main
side
curve
  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Lit The New Jedi Order: Still polarizing? Or has it fared better over time?

Discussion in 'Literature' started by BoromirsFan, Mar 27, 2013.

  1. Force Smuggler

    Force Smuggler Force Ghost star 7

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    Finished the Dark Nest Trilogy. The Joiner King wasn't that good but The Unseen Queen and The Swarm War were better. On Betrayal in LOTF and so far it is much better than DNT.
     
    Sinrebirth likes this.
  2. anakinfansince1983

    anakinfansince1983 Skywalker Saga/LFL/YJCC Manager star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Mar 4, 2011
    I'm probably a third of the way through Hero's Trial. Reveling in the awesomeness that is Luceno never gets old.

    Chewie's funeral. :_| And Han's musings afterwards, his willingness to go off with Roa without telling anyone where the hell he's going, both pissing off and concerning Leia and Anakin. Typical Han, dealing with his grief by refusing help and escapism...I like this much better than his nightly rediscovering of the bottom of a liquor bottle.

    Luceno's political scenes are always well-done, the New Republic political interaction with several pages of "What are we going to do about the Vong?" discussion, was interesting.

    Just finished the chapter in which Elan allowed herself to be captured and released the ebola virus the Death Seed Plague; the scene in which it actually happened was almost as creepy as their test/planning scene a few chapters earlier.

    So far, only one mention of Jag Fel and no elaborate paragraphs on how "strong and brave" Mara is. Win-win.
     
  3. Robimus

    Robimus Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 6, 2007
    Dark Tide duo are a couple of my favorites. Of course Corran got shoe horned into the feature spot because it is Stackpole, but in a way even that worked largely because it ended there. NJO gave so many Jedi besides the Skysolo's decent roles. Kyp was notable - even important - in the first half of the series, Corran in that duology, Ganner in Traitor, even Jedi like Telki & Tahiri later on in the series.

    Compare this to what we have gotten of non Skysolo Jedi since then(not counting the Kemp stuff) and I think it really stands out. Since NJO the only non Skysolo who seems to do anything significant is Saba, the rest are just relegated to background filler.
     
  4. anakinfansince1983

    anakinfansince1983 Skywalker Saga/LFL/YJCC Manager star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Mar 4, 2011
    From what I've heard about the post-NJO, I doubt I'll bother with it. The NJO so far is a really fun ride though.

    I'm waiting to see what all the Kyp hate is about; there was one scene in Ruin where he was a complete ass but he hasn't bothered me in any other scene he's been in.
     
  5. Darth_Pevra

    Darth_Pevra Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    May 21, 2008
    Man, Kyp is my favorite character in NJO. I love his moral ambiguity while he is still willing to risk his life for the greater cause.

    He is much more interesting than the boring Solo twins.
     
  6. JediMatteus

    JediMatteus Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Sep 16, 2008
    I agree he was interesting, but i enjoyed the solo twins debate force philosphies
     
    anakinfansince1983 likes this.
  7. Jedi Ben

    Jedi Ben Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Jul 19, 1999
    Kyp is royally shafted by NJO, don't get your hopes up.
     
  8. Iron_lord

    Iron_lord Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    I thought Destiny's Way handled him pretty well.
     
  9. anakinfansince1983

    anakinfansince1983 Skywalker Saga/LFL/YJCC Manager star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Mar 4, 2011
    I agree.

    So far I've liked seeing Jaina with her mad piloting skills and Jacen struggling to find out which Force philosophy suits him best. I like the twins more than Anakin so far, and I don't dislike Anakin.
     
  10. Darth_Pevra

    Darth_Pevra Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    May 21, 2008
    I find the force philosophizing pretty boring so far (reading book 10 ... I think). Maybe it would be more interesting if it weren't so crystal clear who is right. Jacens babbling only hides extreme self-centeredness. But the navel gazing wouldn't appear so weird if there wasn't a huge war going on.
     
  11. Force Smuggler

    Force Smuggler Force Ghost star 7

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    I hated the Force philosophizing when I was younger but it has gotten a bit more enjoyable over the years.
     
  12. Loopy777

    Loopy777 Jedi Master star 1

    Registered:
    Apr 8, 2013
    Yeah, that was my beef with the NJO. It supposedly endangered the main characters and it supposedly really deconstructed the Jedi philosophy, but in the end all it did was make thing arbitrarily darker to me. Han had to practically turn to the camera and announce that the character shields were down, but the only time I was really worried was for Wedge Antilles, and that was because Aaron Allston, not Chewie. (I wasn't expecting Anakin's death, but that was a Thick Hardcover, and when he started glowing I realized we had another Event in the making, not the organic end to a character's life.) The philosophy was all about Angry Kyp versus Wise Luke, at least as far as the narrative treated things, because there was enough material there to really have a good debate. Then Jacen got made into the Ultimate Jedi, and that was the end of any real examination.

    I dunno, I enjoyed individual bits of the NJO, but as a whole I think it tried to make promises it didn't know how to keep. I guess it was good that it at least made some promises and tried to do something with them, as LOTF was all promise and no follow-through, and FOTJ was the storytelling equivalent of a drunken one-night stand.
     
    Darth_Pevra likes this.
  13. Darth_Pevra

    Darth_Pevra Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    May 21, 2008
    Give me Kreia over that Jacen clown any time. So far also Kreia >>> Vergere, but maybe she will get more interesting in Traitor.
     
