How far should I go with the Star Wars novels?

[Temis the Vorta]

I think my least favorite thing about the Post-ROTJ novels is how pacifist and do-nothing all the Jedi are. Obviously this decision was made way before the Prequels came out and now they're stuck with it. But the Prequels showed the Jedi to be war generals while the NJO Jedi had a long tiresome debate about whether they should be fighting an extragalactic invasion because it might turn them to the dark side

Much as I love Luke in the Post-ROTJ novels, his reluctance to take action is really annoying.

I dunno, seems like a reasonable fear. Of course Lucas could have helped the NJO out a bit (was the PT made before or after the NJO?) by depicting Anakin's military career more definitively as a major cause of his fall to the Dark Side.

It makes sense in one way - if you use the Force in violent ways for an extended period of time, why wouldn't it have an impact on your mentality? It makes no sense in another way - the Jedi have lightsabers and are obviously geared up to be some form of law enforcement, so are all of them at risk? And is the risk worth it? Can't the Republic's regular military handle the war-fighting and the Jedi can do something else, like roam around righting wrongs like the Lone Ranger?

Come to think of it, the martial aspect of the Jedi isn't the only way they could have organized themselves. The Force doesn't impel you towards violence, it just makes it a lot easier to be effective with violence. But they could also have been power-behind-the-throne types, using only Jedi mind control, or evolved in other ways having nothing to do with the exercise of political power.

Anyway I like the fact that they're having the debate at all. It shows the novels are thinking about the ramifications of the Force in interesting ways, which is something I wanted to see more of in the movies (or any of, haw!)

I never quite bought the Jedi jumping forward to lead this army created for mysterious purposes, which was just conveniently produced in time to counter the Separatists. It seemed like some Jedi at least would be suspicious of that.

Yeah the characters were made to be way too gullible in the PT. And the problem with the clone army is that it implies the Republic had no regular troops willing to defend it! A Republic that can't earn the defense of its people deserves to fall. Yet the Empire had all sorts of non-clone Stormtroopers, so what gives? Did the Empire have a better health plan?

The Clone War label could have just as easily worked for a war where the bad guys were the ones producing the clone army. The Republic should have had plenty of people willing to defend it, even in a trumped up war. The Jedi should have been the most suspicious of the trumping-up, but the common people would have been less so. The Jedi might have been following along with popular sentiment rather than getting out in front. That sort of story is what makes sense.

 

[JD]

The comics don't have this problem and have created some pretty memorable protagonists who, while they will never be as popular as the Big Three, seem to sell books and create fans. I just with the novels would take more chances in this arena and start putting the Big Three in the background and letting a new generation emerge to carry the books forward.

Oh yeah I can agree with you there. I jumped into Republic with the first 5 or 6 Clone Wars trades, and Quinlan Vos quickly became a favorite. Same goes for most of the main characters in Legacy.

Oh, and apparently Quinlan is (probably) going to be in the new season of CW!

 

[DarKush]

Actually, due to the PT, Stormtroopers are now a mix of clones and non-clones. Not all the clones are from the Jango template.

(Beware of potential spoilers)

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Storm_troopers

Otherwise, I like your ideas. I remember reading the Star Wars novelization as a kid and I always got the impression that Obi Wan was fighting against the clones. I didn't mind how GL actually did it, Order 66 was one of the best and most tragic moments in all of the saga, but the Jedi fighting clones would've been more exciting than them chopping down droids-wiseacre droids at that.

As for Quinlan Vos, I'm a big fan. I hope they don't screw him over in CW S3, but it's cool that they are bringing him aboard.

 

[Mr Light]

The New Jedi Order series ran from October 1999 to 2003, so the first book came out just a few months after Phantom Menace. Of course this also means that the books were being planned and written several years before, probably in tandem with the Prequel Trilogy production.

So there's a pretty clear delineation in the Star Wars mythos. There's the "Bantam Era" of 1991 to 1999 where books were made with no clue what would occur in the Prequels. Then there's the Del Rey Era (1999 to Present) where they were made in tandem with the Prequels.

This means that there's a lot of things from the Bantam books that were later horribly out of place, books that dealt with clones from the Clone Wars and Luke's mysterious mother and what it meant to be a Jedi. But they've been retroactively fan-wanked into making sense

 

[JD]

^There's also the wives and children of the Jedi stuff in Children of the Jedi. Did they ever find a way to retcon that one?

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Actually, due to the PT, Stormtroopers are now a mix of clones and non-clones. Not all the clones are from the Jango template.

You mean in the OT or the PT? In the OT, there were never supposed to be any clones, that's a retcon.

