Lit A stupid trend in Star Wars books...

Oh, I much prefer this approach. Legends never really felt like a shared fiction universe to me; the underlying themes and rules of the setting varied wildly from story to story.

The story was about Vader who was the point of view for most of the book. What was the problem?
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I can trust Zahn when it comes to the covers of his Star Wars novels as to what to expect, although he always grabs me with whatever new character he throws at me. But when it comes to misleading covers, The Cestus Deception. I haven't read it but one point I keep hearing about it is that Dooku is either not in it or has barely anything to do with it, yet he takes up most of the cover. XD

 

Okay, but the cover also features Obi-Wan and Kit Fisto, who were in the book. I'll grant that Dooku should've been replaced by Ventress, but honestly this is a minor offense, if this is a problem. During the Clone Wars era they mostly just threw random stock photos of the heroes on the covers anyway (see: Jedi Trial, Shatterpoint, and Yoda: Dark Rendezvous), with MedStar being a notable exception.

 

Tie in fiction rarely rise above its primary commercial purpose-the Thrawn Trilogy and the NJO for Star Wars have characters, themes, adventure, love and all the rest that make them worth reading.

Inevitably however with a franchise approaching forty years of existence your going to have bad novels.

 

What I always found weird was that Dooku was on the cover of The Cestus Deception when it was Ventress who had the major role, and then Ventress was on the cover of Jedi Trial when it was Pors Tonith who was the primary baddie. I figured the trend would continue indefinitely --- the next book would feature Pors Tonith on the cover but he would have nothing more than a minor cameo and some lesser Separatist leader would be the main villain. And so on down until we had a B1 battle droid commander on the cover but, ah dang, the main villain is just a plain ol' regular B1 battle droid.

TBH though I do kinda agree with the OP, to an extent. Remember the original Clone Wars novels? There was some sort of embargo on using Padmé for reasons that still aren't clear, and so instead of reading about her and Anakin's relationship we got... Erk and Odie. Like the OP says, minor characters are fine if they're written well and the author can make us care about them, but seriously, Erk and Odie... I only remember them because their names were so damn terrible.

 

Well, it's mainly because you can shoot and kill Zanato Gasgiant whereas we know the big names are going to be fun.

Even so, it seems more like it's because all of the major characters are in the comics.

Also, your complaint seems basically directed at the Aftermath trilogy since we don't have that many novels and of the ones we do, we have Tarkin, Bloodline, Thrawn, and the Ersos.

 

You must've read a different version than I did.

sent from my Moto X-Wing

 

• A New Dawn features Kanan and Hera
• Tarkin features ... Tarkin (is about the life and history of Tarkin, with some perspectives from the Carrion Spike thieves)
• Heir to the Jedi features Luke (is in Luke's POV)
• Lords of the Sith features Vader and Palpatine (is about them, and also TCW and Rebels character Cham Syndulla)
• Dark Disciple features Ventress and Quinlan (is about Ventress and Quinlan)
• Twilight Company features members of Twilight Company (...)
• Catalyst features the Death Star (Fortunately, not from the DS's POV, but mostly Galen and Krennic, but DS construction is key recurring driving story point)
• Ahsoka frstures Ahsoka (and follows Ahsoka as the main character)
• Bloodline has Leia on the cover and stays close with Leia.
• Aftermath features the Death Star Blowing up (features many characters directly influenced in direct fallout of that, several of whom were AT Endor)
• Aftermath: Life Debt features the Falcon (which is involved in quite a few key and significant aspects of the story)
• Aftermath: Empire's End features scenes from the Battle of Jakku (the extended finale of the book).

So perhaps this is a complaint that really is kind of out of date?

 

I feel the same way regarding minor characters. For me, an example is Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader - it features Darth Vader for about half the book, but also some Jedi whose names I do not remember and who I doubt have been mentioned anywhere else (note that I liked the book nevertheless). This is, sadly, one of the reasons I have not read that many novels and prefer the comic books (at least minor characters stick to the end of a series there). A friend told me the same was true for Lords of the Sith and I have the same feeling about Ahsoka (without having read it).

In my opinion, Aftermath is different mainly because its minor characters truly develop in book two and by book three (currently reading it) I care about all the characters introduced by Chuck Wendig, even those in the interludes, such as Cobb Vanth). Bloodline, a book I like even more, has an awesome supporting cast, which, sadly, I doubt we will see again (let's hope I am wrong).