  14. darth fluffy

    darth fluffy Jedi Master star 2

    Registered:
    Dec 27, 2012
    Oh Force, she will. :)
     
  15. RC-1991

    RC-1991 Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 2, 2009
    Yeah, it's very difficult to judge Vergere if you haven't read Traitor. She's sort of a key character.

    The Kreia/Vergere comparisons are interesting, as their philosophies are fundamentally opposed. Kreia is nihilistic and wants to destroy the Force, while Vergere preaches service to the Force. They are alike in that they both moved beyond the doctrines of their eras, and arguably the labels of "Jedi", "Sith", etc. At it's core, I feel that Traitor is a novel about identity, ethics, and how the two influence each other. The Force philosophy, while fascinating (and interesting in its ties to the philosophical inspirations for the Jedi and the Force), is ultimately a sideshow IMO.
     
  16. JediMatteus

    JediMatteus Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Sep 16, 2008
    I find the force philosophizing pretty boring so far (reading book 10 ... I think). Maybe it would be more interesting if it weren't so crystal clear who is right. Jacens babbling only hides extreme self-centeredness. But the navel gazing wouldn't appear so weird if there wasn't a huge war going on.

    if you read this pre-LOTF, you might feel differently about it. I was just wide eyed about that series. I had read VOTF and was waiting for something new. Little did i know that it started without me. I was at borders one day when i saw "Onslaught" in paperback. I was thrilled that they had a new series with Luke in it. Love 90% of the njo series. love the early books where Jacen and Anakin debated force philosophy. The war had not really started that much in earnest yet when they got into it. It was the first time i had ever read a novel where philosophy of the force was even discussed.​
     
  17. Darth_Pevra

    Darth_Pevra Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    May 21, 2008
    Tastes can be different. Jacen seems to think he is smarter than everyone else around him while focusing almost exclusively on the force and the Jedi. He comes off very narrow minded and not very intelligent.

    Kreia is very much a Sith. Even she herself can't deny it in the end.

    I didn't read Traitor yet so I can't comment on it.
     
  18. Force Smuggler

    Force Smuggler Force Ghost star 7

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    Jacen and Anakin Skywalker and their falls are so similar.
    I have no idea why Jacen thinks his fall is different. Okay, he doesn't know everything about ROTS but from what I can tell there is not much difference. Speaking DNT and LOTF here. Not NJO. He was way too cautious to fall imo. He's not as whiney as Anakin was but it is there.
     
  19. Darth_Pevra

    Darth_Pevra Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    May 21, 2008
    On the other hand (for the record, I like neither movie Anakin nor Jacen), Anakin at least knew he wasn't a good Jedi while Jacen seems to think he knows everything best. I find them both annoying.
     
    DurararaFTW and Force Smuggler like this.
  20. Slash78

    Slash78 Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Jul 30, 2004
    I still don't like the NJO overall. Never will. I don't care how bad the DNT was. I'll admit that just about all of them were better written then say, The Crystal Star. But there was so much I didn't like about that series.

    Half the books have about the same plot. Vong show up and some place previously established in some other EU source, author's pet hero challenges them, they destroy the planet, on to the next book. Killing Chewie didn't really endear me, not the over-long, lingering illness of Mara Jade. Han wasn't Han Solo at all and was tiresome. His new sidekick was even worse. I will never get over the Uber-Jedi thing that started with Dark Empire and peaked during the NJO. Nor did I ever like Kyp Durron. I could make a laundry list of other complains, but I'll stop there.

    To mean much of the problems of the EU from Dark Empire onward where being cleaned up in the in Corellian Trilogy and the Hand of Thrawn Duology. Then the NJO series comes along really with one goal. To wipe out as much of the Bantam EU as possible. Don't try to fix things, just destroy, destroy, destroy. A good, old, honest reboot would have been better.
     
    Darth_Pevra likes this.
  21. anakinfansince1983

    anakinfansince1983 Skywalker Saga/LFL/YJCC Manager star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Mar 4, 2011
    Killing Chewie made me cry for four chapters, but as far as Mara, I agree with you. In the first three books at least, we keep hearing about her disease and how she is the only one who hasn't died from it and how it weakens her and all I could think was, "Yeah, I don't give a ****, move along."

    Han was a little "off" but then again I could see him getting that depressed over Chewie, given that Chewie was his constant for so long.

    I just met Roa, as I'm just past the chapter where Han beat the **** out of Bossk for insulting Chewie, so I'll reserve judgment there.
     
  22. Jedi Ben

    Jedi Ben Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Jul 19, 1999
    You're on Jedi Eclipse right now?
     
  23. Jedi Ben

    Jedi Ben Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Jul 19, 1999
    Eh? I have no memory of what sounds like a damn cool sequence!
     
  24. RC-1991

    RC-1991 Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 2, 2009
    Bossk walks up to Han on the Wheel over Ord Mantell, starts mouthing off about how Chewie is dead, Han snaps and starts a full-on bar fight. When we come to the next scene, Han is reminiscing about how he just broke Bossk's teeth/jaw, IIRC.

    And people say that Luceno is a boring writer.
     
    anakinfansince1983 likes this.
  25. Jedi Ben

    Jedi Ben Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Jul 19, 1999
    Oh wait, I read Bossk as Borsk! [face_blush]
     
    Force Smuggler likes this.