It really doesn't. Rebel Rising will just as much fluff as everything else in YA. Just another poorly done story of some event in her life that means nothing, but works well enough to get the Young Adult crowd to buy the book.
Regardless of what you think of YA books, I don't think we can predict what the book will be until the time comes. Besides, the book's description has said that it'll bridge the gap between Jyn's childhood and adulthood. Given the clues we got in the movie, that's not going to be a throwaway story.
I'm saying that when a writer has only written twilight clones (14 counting lost stars) and one GA SW book, they're a YA twilight clone author.
If Grey writes mostly
Twilight-like stuff, fair enough. I don't think that her
Star Wars material (which I did read) falls into the same category, though.
The case isn't closed, its your opinion. It might not follow the exact story beats of Twilight (I doubt it has an immortal vampire), but its an angsty teen romance book, aka a "Twilight" YA book.
The main theme of
Lost Stars, as I read it, was about personal integrity and honor. The big decisions the character's make through the story revolve around the question when do you keep your word and at what point does your commitment to your own beliefs outweigh sworn oaths, etc. The book also takes a good stab at the question of why good and decent people would serve a regime like the Empire, coming up with some pretty interesting answers. There was a love story, but I think it avoided the traps that such plots can fall into, and wasn't so central to the book that everything hinged on it.
To be frankly honest, I think it was mislabeled as a YA book.
So, no, I content that
Lost Stars is not an "angsty teen romance book" on the preceding points. What do you say to that?
The new canon comics range from bad (Kanan, Poe Dameron, Chewbacca, Han Solo) to pretty good (Star Wars, Darth Vader, Lando).
Okay.
Darth Vader is my favorite. (My other favorite would be what I've read of the Legends
Knight Errant stuff.)
But, while I'm a huge comic fan, books are a different thing. Getting a type of story in the comics is great, but its not a replacement for wanting those kinds of stories in the novels, too.
Fair enough.
My opinion of Claudia Grey is backed up by her own bibliography. Its about as solidly based in fact as you can get.
I'm not sure how that helps. One can form an opinion of not liking an author's writing because of the genre's they pick, and other reasons, but, as I explained above, I don't think that her
Star Wars stuff fits the
Twilight market.
As a storyteller, Miller is superior in every aspect. Writers of books have written for TV very successfully before, and vice versa. I don't know how he'd be in producing or technical stuff, but from a writing/creative perspective Miller is much better then Filoni. He made a Rebels story that wasn't terrible. That should have gotten him an award all by itself.
Oh, I see what you're saying. Not sure I agree about Filoni's track record. Neither does LucasFilm; as I understand it, he's been promoted to supervise
Star Wars TV animation overall.
The worst of the old EU, at least in the books (I didn't read all the old comics), was generally "meh" with a few scattered bad books.
I see.
I don't recall a really terrible book, except for Traitor.
Funny, that's like the holy grail of Legends books. Never read it, so I can't comment on that (although I've never had the desire to read it). My first vote for worst Legends books of all time would be
Fate of the Jedi series. This is my measurement for bottom-of-the-barrel bad
Star Wars storytelling. I loathe it's plot, execution, pacing, writing, and covers. If you tell me that
Rebels is worse that this, I will not be able to stop laughing.
I also think that the
Jedi Academy trilogy,
Crystal Star,
New Rebellion, the Callista books,
Cloak of Deception, and
Darth Plaguis were among the really bad/disappointing.
I totally disagree. While the dark nest/joiner trilogy was very mediocre and stupid...
Only read the first one before I lost interest.
...and Legacy of the Force was ok to infuriating, overall they were still putting out mostly good to great stuff.
I think the only novels that I enjoyed in the last few years of Legends were the stand-alone novels set during the movies.
Kenobi is my favorite
Star Wars book of all time, and stuff like
Scoundrels,
Honor Among Thieves, and
Scourge were brights spots.
The reboot has vastly reduced the number of new good Star Wars stories in my opinion.
Fair enough. Just because it energized me doesn't mean everyone will like it.
I understand YA fairly well. You don't have to agree with my opinion, but that doesn't mean I don't get YA. Its not like YA is difficult to understand.
What I don't understand with your position is why every "YA" book is either a
Twilight or
Hunger Games knockoff. That literally goes against everything I have seen, heard, and know about books. I have
read many YA books that do not fit your classifications. That's why I'm skeptical.
Its worth as much as anyone elses
Someone being able to judge a book without reading it doesn't make any sense. You can form an opinion of how you
think you'll react to it, but how can you examine the contents with any accuracy?
Of course you can, at least from your perspective, and that's fine. Like I said, having different opinions is fine. You can't disprove my opinion objectively, because opinions are subjective. But you can, of course, make an argument as to why you like Bloodlines or any other book that I don't like.