It may sound weird, but when I wonder whether to read a stand-alone Star Wars book, I often open its Wookieepedia page and go to Appearances. If 90% of the characters have "First appearance" next to their names, I usually tend to skip this book or require a recommendation in order to read it.

 

LOTS is not like that. Sure, OCs get a lot of exposure, but Palpatine and Vader are definitely front-and-center. I don't understand why so many people are saying otherwise.

 

Hell, everything everyone does in LotS is in response to Sid and Vader!

They don't even have to be on the page to dominate the plot.

 

I may yet be convinced to read the book then.

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Perhaps I'm a bit optimistic, but I've found some enjoyment in every novel that I've read. I've only started reading SW novels since Disney took over.

Whilst they will never be literacy classics, the enjoyment and easter eggs and crossovers that LSG are managing is wonderful

 

And Tarkin. And Catalyst.

 

Um... no.

As said, Palpatine and Vader featured in Lords of the Sith.

So did Tarkin in Tarkin.

What's the criticism of Catalyst?

 

*does not understand*

 

Not really, he has a point. If the "way you make money" is to false advertise, then why not just make the books about the things you're advertising? Why make the books in the first place if you're not confident that people will like it unless you advertise something else? Surely you make money by putting out what people want. It doesn't make sense.

Then why would they over-advertise the movie characters?? Also makes no sense.

 

I will admit the old eu had the same problem. Basically to make money you have to be sure people actually pick up and buy the book. Having a movie character helps in people actually picking it up.

 

Bring back IG-88!

 

Yes, clearly, but then why not just make the movie about the movie characters, if that's what people want? Why go to the effort of publishing a whole book about something that you have no confidence in people wanting to read such that you have to advertise it as something else?

edit: bear i mind I'm just playing devils advocate here. If anything I think the old EU in particular relied far too much on the movie characters in the actual content of the novels, and I'd have preferred it if the non-movie characters got more page-time

 

So did I especially in the post-NJO when Luke Han and Leia hogged page and cover space.

A part of me thinks either Del Rey/Lucasfilm didn't have confidence or maybe they did or didn't care but the publishers-Random house didn't have confidence novel characters could carry interest.

 

I think this is a symptom of the fact they've always wanted a continuous story that progresses forwards so you can't just have Luke Skywalker Random Adventures forever because eventually a certain time period becomes too cluttered for it to work. At the same time they want the books to appeal to a broad enough section of the fanbase to sell reasonably well. Whilst some people will buy books on the basis it has the Star Wars brand attached I imagine some fans wouldn't consider it if they didn't see something they were familiar with such as a movie character.

In the old EU this resulted in Luke/Han/Leia never really retiring and riding off into the sunset. Every time it looked like they might the writers just carried on with them and started killing off what should have been 'the next generation' instead. Personally I'm hoping with Han's death in TFA and whatever they end up doing to finish Leia's story after the recent loss of Carrie that we'll end up with Rey + new characters taking centre stage for the sequel era and Luke progressing to a position where he is still very important and has stories focused on him but can also function in the background rebuilding the Jedi. But I guess we'll see what Ep 8 & 9 bring.

As for the new canon novels I tend to agree with Taalcon's post (#34) the characters on the cover have generally been the focus. If anything Heir to the Jedi is perhaps the weakest of the new novels and that has Luke on the cover and is iirc entirely from his POV. LotS does have quite a bit from the POV of characters other than Vader/Sidious but as Jedi Ben said everything they do is basically a response to Vader/Sidious being there and it creates the situations in which the two of them need to exercise their powers to survive. Yes it could have had more Vader/Sidious but it isn't as if they were background characters, the scene with the two of them and the Royal guards around a fire sticks in my mind where Vader sees the Clone guardsman and memories come flooding back of Padme, the Clone wars and Sidious' manipulations. That and the part where they were fighting the bugs which seemed to drag on forever.

 

Stupid evidence--always messing up perfectly fine, unsupported opinions!

sent from my Moto X-Wing

 

Strictly speaking, this isn't true. Tie in fiction is primary a method to make money off an existing IP and its usually hungry-for-more-but-not-discerning-on-quality-hence-LOTF-etc audience.

That it adds breadth and depth to an IP is an ancillary benefit. The only instances I can think of where the use of tie in novels was done to advance plots in the main universe are the Warcraft novels, because they needed to bridge events from the RTS games and the lore in World of Warcraft (e.g. giving Tirion Fordring background that made his Argent Crusade make sense).