RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Comic Books Does anyone else here read Star Wars books?

I wasn't sure where to put this, but, since it's scifi, and has to do with books, and has many comics, some of which may be discussed, I figured this would be the right place.

Anyway, does anyone here read Star Wars novles?

Specifically: New Jedi Order

If so, what are your thoughts?

I just finished that last book, The Final Prophecy, and I loved it.

Anyone else?

I'm sure this topic goes in the Media forum (TV, Film, Lit). But to answer your question, I only read the first two books of the series, then quit 'cause I had textbooks to read. And I didn't like Chewie's demise.

Plus the fact I don't really like Extended Universe, with exception to Thrawn's stuff.

This might be a good place to put it. I'm a major star wars freak...

And, to be honest, I gave up on NJO a little after the third hardcover, by last was Rebel Stand II.

NJO just wasn't interesting me... I had already made accurate guesses for how most books would end... and it seemed really unnessecary to have so many books covering a single storyline. Similar to the padding Marvel utilizes in some books.

Hopefully I friend of mine can expand more on this...

It's a mediocre plot for maybe six books at most(in terms of enjoyability), except expanded into nineteen books with the use of 'fluff', namely subplots that arc through the first few books but mean nothing now in the final books, not to mention the actual fluff in each book just to lengthen it. The 'Force Heretic' trilogy was useless. It could have been one book, but instead the entire first book is about a trivial battle involving the Remnant. The Final Prophecy was ridiculous, some Yuuzhan Vong went to Zonama Sekot, discovered something, the reader doesn't know what it is, that character dies, and the entire adventure was meaningless. Ok, so now some people moved from location A to location B, and Nom Anor isn't the prophet any longer, and the shaper and priest are dead. That's progress, but you realize that the author was given 'plot points', or events that must occur in the book, and told to write a story around those events. It's like that for every NJO. I'm not even sure if the authors knew how the whole series would turn out, except for their own book that they were writing. It would certainly explain the mass amounts of exposition Anakin Solo was receiving before dying. The author thought, this character does important event #12(sensing the Yuuzhan Vong through the Force with the lambent), he must be important for the rest of the series, so might as well build him up. The first few books danced around Vergere quite a bit, they could have gotten her in contact with the Jedi as early as Luceno's books, but they needed to prolong the series for maximized profits.

I NEVER LEARNED TO READ!

I can see what you mean about predictability. But, I attribute that to knowing the characters too well.

I like that Anakin was built up so much before his death. That was something that I never saw coming.

As for Chewie, I remember after he died that someone involved said that someone from the main cast had to die. I guess my problem is that we lost two members of the Skywalker/Solo family.

But, it always seemed to me that Chewie often stood in the way of Han and Leah's ralationship. Since his death, Han went soul searching, and, in the end, he realized that the person he should have been traveling with all along was right there, waiting for him. Leah.

I can't think of any specific examples, but, there have been things that were much too drawn out.

Something I have enjoyed a lot is the character development of Tahiri. That's why I enjoyed The Final Prophecy. Corran is one of my favorite characters. I think he is a lot like Obi Wan (sp?) in many ways. He actually is the perfect master for Tahiri, in so many ways, and I hope when this is over someone will right a book about just the two of them.

My favorite book, by the way, is I, Jedi.

I probably have already figured out how this whole story will conclude, but, I still want to read it.

I think the hardest thing to do when writing characters as well known and written about as these, is making things unpredictable. It takes a great writer to be able to pull this off.

But, I don't know if that's possible. I think what they tried to do with NJO is put the characters into an unpredictable situation. They realized that we, the readers, would be able to predict their actions, so they tried to change the situation around them. This way, we may have been able to guess what, say, Luke, would do, but we would not be able to guess the consequences of those choices.

Unfortunately, the Yuzaan Vong have become much too predictable as well, so a smart reader can guess most of what will happen.

Eh. The only good Star Wars books were the Thrawn books. After that, starting with Kevin J. Anderson's "Jedi Apprentice" series, everything started to suck.

And Chewie dying? Even to save Han and Anakin? Fucking Chewie? No fucking way, man.

Non

Ive only just read the first one and wasn't very impressed...
actually bored at some points..
And Chewie dying?
Coz the Solo kid left him behind?!?!?!?!?!
Im sorry thats no son of Han....Leia musta been doin someone on the side...

Before I add to the discussion, there will be spoilers , for anyone who cares.


Yeah, I didn't like that either. If they had to kill Chewie, they could have thought of a better way to do it.

Although, this way, with Anakin feeling all of that guilt, it gave him a little extra motivation to get things done. It also put a huge chip on his shoulder, as the story went on, and probably led to his death.

But still, I hear you on that.

I think at times the writters themselves get a bit too fanboyish, but, that's going to happen.

Unless you're Timothy Zahn. I'm really looking forward to his new book, Suvivor's Quest (Feb '04), about Luke and Mara.

