Books Star Wars: Last Shot by Daniel Jose Older (Out on Apr 17, 2018)

Ok, fair point. If you discount the two adult novels that were anthologies and one of the regular adult novels, you would be correct that they released 2 in the last 12 months.

 

It gets harder to classify a lot of newer novels compared to older novels since it's only under Disney that we have dedicated Young Adult books. Before that, it was just Young Reader and Novel.

 

There weren't many old-EU novels that I would consider Young Adult though. Crystal Star definitely, was young adult at best.

 

I consider them all Young Adult so I never understand the fuss when people say they don't read "Young Adult."

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Eh. There weren't a ton, but, like you and @Xander Vos said, the line between YA and Adult is pretty blurry as it is.

*Shrug*

There's a stigma around them. I've really enjoyed some YA novels, like Lost Stars, Guardians of the Whills, Princess of Alderaan, and Ahsoka. I think the primary difference between a YA and Adult novel is mostly down to tone and, somewhat, tropes of the genre. It's not really about the quality or complexity of the writing.

 

Heh. Can't really argue with that. Compared to a lot of literature Star Wars is always more youth-oriented.

 

Have any of you above ever heard of the saying "Patience is a virtue"?

They will announce with their own time what is coming next. So for now, focus on what we've got out or what's coming and understand that the publishers and writers have a plan for what is coming out, okay. Yeesh, I'm 28 and already understand this.

 

Apart from Thrawn, there hasn't been a good book in ages which I guess contributes to my disappointment.

I guess it's not like the days when we'd hear about a new trilogy coming out, and a new series, etc.

 

Would be more solid advice if there was any sign or indication that said patience would pay off though

 

Regarding adult vs. young adult (and @DarthInternous please correct me if I'm wrong):

Young Adult is a category of novel aimed at young adult readers. That is ALL it means. Novels published by Del Rey are NOT Young Adult as it is not a YA imprint. Typically, YA novels have protagonists who are high school age and are trying to find themselves, but there are some adult SFF novels (like Ender's Game) that also feature young protagonists.

Saying a novel reads as YA doesn't really make any sense because it's not a genre, but a category used for marketing purposes.

 

I sort-of agree. I think YA is mostly for marketing, but I have seen a lot of YA marketing books that seem to have a similar level of depth, or lack thereof, so I think that a lot of YA authors do seem to water down their stuff in similar ways.

Ironically, for the sake of this discussion, I think that the Star Wars YA novels, overall, are no different than their adult brethren, and, in fact, deal with edgier stuff to boot.

 

Lot of really good YA books out there, both Star Wars and other. If people are looking for good stories it seems really odd to dismiss a book just because it’s labeled YA.

 

Of course, but this is just semantics. It's just an expression being used. It's like if you say "the dialogue in the film felt cartoon-y". It doesn't mean the film was literally a cartoon, but the intention of the comment is that the dialogue was a bit silly, or less sophisticated.

Likewise here saying the book "reads a bit like YA" doesn't literally mean "the book was marketed as a YA novel". It means that the tone, dialogue, depth and/or writing style in general came across as more simplistic.

No one's saying otherwise

That's funny because for the most part I tend to notice a big difference just in terms of simple things like vocabulary and sentence structure. Every book is different though. Not every single "YA" Star Wars novel has more simplistic writing than every single "adult" SW novel.

Oh, and KJA's novels were also very "young adult-y" for me. Jedi Academy Trilogy and Darksaber were probably marketed as "adult" but I'd say the writing is just as simplistic, if not more so, than Lost Stars for example.

 

On the previous page you said you have little interest in YA books. And referring to them as kids books and simplistic, or in other words not worthy of time for adults. To me that sounds like dismissing YA books in general.

 

Lol fair enough. That's just me though, I've read a few young adult novels (mostly SW tbh) and barely enjoyed a single one of them. They were great as a kid, Harry Potter was my ****, but I just struggle with it these days. It's not that I'm a complicated or snobby person, nor do I have a background in reading/writing to justify snobby preferences but I just don't enjoy them. Maybe it requires more complex writing to keep me interested, I don't know. Just fussy I guess.

