Karen Traviss vs Clone Wars Season 2

[captcalhoun]

i loved the RC novels. they're 4 of my favourites, along with the X-Wing series and I, Jedi.

and i agree with CH up there, she really did a good job of making the clones individualised and included a lot of cool, and logical, stuff...

 

[Corran Horn]

Where've you seen that?

Her blog post referenced in the first post in the thread.

"But as a writer, I have a moral deal with you, the reader - if I hook you with a story, my part of the deal is to follow through and give you a satisfying outcome. If changes beyond my control mean I can't give you that, then I won't do a half a job."

That sounds to me like she's pretty baldly stating that the * Commando series won't give us a satisfying outcome.

I wasn't sure if that (or her overall angst) stemmed from her work on the RC novels OR the 'The Clone Wars' books she's been doing.

 

[Admiral_Young]

I don't get why she's all upset about this in the first place. Authors of television tie-in books and "Expanded Universe" type novels always get their stuff invalidated once the onscreen canon decides to do something different that contradicts their work. Its not meant as a slag against them...just a business decision.

I'm not really a fan of her work, tried reading through Order 66 and couldn't get through, I did enjoy the novelization of the Clone Wars movie though. I thought she did a good job adapting it. I'm just disappointed that this movies we won't see her The Essential Guide to the Star Wars Military. I hope this previously announced work gets reassigned maybe to James Luceno or someone like that.

 

[Steve Roby]

I don't get why she's all upset about this in the first place.

Maybe she believed all those Star Wars fans who keep saying the Star Wars novels are canon.

 

[Tomato]

Yeah neither do I. You get paid to do a job. You do it.

Everybody knows that SW is Lucas' baby and all you get to do is to play in the sandbox if you are lucky.

 

[Spiderpope]

I don't get why she's all upset about this in the first place. Authors of television tie-in books and "Expanded Universe" type novels always get their stuff invalidated once the onscreen canon decides to do something different that contradicts their work. Its not meant as a slag against them...just a business decision.

Nothing i've read suggests she is taking it personally. More that the changes mean that there isnt a way to make her story work without completely retconning huge portions of it. Do we really want that? I'd rather the series stopped than alter beyond recognition between novels, i grew tired of that during S.D Perry's Resident Evil books. Its just a shame she felt she had to stop writing Star Wars books full stop, since i actually like her work.

Oh well, at least there's still her Gears of War books to read.

 

[Lindley]

I don't get why she's all upset about this in the first place.

Maybe she believed all those Star Wars fans who keep saying the Star Wars novels are canon.

Why do people have such a problem with that? It's a simple creative decision. Newer novels build on older ones rather than constantly reinventing the wheel. I'm not sure why anyone who doesn't read the books would even care.

 

[ATimson]

Why do people have such a problem with that? It's a simple creative decision. Newer novels build on older ones rather than constantly reinventing the wheel. I'm not sure why anyone who doesn't read the books would even care.

Saying that newer novels/comics/games build on older ones is fine. Saying they're all canon is obviously no longer true.

 

[Lindley]

Which is precisely why they came up with that (slightly kookie) "multi-level canon" concept.

Frankly, though, I think everyone puts a lot more investment into the meaning of the C-word than is warranted. It's simply a shorthand way of explaining the philosophy of continuity in the Star Wars universe to those who are unfamiliar.

And yeah, it's annoying when one of the video-based stories screws up some minor detail, but so far things have always been reconcilable at least in broad strokes. And Boba Fett's backstory was already fairly screwed up, so twisting that a little further to make it fit hardly seems like a disaster.

 

[Sephiroth]

Hard contact was allright, I had to slog through triple zero, whenever I read her describeing mandaloriand, I get the distinct impression that she was playing with herself while writing

 

[SeerSGB]

Hard contact was allright, I had to slog through triple zero, whenever I read her describeing mandaloriand, I get the distinct impression that she was playing with herself while writing

Yeah that's a distinct Mary Sue situation going on in her Mando novels There's a couple of points that made me think, "Okay this started out as a slash fic, didn't it?"

 

[Steve Roby]

I don't get why she's all upset about this in the first place.

Maybe she believed all those Star Wars fans who keep saying the Star Wars novels are canon.

