanctions and censures. In the old EU, those 8 Imperial sectors represented less than 1% of what the Empire nominally controlled at its height; in the new canon, that 'Remnant' seems closer in size to an 8th or 9th of its former territories.

Reading more on Wookieepedia, I suppose it also helps that the closest equivalent the new continuity has to Isard is busy actively shitting his pants instead of trying to hold down the fort.

Speaking of Thrawn, I suppose what he's currently up to in all this is going to be the big elephant in the living room unless he ends up getting killed off/Put on a Bus to the Unknown Regions in the Rebels show. Trying to rehash/repackage the Thrawn trilogy would be rather creatively bankrupt, in my opinion though.

It's only fair, since the new continuity New Republic got hit with the same AND the Idiot Ball again.

Say what you want, but the Old New Republic would have reacted to the First Order. Probably by throwing Rogue Squadron at it and getting Popcorn.

Heck, Pellaeon would have stomped them probably.

edited 12th Jan '17 7:54:28 AM by 3of4

Pellaeon wouldn't have allowed the First Order to grow as it has.

"But doctor, meesa is Pagliacci!"

So does anyone here believe the jar jar theory.

What, that Jar Jar is Snoke?

No, because that theory is just a joke.

edited 16th Feb '17 12:41:35 PM by theLibrarian

The level of mental gymnastics required to sell the "Jar Jar is a Sith Lord behind everything in the series" idea is so high that I'm honestly surprised people have started taking it seriously.

I guess I should always trust in Poe's Law.

So while stuck at home sticking stamps on envelopes (long story) I decided to catch up on some of those audiobooks I've been collecting. I got through Bloodline and am currently listening to Aftermath.

I was impressed with Bloodline. I thought it gave a good idea of how the New Republic government operated and gave some good foreshadowing for TFA.

I'm about 30% through Aftermath. I know I'm probably in the minority but I'm enjoying a lot. I've got Life Debt and Empire's End lined up.

After I saw Rogue One at the start of the year I started getting the itch to read the books in the old continuity that I never got around to when I was younger even though I really did not like the direction they went it, just to officially close the book on my time in that fandom if nothing else. I decided to start with the Dark Nest trilogy, which I actually had read when it was first coming out but don't remember too much of it aside from the premise.

I'll get what I did not like out of the way first:

• While I guess I have to hand it to Denning and whoever else was involved in brainstorming for spinning the Killiks and all the other associated world building out from a piece of Ralph MacQuarrie concept art, in the end they were just bugs, and thus not very compelling antagonists. It didn't help that the Big Bad was completely mute as well.
• Much of the drama felt artificial; as in the series would've been a book shorter if Cal Omas hadn't become a dick between series. It's admittedly justified somewhat in the text, but it's still jarring going from the end of the New Jedi Order saga to this.
• Hive mind kool-aid aside, the Joiners, Jaina and Zekk especially, come off as massive tools throughout and are Easily Forgiven for instigating and waging war against a Galactic Alliance ally. The same goes for Jacen as well, and while it's been a while since I've read the relevant scenes from the New Jedi Order, I'm pretty sure that Vergere's philosophy was a bit more nuanced than "there is no Black-and-White Morality, therefore Well-Intentioned Extremism is A-OK".
• lulz at Jacen literally whoring himself out in The Joiner King.
• It's kind of weird that after ending up as the Supreme Commander at the end of the Yuuzhan Vong War Kre'fey just kind of drops off the face of the galaxy afterwards.

What I liked:

• The set pieces. The Gorog nest within the bowels of a frozen moon, the Utegetu Nebula, Luke and Han's side of the Battle of Murgo Choke where they're scaling the exterior of a massive nest ship and Luke ends up fighting Lomi Plo atop an X-wing in flight while the others hold on for dear life, and Leia's treetop lightsaber duel at the end of The Swarm War would all look really cool translated to film or some other visual medium.
• Earlier on, mainly in The Joiner King, there are some effective sci-fi survival horror elements brought about by the Gorog Killiks' ickiness.
• The subplot of Leia embracing her role as a Jedi Knight full-time, and you could track her progress through her performances against Alema in each of the three books.
• The subplot of Luke realizing that he needs to be more politically savvy and take a firmer grasp of the reins of the Jedi Order since he often came across as something of a weak leader in the earlier portions of the New Jedi Order...of course, things go full stupid in the next series, but it's the thought that counts.
• I actually did not mind the Plucky Comic Relief of Juun and Tarfang since they actually weren't entirely The Load, though in The Swarm War it felt like they were being kept around just because they had been in the first two books.

Overall, I'd say everything evened out to So Okay, It's Average. Not exactly high praise, but considering where the franchise went afterward, well... I 'spose I have to start the Legacy of the Force series next, even if it is against my better judgment.

edited 24th May '17 6:17:01 PM by ComicX6

i liked Mercy kill and millenium Falcon... and if were counting comics legacy was pretty cool.

No. Jar Jar Binks is NOT Snoke, but he is most definitely a Sith Lord. No-one in the Star Wars universe is really that stupid, apart from the entire Jedi Council, obviously.

Nope. He's just a street performer.

Fun fact: Swarm War was my first Legends book (although I remember finding Destiny's Way in a bookstore when it was new and reading a chapter or two of it). It's part of the reason of why, despite being aware of his flaws, I find it hard to hate Troy Denning's work as much as most.

I've only read four of his Star Wars books so far (the Dark Nest trilogy and Star by Star) and setting aside the tone of his storytelling I'm hot-and-cold on Denning's writing style. His prose I think is very vivid and descriptive if...grungy (I first read Star by Star when I was thirteen and was shocked at how graphic it was, even compared to the rest of the Bloodier and Gorier New Jedi Order novels that had been released at the time), and he clearly takes writing Star Wars seriously and does his homework when it comes to lore and worldbuilding but...darn it, why couldn't he use his powers for good?!

Someone either earlier in this thread or in another one described his storytelling style as writing Star Wars as if it was Game of Thrones, and I think that's the best way to succinctly sum him up. I think that approach worked in Star by Star since it was meant to be the story's Darkest Hour, it was certainly one of the more memorable novels in the franchise if nothing else, and I'm sure it wasn't an easy one to write...but I know in Legacy of the Force things get really ugly under his watch, and I'm dreading the point in the read-through when I finally reach them.

Maybe I should read Tatooine Ghost, just for the novelty of experiencing a Troy Denning story that isn't trying to be grimdark...or at least doesn't sound like it is from the summaries.

Troy Denning's dominance as the head writer of the EU was in 2006-2009, when being grimdark was basically de rigeur. It doesn't make him any less distasteful, but he wasn't unique.