But I wouldn't go around telling people not to read YA novels just because I don't like them

 

Maybe it would be better to say that a lot of the "YA" Star Wars books feel like they have a similar level of depth to the "adult" ones and avoid some of the elements that I don't like when I find them in "YA" books?

Fair enough that not all books are created equal and that blanket statements are never the whole story.

 

Didn't "adult" content give us Tahiri putting her hands in a kid's pants and tentacle fetishes during Troy Denning's tenure?

 

That's a different meaning of the term "adult" than what we're working with I think

 

Is Huckleberry Fin or To Kill a Mockingbird a YA novel?

 

Missed this, absolutely sums up my thoughts.

 

I just finished it. Man, this is a tough one to review.

Spoiler

To give any coherence to my thoughts, I have to break this book into three parts. The first, and least successful, is the actual plot and narrative off the book. Maybe it was just the way I read it, but it felt like we got very far into the book before we knew what the villain wanted, other than generally wishing ill upon our heroes. Older perhaps stuffed to many characters onto the Vermilion, meaning that some characters seemed to go off to nap (or...more, in Lando and Kashaa's case outside of Grimdock) at really weird and inopportune moments. I got that these people were all together on a ship and on the same mission, but they never felt like a crew. The deus ex machina(s!) at the end of the final battle felt like it could have used a bit more setup and introduction. I also would NOT have minded seeing those fellas stick around.

The sometimes garbled nature of the main plot is more than offset by the book's most successful point: characterization. I don't know that an author has captured the essence of so many film characters so well since Zahn in the 90s. I say this despite hearing complaints that Han and Lando didn't sound how they were used to. It should not come as a surprise that two men raised by and around criminals would sometimes. Han and Lando's internal monologues were phenomenal. I'm a new father myself, so Han's musings about Ben very much hits me where I live.

The final metric, and another success, was how the universe felt and operated. I think Older did this VERY well. He created spaces where nonhuman characters could exist not as props to the main cast, but on their own and in their own language. It's telling that Older lives and works in New York City, while most of our other authors hale from the Mid and Southwest. In a lot of neighborhoods, having no idea what is being said, worshiped, or shouted id pretty common as one walks down the street. It was cool to see that represented in detail in Star Wars.

Overall, 8/10.

 

This was, well, all-right.

What worked the best was Han and Lando's reflections on where they have ended up, Han's unease at being so out of his depth as a father, Lando recognising he might have changed more than he wishes to admit, not foreshadowing Ben's fate to become Kylo at all and lots of little touches, like Sinjir and Condor being married.

The fragmented narrative didn't work for me at all, it would have been a better tale told with straight-forward A to B chronology. But even that wouldn't have solved the problem of a weak villain, with a plan that made little to no sense.

As a first look into the kind of stories they can tell in the post-Jakku "peace", it works OK. The little detail that Hosnian Prime plays a key role in the production of caf beans I loved - yep, decades later when the First Order annihilate that system they screw with the galaxy's caf! There can be no greater crime and there will be much vengeance.

 

Just finished "Last Shot". It was a blast! Lovd the fast paced action in the Now scenes and the flashbacks. Lando was totally in character, as was Han. The Ewok slicer was interesting but I ADORED seeing Lando's love interest. Han's doubts about fatherhood etc. seemed very realistic.

 

So I'm confused about the timeline now.

https://swshadowcouncil.com/2018/05/25/highlights-from-the-solo-a-star-wars-story-official-guide/

According to the Solo Visual Guide the movie takes place 10 years before ANH. But in Last Shot Lando still has the Falcon and L3 8 years before ANH.

Han's thoughts on Qi'ra also don't really seem to line up with how their relationship ends 5 years prior in Solo (she dumps him at 21, and when we see him at 26 it really sounds like he is grieving over her death and that it recently happened), but I supposed that may have been based on a sequel where she dies.

 

I don't believe we have any idea which girl Han is moping about in Last Shot.