There was a time when I read every Star Wars book that came out but I think it was after the first episode one book I stoped and havent really felt I was missing out on anything. In general the Star Wars thing has just feed on it self to the point where there is nothing left, It wasn't even the quality of the books that made me stop buying it was things like the Luke, Mara relationship was built up in the books (Even though her killing the clone and being cured of her progaming was dumb) but then their wedding was in some over priced peice of poop comic mini series. Also for a while there a lot of the stuff seemed to be focusing on episode one characters and im sorry the prequil movies have been so poor I don't care what happens to these characters. Having said all that though I had heard in the regular media about Chewies death but hearing about Anikin dying in this thread mae me a bit sad but I guess all along those kids were always getting lost, kidnaped whatever Jania and Jascen would do the hard graft then Ankin would throw some mega powerful last minuet jedi stuff about and save the day, So maybe the writers will have to work that bit harder now the magical fix all is gone.
I have even stoped buying the action figures the first big death nail was Mara and Jedi Leia. I wanted those Ladies bad and to this day I don't have them. But they end of it all was putting action featers in the figures by then they had realease every costume everybody had worn in proper Star Wars so again I stopped.

I read about half of the NJO books, but petered out...I don't even remember what the last one I read was. They started out kinda interesting, but the deeper I read it into the series, the more boring they got. I've still got four or five sitting here to read, but I haven't been in any hurry to read them. Eh.

I think the Star Wars franchise as a whole went to hell after the prequels.

I haven't read anything that has to do with the prequels.

And I consider the new movies a joke. Although, there are some things that I like. The truth is, Lucas should have had someone else write the dialogue. The action sequences are sweet if you ignore the dialogue.

The only book I plan on reading pre the real SW characters, is Rogue Planet. My cousin told me it is a good prequel to NJO.

Other than that, I don't care who writes what, I have no interest in the Old Republic.

Have you seen my childhood?

Oh, there it is...gettin' molested by Lucas. Shame on you, old man!

Based on some of the stuff I've read, you may be right. The thing is, I have enjoyed NJO, but, I just ignore the shit and enjoy the good stuff.

And yeah, there is some good stuff. Most of the books have significantly interesting moments.

But still, some of the writers have no clue.

It could be that there have been too many books written recently, and too many different writers have been used to tell this story.

Hopefully, things will start to ta change in Feb. when Zahn's next book is released.

I was obsessed with the books for a couple of years then the NJO just went on to long. Timothy Zahn and Michael Stackpole are the best writers.

Penwing did you use to post on theforce.net boards?

No. I never posted over there. And if you saw someone else with this name, they stole it. This name, with or without the numbers, has a meaning behind it.

who the hell are you PenWing, and how dare you steal my name! you'll pay for this!!!

I just thought it looked familiar. I could be wrong.

Well, I just finished readling The Unifying Force last night.

I like how everything ended.

On the CD that came with the book there is a transcript for a round table session with the people responsible for NJO, including the writer of the last book, who has been heavily involved behind the scenes. Anyway, they all agree that it was probably a mistake to have so many different authors involved in this story. There were a lot of loose ends throughout NJO that just kinda disappeared.

But, overall, it was a great read.

I don't want to spoil anything, so I will try to be very careful here.

Just incase:

Minor Spoilers


Luke is no longer the all powerful Jedi. Though he is now a master of the Unifying Force, as I would think Jacen is, he was weekened in his battle with Shimra. What exactly this means will hopefully be dealt with in the future.

As for Jacen, he will never be able to summon that kind of power again. He said so himself, so I guess that makes it a rule. As to what he can still do, I am not sure. I think he now knows how to turn tears into a healing potion, but that may have been a temporary thing.

There was no mention of exactly how Jaina was changed, but it is clear that she was, b/c it says she was. I guess that's something that will be touched upon in the future.

By the way, in the round table, they said that Lucas gave them a list of who they couldn't kill. Luke was on that, as I'm sure Han and Leia were, but I'm just guessing. Anyway, they chose Chewbacca b/c he is so difficult to write. To tell you the truth, though, the best writers have never had any problems using him, and there were times in this story where he would have fit in flawlessly, whether the auther would have wanted to write actuall dialogue, or not. Their reason to kill him off, IMHO, is very weak. But, they did, so...

As for Anakin, they actually wanted to kill off Jacen, as they viewed Anakin as the heir to Luke. Lucas said they could not kill Jacen, probably b/c of the twin thing, so they killed Anakin. It was always meant to build him up so much before his death. That's why we didn't see it coming. They consider NJO as Jacen's coming of age story.

In any case, they have given us great characters to read about, my favorite being Tahiri. I hope someone comes along in the future and writes a story around her and Corran.

I liked the Thrawn books, and most of the others that I read, but I had other priorities and there were just too many to keep up with. It sounds like I quit before they started sucking.