It seems like your opinions start as implied "facts," at least that's how you come across. And how can you not like a book you've never read? Here's the thing; you're basing your opinions on your conceptions, while I'm basing mine on what I've directly observed. That latter is usually more grounded and holds more weight. (Put it this way, if I said I hated
Star Wars, but admitted that I'd never seen any of the movies, read any of the books, had never touched the franchise in any way, would you say I was being rational in my thinking?)
I'm not any kind of "wrong" about YA. Its all (in my opinion) garbage with different coats of paint.
You weren't saying "opinion" before. I can only treat your reasoning as you present it, whether my perceptions of what you intended are accurate or not.
In a franchise like SW, its junk and unimportant fluff. You don't have to agree, but that doesn't make me wrong.
Why do you thing that the
Star Wars YA stuff is "junk?" Is there anything beyond the YA label that leads you to this conclusion.
I use the term "YA Book" when talking about YA books. I've neither misused it or misdefined it.
The Wikipedia article on YA fiction doesn't really agree with your position.
Lost Stars is an angsty teen romance, just like 95% of the authors work in general. IIt never pretends to be anything else. Case...reopened and overturned on appeal?
Denied, on lack of evidence.
Nothing is lost by skipping a novelization, at least in my opinion. This is really subjective, though. If the SW novelizations didn't take up a valuable GA book slot, I wouldn't mind them. I wouldn't read them, but I'd be neutral toward them.
Okay.
Its not faithful to the comics. The X-Men were never in high school, they were personally taught by Professor X. Actually, Iceman was the youngest X-Man at around 16 in X-Men #1, the rest were probably around 17-19 at that time.
Sorry, I just meant that the idea of the X-Men being teens/young adults when the group was first founded was part of the original comic series. I am aware that the
Evolution show took its own spin on the mythos (different first class of X-Men, a new explanation for mutants going public, tweaked characterizations, etc.)
They didn't do the kinds of generic school stuff that X-Men evolution had (they had a bunch of creepy problems of their own, but that's a whole other thing). The villains were real villains, not some school bullies. Really, Evolution was nothing like the old X-Men series.
The show actually has two phases. The first phase (seasons 1 - 2) happened when the existence of mutants was still a secret. There was more emphasis on the kids trying to keep their extracurriculars a secret while keeping on top of school (kind of like Spider-Man). The teenage iteration of the Brotherhood were the main villains. Stakes were a lot lower.
The season two finale had mutants being revealed to the world. At this point the show began playing more with the ideas of racism with mutants (prior, I've gathered that the mutations were used more for expressing the feeling of not fitting in, as many teens feel). Adult villains became more common. Higher stakes. Apocalypse showed up. The latter phase of the show was much closer to what I understand the comics were.
(I've also gathered that the show used elements from the comics that other adaptations missed. For example, when Rogue borrows Cyclop's powers, she can control the beams without the visor, something pretty much every other adaptation forgets to do.)
Not that the original X-Men run was great (the Stan Lee stuff especially had problems), but Evolution wasn't better.
The show may have resonated with me since it was closer in tone to the movies. My first
X-Men story was the original movie. So, the more grounded settings, lack of other superheroes, and similar rosters of characters also play a big deal into my preferences, I'm sure.
I liked the 90s cartoon a lot, despite it having some flaws (for example, both it and Spider-Man TAS were severely restricted with language and violence, more then was even normal for a cartoon of that time).
Okay.
X-23 didn't change the franchise, not even remotely. She's a good character that I like a lot, but the X-Men as a series would be fine without her.
She's currently the star of the main
Wolverine comic (616 Wolverine died and hasn't come back yet, so she inherited the mantle). She's also a major character in the next
X-Men movie,
Logan. So, she's leaving a mark. (P.S. my original point was the the
Evolution cartoon had more influence than the other
X-Men cartoons. Since the original one's main MO was to adapt pre-existing stories to animation and I think
Wolverine and the X-Men isn't really remembered for anything, I think my point still stands.)
I don't believe that there are other options. All YA is some variation of Twilight/Hunger Games. That doesn't mean they're all either supernatural or distopian, but the "Angsty teen romance" or "teen drama with a more competent hero/heroine" styles are YA.
Why can't there be other options?
Its unfortunate, but accurate. You have the real stuff, made for general audiences, and the fluff they make to get a bit of extra money from the Twilight/Hunger Games crowds. I think they'd do better to just focus on good GA stuff, and things for little kids, but if there is a way to make money they're obviously going to take it. I just wish it didn't come at the expense of the normal GA stuff.
Since
Star Wars can and does appeals to almost every age demographic, I don't really see the problem. Also, I have yet to see a "fluff" YA
Star Wars book.
Honestly though, I don't care if people disagree with me. I'm only talking about what I think. As far as I'm concerned it is all the same, that's what makes it YA, but anyone else is free to disagree.
