Lit Unpopular EU opinions

- The Crystal Star is half a good book. The Leia and kids sections are terrible, the rest not so bad.

- Zahn's first trilogy is way overrated.

- KOTOR (the game) is an overrated, OT remake. It is in no way better than the prequels.

- Rogue Planet is indeed one of the best Star Wars books. It is not, however, literature of the soul.

- I don't care about continuity.

- Planet of Twilight is a good book.

- Luke didn't need to be married and a father.

 

I wonder what the bastard surnames in Star Wars would be

 

Jacen's turned out alright.

 

Ben Fitzwalker?

 

Totally agree about Stackpole's books!

 

- Young Jedi Knights is the best Star Wars novel series ever
- Palpatine's return in Dark Empire was unneccesary
- Knights of the Old Republic is how the PT should have been
- Legacy of the Force is the worst Star Wars novel series ever
- The Legacy comics are uncreativ and Cade Skywalker is boring
- I hate the Sith trooper guarding the turbolift into the under city on Taris
- SWTOR was really overrated

 

I'd say these qualify as popular opinions 'round here.

 

Yeah, beside the last one, I don't share such opinions.

 

Maybe it's just because I agree with the top two.

 

While I agree with the legacy one, a lot of people hate SWTOR, most of the on the official forums (weirdly enough), so that may not remain unpopular for too long.

 

- I love Legacy of the Force

- I absolutely love Fate of the Jedi

- I liked Jacen's fall to the Dark Side

- I enjoyed Christie Golden's books

- I really like Troy Denning

I'm just a void of unpopular opinions....

 

You know, I don't actually agree with most of those, but I love the fact that your unpopular opinions are that you like something, not that you dislike things!

 

Thank ye, imiller!
I try not to focus on hating on things....

 

Heheheh, I'm curious though: What had you read of the EU pre-LOTF?

 

The answer to that is simple, nothing.
Betrayal was my first novel in the EU, and I still really enjoy it.

I've gone back and read a lot of it now, however. I'm currently working on the X-Wing series!

 

Ah thanks, I've got a pet theory that says if you start with Betrayal, with no prior reading, Jacen's fall will be far less objectionable as the reader won't have a sense of attachment to the character.

 

No problem!
I'd be happy to help in any way with your research.

 

The Scholastic YA series (Jedi Apprentice, etc) are rather underappreciated.

 

While the execution was certainly flawed at times, Jedi Apprentice was a hell of a great concept, and I enjoyed the crap out of it as a kid. Jeff_Ferguson and I have been advocating a Jedi Apprentice-style series for the post-NJO era for a while now. Imagine: Jedi actually doing Jedi things like diplomacy, law enforcement, occasionally sparring with dark Jedi, and preventing wars, instead of just constantly serving as glorified generals.

 

Take it even further! Imagine the development of the next generation, imagine the members of the Jedi Council being individual characters again, imagine Ben actually having friends.

There was a moment in either Outcast or Backlash that bugged the hell out of me. After Legacy of the Force, a lot of fans (here, anyway) were critical of the fact that Ben had no friends close to his own age. Instead of attempting to solve the problem, Allston wrote a scene where Luke made fun of Ben for it.

... The hell?

 

Do want. That was one of the things that I really love about Jedi Apprentice and Jedi Quest. Jedi in their natural element, and while there was rarely a shortage of action, they were most certainly peacekeepers and even managed to be good at it. More of that concept would be more than welcome.

 

My most unpopular opinion seems to concern Dark Lord. It's very well-regarded around here, but I found it to be a huge stinker among masterpieces --- that is, the only blemish on Luceno's otherwise stellar record. Roan Shryne was the most unlikeable protagonist in the history of the EU, and I cheered when Vader finally killed him at the end. Neither the narrative nor the Jedi characters treated Order 66 as a big deal; the lightning-fast pace lifted from Labyrinth of Evil made the entire book feel rushed; the Vader POV scenes were a huge let-down compared to every character introspection scene from LOE (and yes, I know that it wasn't originally a Vader book); and most of the rest of the book felt like an attempt to shoehorn in as many cameos from Episode III characters as possible, and to give Vader as many flagships as possible whose names sound like Executor but aren't the Executor.

Dark Lord was a swing and a miss for Luceno, but everything else by him, save for maybe Millennium Falcon, is on the masterpiece level. Yes, even Jedi Eclipse. There's another unpopular opinion.

 

...I liked Jedi Eclipse. Off-topic question, just for the moment- Dark Lord wasn't originally going to be a Vader book? Was it originally going to be Plagueis, or what?

 

Here are the notes I took while researching my long-delayed project to write Luceno's Wookieepedia article: "It was set to follow Darth Sidious, Darth Vader, and a group of Jedi who escaped the Great Jedi Purge, but was titled Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader and promoted as a Vader-centric sequel to Revenge of the Sith despite the character's relatively modest role in the book. Luceno received a large amount of criticism from fans for the small role that Vader played in the book and later apologized in an interview for the misleading title."

"One of Luceno's primary goals with Dark Lord was to paint the Jedi and the Sith in stark contrast with one another. He aimed to show how the relationship between a Jedi Master and a Jedi Padawan differed from the relationship between a Sith Master and a Sith apprentice, and he also sought to parallel Darth Vader's story arc with that of Roan Shryne. In Dark Lord, Vader walks a path that takes him further and further away from the Force, while Shryne finds himself moving closer to it."

Sources: http://terrania.us/libnotes/2007/02/episode-15-james-luceno-interview.html (part 2)

http://web.archive.org/web/20120917045159/http://www.starwars.com/eu/lit/novel/f20050125/index.html