A novelization isn't EU content, its a script written out and (sometimes) slightly expanded. Its actually taking the place of a book with new content, which is worse then if it was just a pointless book.
"New content" is not the only determination of whether a book in a franchise is "good" or not.
It might be both, but there are definitely more YA then general audience books published each year then there was in the old EU, and its definitely taking spots from GA books.
Okay, but how do we know that the YA books are taking places from the GA books? They're published by different companies.
No, the "powers that be" can declare a book canon.
True.
But, there is a difference between, say, Tarkin and a book featuring Rey that's designed for really little kids.
True, but not really relevant. IMHO, first question is if a book is good by the standards of what it is (for example, good comic book writing is different from good TV writing). Next question is if it's good compared to books in general (if you want to go and make such a comparison). Since prose books have similar rules, I think it's an equitable comparison, even allowing for variations in the criteria.
I consider the general audience books to be the only legitimate SW books.
What the heck does "legitimate" even mean? All official tie-ins are approved by the franchise owners. They have the brand name on it. In most cases, they are the official account of the event in question. That has "legitimate" written all over it. (Besides, wasn't one of your complaints that if a YA book covers something, then a GA book won't? That suggests that the YA books are indeed "legitimate," since otherwise, there would be no reason that a GA book could overwrite it.)
Sure, maybe a YA book will, I don't know, establish that Poe had a pet cat, and that fact will be used in a GA book. In that respect, the YA book is canon but unimportant.
Given that
Star Wars is using YA books to establish important details (all we know about Rey's pre-Jakku life comes from YA books, Jyn's starring novel is YA), it seems that LucasFilm doesn't agree with you.
Oh, there are definitely garbage adult books (see Aftermath: Life Debt for an example) but they're still better then YA stuff, even if they're really bad compared to other GA books.
First off, what criteria even makes a book good? From what I know, that criteria is not limited to one specific market (and I studied writing in college, so I do know a thing or two about this).
I never read any Dahl, the most I mknow is that the Willy wonka movie is about 100 tumes better then his book, and by that standard what little thought I have about him is fairly negative.
The BFG was pretty good (the book, haven't seen the movie yet).
I doin't know what that other book is, but in my opinion if its a YA or kids book its inferior to the blandest "high fantasy" novel.
Since you never read it, I don't think that opinion holds any weight. It's certainly not based on good reasoning.
Pixar makes almost every movie (except for The Good Dinosaur and, in my opinion, Cars 2) for families, not kids, which is why they have mass appeal. Its written for a large group of people to enjoy, unlike YA stuff.
You'd be surprised how much "kid's stuff" has things for adults, too.
I read Aftermath, which I thought was readable but not great, and gave up halfway through Aftermath 2.
I'd heard that the second was better than the first. Not very encouraged here.
I wouldn't read Lost Stars if someone put a gun to my head (it is literally the worst kind of YA, and from an author whose only non-Twilight-ish novel was SW: Bloodlines, it might not be possible to make a SW book I'd hate more then this without even reading it).
No one said you
had to read it, but hating something you haven't read? There's no rationality here.
Even if I didn't hate YA books, Rebels guaranteed I'd never read a book based on Ahsoka, even though I really liked her in TCW cartoon.
Okay.
The fact that its YA means its a really bad book in addition to being a book I'd never read.
That "fact" is an opinion, and since you don't know what the book's content are, it's not a credible one.
Eh, i'd stick Young Jedi Knights in its own category. it didn't have teen angst or teen romance cliches, and wasn't written down like YA books are.
That's semantics. By definition,
Young Jedi Knights is YA, since it was written for a juvenile audience. We can't get around that.
Secondly, you're willing to concede that some YA books don't follow the cliches you like, but won't extend the same courtesy to other stuff? That does not follow. If there can be one exception, there can be more. (Your mantra has been that YA books, by definition, cannot be good, but now you're telling me that some are?!)
(Finally, your might want to reread those
Young Jedi. There were a couple teen romance plot threads in them.)
Honestly, I think YA books have changed and become more of there own (terrible) genre in the last decade or so, probably when Twilight/Hunger Games first became popular.
Can't say one way or the other, but I have seen YA books that don't follow the Twilight formula.
juvenileWell, compared to
Lost Stars,
Aftermath is a jewel...[/quote]
Given that you never read the latter, you can't know that.
..but really Del rey just made a bad decision when it came to what book to promote (and what writer to hire).
What do you think they should've done?
But, its not a wrong decision in putting it over Lost Stars. It is part of the SW books that actually matter, so it should get more promotion then the book I'd say shouldn't have had any promotion or mention at all.
Umm, maybe? I will concede that a Del Rey hardcover is the more prestigious release, but
Lost Stars became the fan favorite. I'm not sure either of them were true TFA prequels (which is what we had been lead to believe), but the latter did feel more like a lead into than
Aftermath; regardless of which was better, I don't think
Aftermath deserved to be in the "Journey to..." series; the connections to TFA were too thin, which I think is partially why it lost the popular vote from fans.