Why do people have such a problem with that? It's a simple creative decision. Newer novels build on older ones rather than constantly reinventing the wheel. I'm not sure why anyone who doesn't read the books would even care.

FWIW, I don't particularly care. I am just so very tired of all the loudmouth schnooks on the web who always say "Star Wars books rock because they're canon! Star Trek books suck because they don't!" Said schnooks have always been wrong, in at least two different ways. But this is something they shouldn't be able to ignore.

 

[Corran Horn]

Hard contact was allright, I had to slog through triple zero, whenever I read her describeing mandaloriand, I get the distinct impression that she was playing with herself while writing

Yeah that's a distinct Mary Sue situation going on in her Mando novels There's a couple of points that made me think, "Okay this started out as a slash fic, didn't it?"

Eh, it's a nice change of pace from the usual Jedi slurping...especially given how powerful Luke had/has gotten in the EU. Watching Ki-Adi Mundi getting slagged by a half-dozen clones soldiers armed with blasters kinda showed that those depictions are a little sketchy.

 

[SeerSGB]

Hard contact was allright, I had to slog through triple zero, whenever I read her describeing mandaloriand, I get the distinct impression that she was playing with herself while writing

Yeah that's a distinct Mary Sue situation going on in her Mando novels There's a couple of points that made me think, "Okay this started out as a slash fic, didn't it?"

Eh, it's a nice change of pace from the usual Jedi slurping...especially given how powerful Luke had/has gotten in the EU. Watching Ki-Adi Mundi getting slagged by a half-dozen clones soldiers armed with blasters kinda showed that those depictions are a little sketchy.

I'll say the same thing about that as I do about Super-Luke: If I wanted fanfic, I'd read fanfic for free online not pay $6.99 at the bookstore.

Star Wars EU has gone down hill for a while now. Traviss is just one symptom of the larger problems.

 

[Tulin]

Who the hell is she and why should I care anything about her feelings for something as trivial as the EU and CW tv series?

 

[Admiral James Kirk]

I stopped caring about the EU years ago when I realized how little they actually resembled the SW universe. NJO totally killed any feeling I had for the letters E and U. It's unfortunate how dependent my vocab is on those letters. Traviss work on LotF was awful and her Republic Commando stuff got worse as it went on and I gave up altogether. I don't even feel a tiny twinge of loss at giving up the EU. I have six amazing Star Wars movies. One fun Clone Wars movie that I got to take my kid to and soon I'll have a seasons worth of Clone Wars sitting on my shelf. I can live without a bunch of crappy novels that twist Star Wars out of shape. The EU should be renamed SWino since it truly is Star Wars in name only.

 

[Tulin]

^ LOL at SWINO!!!!

Especially in the light of what "swine" has come to mean lately.

This whole "I used to like the EU but...." makes me laugh, considering that almost ten years ago(WOW)I used to moderate a message board where our main focus of discussion was SW and the title "EU" was akin to spitting in somebody's grandmother's face and then slapping her head with a medieval mace.

It was LOATHED and apparently, from what a lot of people here have said, we had very good reason to hate it.

 

[Lindley]

All the EU hate is incredibly lame. It's got its share of problems, but there's more good than bad. For every silly superweapon there's a fascinating, three-dimensional character introduced, and for every ridiculously over-the-top Force ability there's a bit of nuanced political drama.

It's simply been around for so long that it's wandered rather far afield. The Vong story arc was a nice change of pace once it got going; the first few books were a bit odd, but once you pick up the tech and terminology it really works. The ending could have been better, but ending things is always difficult....

The stuff since then has been a bit mixed. Legacy of the Force definitely could have been stronger. It started out well, but Jacen's motivations got very hazy very fast, and once you stopped sympathizing with him the series started to drag a bit. Still, it did effectively bring in Ben Skywalker as a solid new player, which is something.

I am a bit iffy about the Legacy comics. I haven't read them yet, but their very existence kind of lends a so-what pall to the current novel timeframe. Still waiting to see how that all plays out.

 

[Skywalker]

I highly recommend the Legacy comics. They're much better than the current post-ROTJ novel line.

 

[Stevil2001]

^ Ditto. Even if I do want to punch Cade Skywalker in the face.