I remember reading the Star Wars novelization as a kid and I always got the impression that Obi Wan was fighting against the clones.

I assumed the war was over clones, not that they were fighting. The bad guys were using cloning to create slaves and that was a terrible violation of human (sentient) life that the Republic was trying to stamp out.

I don't like robots or clones in the fighting. It's a cheap way for Lucas to sanitize violence. If someone gets blown up, it should be a "real person." Of course the clones are as real as anyone but the implication struck me that they weren't being treated like that, the Republic thought it was okay to breed them for cannon fodder which is the total opposite of what I thought was going to happen!

 

[PsychoPere]

^There's also the wives and children of the Jedi stuff in Children of the Jedi. Did they ever find a way to retcon that one?

Apparently it has been, though I didn't realize it at the time because I had forgotten about Children of the Jedi. In Karen Traviss's Republic Commando novels, a "rogue" sect of Jedi under the leadership of a Master Djinn Altis is featured, with Callista Masana (Callista Ming) one of its members. The Altisian Jedi had no issue with relationships/marriage or with Masters taking more than one apprentice. In fact, the sect wasn't even entirely Jedi; there were many non-Jedi in their community as well. Looking at Wookiepedia entries for the sect, Callista, and the RC series, it seems the Altisian Jedi were first created by Traviss in The Clone Wars: No Prisoners before she brought them briefly into the RC series.


Temis: The more of your thoughts I read re: the Clone Wars and the GAR, the more convinced I am that you would greatly appreciate the way Traviss approaches the clones in the RC series. For a series that began as a tie-in to a video game, it really does handle well the issues you rightfully bring up.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Cool, I'll check those out!

 

[Stevil2001]

I must admit this has already been much more positive than I thought. I figured I'd get nothing but hate for the post NJO books. I must admit, I have been reading about the events of the LoTF and FotJ books on wookiepedia, and they do sound pretty interesting.

What about the Bane books, and Crosscurrent?

I found the first Bane book okay-- it didn't live up to the potential set up by Jedi vs. Sith-- and the second one hugely tedious. I didn't bother with the third.

Crosscurrent was good, solid Star Wars-y fun. Who cares if it stars characters you never heard of before? So did a movie called Star Wars back in 1977.

 

[DarKush]

Temis,

In the PT, at least in the three prequel films there were no storm troopers. The storm troopers had to be created during the Dark Times between Episodes III and IV, and I speculate that new clones (not solely based on Jango) and non-clones joined the Imperial ranks. I'm assuming that the storm troopers in the OT were a mix of clones and non-clones.

 

[DarKush]

I must admit this has already been much more positive than I thought. I figured I'd get nothing but hate for the post NJO books. I must admit, I have been reading about the events of the LoTF and FotJ books on wookiepedia, and they do sound pretty interesting.

What about the Bane books, and Crosscurrent?

I found the first Bane book okay-- it didn't live up to the potential set up by Jedi vs. Sith-- and the second one hugely tedious. I didn't bother with the third.

Crosscurrent was good, solid Star Wars-y fun. Who cares if it stars characters you never heard of before? So did a movie called Star Wars back in 1977.

Jedi v. Sith turned me off at first. I thought the artwork was too cartoony. Plus I read it after reading the first Bane book. However I eventually came to enjoy it. I still think the Bane book was better because it went deeper in exploring Bane's character in addition to all of the principals involved in the Battle of Rusaan (sp). And it gave the child soldiers better names than Tomcat and Rain.

As I stated before, I enjoyed the whole series. I recommend you checking out three if you're a completist. It had some good moments and a couple interesting twists.

Definitely agree on Crosscurrent. It was a fun read.

 

[RandyS]

Children of the Jedi was absolutely horrid. The only one worse than that is Planet of the Twilight or whatever it was called. Those are actually my all time least favorite SW books.

Huh. They must be bad. I read both when they were new, and remember absolutely nothing about either of them. They're still on my book shelf, maybe I'll re read them one day.

Right now of course, I'm looking forward to the end of the month when the conclusion of the Bane trilogy comes out. I enjoyed the first two.

 

[Stevil2001]

Jedi v. Sith turned me off at first. I thought the artwork was too cartoony. Plus I read it after reading the first Bane book. However I eventually came to enjoy it. I still think the Bane book was better because it went deeper in exploring Bane's character in addition to all of the principals involved in the Battle of Rusaan (sp). And it gave the child soldiers better names than Tomcat and Rain.

I just thought Bane was way more of a badass in the comic. He seemed like someone who'd been around, and someone you wouldn't cross. The novels turned him into a relative newcomer, and something less of an unstoppable force. (I hate those orbalisk things with a fiery passion.) I especially hate how he looks on the novel covers-- like some kinda overweight clown with bad makeup!

