Why all the Karen Traviss hate?

I read one of the Republic Commando books recently. There's only one word for what I read, boring. I don't hate the books, I never saw the Jedi bashing as particularly overdone, but it was boring. Every second scene was a skip back to a bunch of Mandalorians eating food, playing games, sleeping and generally doing nothing. I only got half way through, so maybe it gets more interesting, but the half I read basically was so flat and uninteresting I just couldn't continue.

So that's my take on her. Can write decently, but has characters which pretty much do nothing.

Dreamkeepers Prelude, check it out!

She comes off as Stephanie Meyer, but with sparkly space marines instead of sparkly vampires to me.

Its not just one problem for most of the haters, as I understand it.

She takes popular characters from the canon and derails them for no other reason than the fact that she doesn't like them. She's full of herself and bandies about her military experience (previous serving in the Territorial Army and the Royal Naval Auxiliary Service in a rather low enlisted positions) as proof that she knows more about war than anyone else, even though she has been contradicted by readers currently serving in the military with much higher ranks and greater combat experience. She absolutely can't stand people disagreeing with her. She contradicts canon regularly. She idolizes the Mandalorians and despises the Jedi - the closest thing to a morally perfect group of people in The 'Verse. And apparently, she compares people who argue with her with the Taliban (though this is the first I've heard of it).

I mean, hell. You'd be pretty justified in hating her work.

Talifan is actually a term that originated when Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson began attacking the fanbase for disliking their rape prequels of Frank Herbert's Dune series.

Traviss used the term later.

edited 4th Mar '11 12:05:38 AM by Scardoll

Fight. Struggle. Endure. Suffer. LIVE.

...I'm rather glad I didn't read much further than Hard Contact. Sounds like it went downhill fast after that.

The Republic Commando series, while having a lot of canon conflicts, wasn't so bad because it was self contained. It was a massive mistake to let her write in one of the main plotlines.

Revelation is easily the worst novel in the entire Star Wars Expanded Universe. Shit like The Crystal Star and Children of the Jedi can be ignored. This was supposed to be the big setup for Troy Denning's (a hit or miss author himself) big finale.

Instead she spends pages upon pages going upon about Mando culture and portraying Jaina as a spoiled Jedi princess who has never fought a real battle in her life. I guess she missed the 19 book series where Jaina fought a successful psychological warfare campaign and lost several close friends and family. Or how she has basically been targeted since before she was born.

And the Imperial Navy? The NJO established that they were loyal to Pellaeon not the Moff Council. And yet they side with Caedus' men and the Moffs despite Gilad using his last words to order them otherwise. All so the Mandos can have a cool boarding action. Way to give one of the most well developed characters in the mythos an absolutely pointless death.

I guess this is to be expected for someone who has admitted to not reading anything more than editor's notes about other author's work. In a shared universe this is simply not acceptable. And this isn't even getting into her comments about the fanbase.

And apparently she was one of the loudest voices behind bringing Daala back and giving her command of the entire Galactic Alliance despite having no qualifications and a rather hefty record of war crimes under her belt. And this is a character who is almost universally revilled among fans and (given her treatment in Fate Of The Jedi) most of the authors as well.

Because she basically took the plot nowhere Denning had to cram too much into Invincible and Legacy Of The Force (which was actually looking up to finish at least decently) turned out to be one of the most disappointing plot arcs in an EU that spans over two decades.

edited 28th Mar '11 5:13:10 PM by Rationalinsanity

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

Incidentally, why was The Crystal Star so despised? I know it gets a lot of hate amongst the fanbase, but I've never heard the reasons for that hate.

What's precedent ever done for us?

Lame story, bad writing, borderline Character Derailment for Luke...that's what I remember from the one and only time I read it.

edited 29th Mar '11 4:19:36 AM by Willbyr

Wait...Traviss is responsible for making Natasi "Admiral Failure" Daala head of the GA? *adds another entry to his hate list*

...*swings his "Garm Bel Iblis for Head of State, 44 ABY" banner and proceeds to dust off his traviss voodo puppet*

edited 29th Mar '11 6:27:05 AM by 3of4

"You can reply to this Message!"

Regarding the subject of the pacifist Mandalorians, I'd say its a good thing to have a sci-fi society which isn't one-dimensional. The internal conflict between the pacifist and warrior Mandalorians was one of the better things The Clone Wars did. It also potentially undermines Travis's nonsense, which is good.

it also got her to quit writing star wars :)

"You can reply to this Message!"

Woo, first post..heh

What personally galled me the most about Traviss' writing was as mentioned, poor Gilad's utterly pointless dead and the re-reinstatement of Dalaa, one of the characters I loathe most in the Star Wars EU.