Rogue One probably would have been better as a book (and I say that even though I liked the movie).
Why's that?
I also thought that the old EU did a pretty good job with their version of the events of the death star's construction and the Rebels getting the plans.
Some of the stories worked, others didn't. I think it got too convoluted trying to include everything rather than making the smarter call of just declaring some stories non-canon and keeping the one(s) that worked. That's one way I think
Rogue One has the advantage; it's a cleaner story that makes more sense internally.
My hope is that the book is set so far before the show that its not remotely influenced by it. I don't know how old Thrawn is in the new canon, but even five years before he shows up on Rebels would mean that the events of Rebels is irrelevant to the plot.
Depends. I don't know for sure what's going to happen, but it could tell the story of the campaign that got him the Grand Admiral's rank, which was described in his first
Rebels appearance. As
@The Wormhole pointed out, Gov. Pryce is in it. Not sure if that counts? Of course, it's hard to say what's important or not important in connection to
Rebels. For example, part of
Rogue One's backstory is contained in the show.
As for the character, if Filoni isn't forcing things on Zahn I expect Thrawn to act like the actual character, not the simplified saturday morning cartoon Rebels uses.
We'll have to see, but since TV Thrawn got the thumbs up from Zahn himself, that does suggest that Zahn sees the two as being compatible. In all honesty, I don't really see any difference between Legends Thrawn and canon Thrawn, but, since the novel has more space to tell the story, it might allow for Thrawn to have more characterization and story time, thus seem less rushed?
If its YA, it has the cliches.
As you yourself, said, there are exceptions, so we can't say that until the book comes out.
Also, if its teen years then it is just fluff.
As the movie showed, those were the years that shaped Jyn into the person she was by the time we meet her in the movie. That doesn't sound like fluff.
I want more of a "what was jyn doing right before RO" type story to flesh out her character.
To be honest, I'd rather read about her years as a criminal than her time in the Partisans. Kind of like what we got with Brian Daley Han Solo books; some fun heist and adventure stuff. (Actually, I'd love to see a book, comic, short story, or something where she has some kind of encounter with Han during her criminal days. That could be fun seeing them trying to pull off a heist together or competing for the same prize.)
That would have made a good GA book.
Maybe they will make one later down the road. I think it depends on how comprehensive
Rebel Rising is. If it's a complete biography up till she gets arrested with no gaps for other stories, then I'm going to guess that this's probably it as far as books are concerned. For what it's worth, the sneak peek starts with Jyn being taken to the prison camp the Rebels found her at before going back to when Saw found her as a little girl, so it might go all the way through.
If YA book is just a fluff piece about teen Jyn, that fits with the general MO of the YA books.
That remains to be seen.
She'll probably fall in love with Krennic's illegitimate son or something, and he'll end up dying at the end.
Right, and then they'll do a sequel where the son realizes the love of his life murdered his father and tries to get some kind of revenge for the betrayal, but will feel conflicted about doing it, not to mention be unsure how he could, since there's no one alive! Angst, brooding, and more angst to keep things rolling!
Seriously, though, I wouldn't worry about Jyn getting or wanting a boyfriend in the story. First of all, numerous sources have stated that being abandoned by her father and then by the man who adopted her left her with little capability to trust people, so I have a hard time imagining that working with a relationship. Also, for what it's worth, the
Rogue One novelization did establish that during her teens a boy her age (a fellow Partisan) tried to kiss her. She didn't let him. So it doesn't sound like she was looking for companionship during the book's timeframe. I'm actually not sure she was ever looking for one. I know some people think that she and Cassian Andor were starting to fall for each other in the movie, but I didn't see that and the novelization didn't really suggest anything on her side of things.
For what it's worth, the blurb makes it sound more like the book will cover the events that lead to Saw cutting her lose to protect her or some other kind of problem rather than her love life.
I loved his two books with the Rogue Stormtroopers and Mara Jade, and Scoundrels was great.
I did like those books as well, although I think the second Hand of Judgement book was something of an improved remake of the first one. I will concede that Mara was at her least interesting in those, though, and I had trouble telling the Stormtroopers apart.
He hasn't written a SW book I disliked, so unless the Rebels stuff holds him back to much I think Thrawn will be good.
I did think
Outbound Flight was kind of weak, personally.
Seriously, though, what I don't get is your insistence on fitting everything into a single box; this thing is always better than that other kind of thing, etc. Writing, like other art forms, is a process in creativity. Because of that, there's no uniformity in tone, style, or quality because of the label put on the jacket. By definition, one can't automatically be better than the others. (If you are right, then Pixar would be kid's stuff only, not to mention not be able to tell more compelling stories than actual adult movies.)