 

[Set Harth]

And it gave the child soldiers better names than Tomcat and Rain.

The true names of the kids had already appeared in Jedi vs. Sith; they were not created by the Bane books, and I don't think Bug's real name even appeared in the Bane books.

I liked "Death Troopers" and that starred nobody

I thought I heard Han and Chewie were in it.

 

[Dream]

Right now of course, I'm looking forward to the end of the month when the conclusion of the Bane trilogy comes out. I enjoyed the first two.

Are you waiting for the paperback? The third book has been out for a year now.

 

[Set Harth]

I keep hearing bad things about Coruscant Nights.

It had pros and cons. The pros include emphasis on Vader's strength in the Force, a subplot in the first book which acted as a kind of SOTE prequel, Force battles in the third book, Vader's confrontations with certain characters, and some other good ideas here and there.

The cons, however, include the worst clusterfuck of errors I've ever seen in this franchise, the worst part being the fact that the editors were completely asleep at the wheel and failed to catch any of the mistakes, preferring instead to go on the OS and crow about how much fun it was to read the book before everyone else.

 

[Jack Bauer]

I think my least favorite thing about the Post-ROTJ novels is how pacifist and do-nothing all the Jedi are. Obviously this decision was made way before the Prequels came out and now they're stuck with it. But the Prequels showed the Jedi to be war generals while the NJO Jedi had a long tiresome debate about whether they should be fighting an extragalactic invasion because it might turn them to the dark side

Much as I love Luke in the Post-ROTJ novels, his reluctance to take action is really annoying.

As do I. Sometimes I read the books and think "Stop talking and go out and kick some ass!". Luke was never really reluctant to fight in the movies. I'm not sure why they make him less prone to kick butt in the novels.

 

[DarKush]

^
As I wrote before, Luke does take action in every novel series, but because they've written him into a corner by making him so powerful they have to be selective about when, where, and how to use him. Perhaps in a way they wouldn't with a less powerful Jedi like Jaina Solo, even though they underuse her despite her title as "Sword of the Jedi".


*****Warning: A little spoilerish regarding Bane novels*******





About the Bane books....my bad about the kids' names. I didn't remember that they used them first in Jedi v. Sith. I do think however that Bane was pretty unstoppable in the second Bane novel, due to the (hated) obelisks, but it is true that he was a newcomer in the first book and was just learning his powers and in the third book he was starting to slip a little, though he remained extremely powerful. So, yeah, the unstoppable force Bane is the one portrayed in the second book. Though I enjoyed the character's progression in all three books. I also liked Darth Zannah and wouldn't mind reading of her adventures.

Of course the problem with the pre-Sidious era Sith is that the writers are always going to have to find a way to keep their existence secret so the stories might run the risk of ending the same way, with the Sith tying up loose ends and remaining in the shadows. The 'heroes' won't be able to get the win. But since Zannah played such a significant role in the Bane books I wouldn't mind seeing her at least. Other than that, there's a Darth Plagueis book supposedly coming out. The Sith in between I can do without, though I am curious about Darth Vectivus (sp), who was introduced in Betrayal, the first LOTF novel.

 

[Stevil2001]

I keep hearing bad things about Coruscant Nights.

It had pros and cons. The pros include emphasis on Vader's strength in the Force, a subplot in the first book which acted as a kind of SOTE prequel, Force battles in the third book, Vader's confrontations with certain characters, and some other good ideas here and there.

The cons, however, include the worst clusterfuck of errors I've ever seen in this franchise, the worst part being the fact that the editors were completely asleep at the wheel and failed to catch any of the mistakes, preferring instead to go on the OS and crow about how much fun it was to read the book before everyone else.

My problem is mostly that the characters are the worst detectives in all existence. The books were billed as mysteries, yet they spend most of their time sitting around hoping that clues show up. I like the characters, especially Den Dhur and I-5YQ, but Jax is a bit flat and the female characters are pointless. The third one abandons all pretense of the mystery setup, though, and is all the better for it-- I liked it a lot. Wookieepedia tells me there's a fourth in the works; I'd still buy it.

Has anyone picked up any of the "new" Clone Wars novels by the Two Karens? I haven't got round to it yet.

 

[RandyS]

Right now of course, I'm looking forward to the end of the month when the conclusion of the Bane trilogy comes out. I enjoyed the first two.

Are you waiting for the paperback? The third book has been out for a year now.

Yes I am, same as I did for the first two.

Cheaper that way, you know?