Her utter obsession with warping canon and events in order to make the Mandos look cool just became flat out boring, as well. You might as well title every book she wrote for the EU "Wherein the Mandolorians lecture everyone on why they're better and don't need help, but you should still help them, Episode _."

Ahh...it explodes!

ignore, double

edited 1st Apr '11 4:12:57 PM by wolfofodin

Ahh...it explodes!

Nearly all of the larger multiple-author series has a Karen Traviss though. Compare MTG and Warhammer 40k.

These question we have to ask here is, why, if most if not all of the fanbase hates these writers, do they still get hired?

The Blood God's design consultant.

Karen Traviss is reasonably popular with quite a few Star Wars fans. I remember when I used to frequent the starwars.com message boards, Karen Traviss posted there, and there was quite a bit of genuine adulation.

Canderous is cool, alright, but when Traviss is apparently trying to portray the Mandalorians as a super-enlightened culture, it doesn't mesh well when all the Mandalorians I've seen elsewhere have basically been thugs.

Fanfiction I hate.

The Mandolorians -are- Thugs, IMO.

Thugs that more or less wear the mask of being a powerful, enlightened and generally better-than-you culture. However, the Mandolorians always end up failing in the end due to either rigid adherence to 'survival of the fittest' dogma or their own hubris.

Kreia said it best in KOTOR 2, "They will die a death that will last millennia, until all that remains is their code, their history, and in the end, the shell of their armour on the shell of a man, too easily slain by a Jedi."

Ahh...it explodes!

@Carbon. Who would you consider Traviss' 40k counterpart? Goto, Ward?

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

Both.

Ignorant of canon goes to Goto.

Completely and obsessively devoted to one faction of the EU goes to Ward.

@Gloomer, I have noticed that. "Travisses" are usually well liked by younger fans, especially if they're the first EU novels they've read. It's because "Travisses" honestly aren't (usually) bad writers, it's just what they do to the canon and how they ruin it for all the writers they're working with.

To those of us who started off reading Timothy Zahn, it feels like a slap to the face.

edited 2nd Apr '11 9:54:43 PM by Carbonpillow

The Blood God's design consultant.

Well, I started off reading Jude Watson (Jedi Apprentice), so I can't really comment there.

Who would be MTG's Traviss?

I assume MTG is Magic: The Gathering?

Also; I believe that a "Traviss" within the 40k universe isn't as damaging as it is in Star Wars. I mean the universe is so huge in scope that authors are (apart from shared series like the Horus Heresy) pretty much free to write their own plots within the franchise. Mc Neil can write about the Ultramarines, Mitchel can do what he wants with Cain, and Abnett can build a subsector from scratch for the Ravenor trilogy. Character derailment is pretty much going to be self contained. For instance Goto's trash only influenced the Blood Ravens and even than Relic effectively ignored his stuff when Dawn Of War 2 came out. Once you get into the Codex arena (ala Ward) you start to have a bit more influence when it comes to derailing the plot (and the actual gameplay).

In Star Wars you have far more shared characters, settings and plotlines. I mean look what the authors have done to Jaina over the years. Or how everyone other than Zahn painted Thrawn as an unstoppable mental force of nature when he was actually anything but. Traviss didn't do that much damage when she was given her own plot and set of characters to play with. Once she was allowed to touch the core characters you got into the problem zone.

edited 4th Apr '11 6:00:45 PM by Rationalinsanity

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

I'm not too familiar with the MTG novels, but I think their Traviss is J Robert King. He was responsible for the Invasion Block and Onslaught Block novels. In his case, though, the main problem people seem to have with him is Random Events Plots.

Edit: To be fair, the MTG setting makes it easy to fall into the Random Events Plot trap. There's a lot of magical stuff on most planes, and the main heroes and villains in the older novels were Physical Gods.

edited 4th Apr '11 6:34:05 PM by silver2195

Currently taking a break from the site. See my user page for more information.

I have mixed feelings toward King. The Invasion event defined Magic for me, but his prose is pretty bad. The man likes the word Sanguine too much.

Ward is destructive to the point of ruining the game for anyone who isn't an Ultramarines player. Traviss is only ruining it for the writers after her, but Ward has a decent chance of sinking the franchise.

edited 4th Apr '11 6:40:53 PM by Carbonpillow

The Blood God's design consultant.

Huh. I had a feeling it would be King, if only because a fourth of the MTG books on my shelf are written by him. I like him. But I guess the reasons for King dislike and Traviss dislike are very different.