Author Topic: Shatterpoint: Good lord...
YodaKenobi  11629 posts
Title: TFN EU Staff
Registered: May '03
49382_Anakin Solo (1005091)
Date Posted: 8/2/07 7:06pm Subject: RE: Shatterpoint: Good lord...
I love Stover's writing but Shatterpoint just didn't do it for me. Traitor and RotS are masterpieces though.

 

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Darth_Hydra  2370 posts
Registered: May '01
6539_Red Lightsaber
Date Posted: 8/2/07 7:10pm Subject: RE: Shatterpoint: Good lord...
I got tired of Stover shoving "WAR IS ****!" down my throat so I stopped reading a little past the half-way point.

 

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Tricky  5342 posts
Registered: Jul '01
43253_Boba Fett
Date Posted: 8/2/07 7:52pm Subject: RE: Shatterpoint: Good lord...
The thing about Shatterpoint is that it is the only SW book to my knowledge that was written for a mature/adult audience, as opposed to every other SW book being written for a pre-teen/teen demographic.

I mean try & compare it to something like the Cestus Deception, another CW book dealing with an ongoing war. In there you have sentient eels, Jedi killer droids that hardly kill anyone, a cute but awkward love story between a clonetrooper & real girl & absolutely zero content dealing with the horror that is ground warfare. I liked the Cestus Deception, but it has an altogether different flavor compared to Shatterpoint.

 

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GenAntilles  502 posts
Registered: Jul '07
40303_Clone Trooper (ARC) Captain Fordo
Date Posted: 8/2/07 9:46pm Subject: RE: Shatterpoint: Good lord...
Yeah, Cetus Deception was like a 1940s war movie. You get shot, you fall down, with little to no blood. Combat doesn't seem that bad. Shatterpoint was like a modern war movie, you get shot in leg, leg blows up, blood everywhere. Combat seems horrific.

 

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Katana_Geldar  27712 posts
Title: Former CR Tasmania, AU'
Registered: Mar '03
48693_Elaine (617092)
Date Posted: 8/2/07 10:57pm Subject: RE: Shatterpoint: Good lord...
Darth_Hydra posted:
I got tired of Stover shoving "WAR IS ****!" down my throat so I stopped reading a little past the half-way point.


The problem is, Hydra, is that war is like that and 'bout time a SW novel said that! applause

 

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cbagmjg  431 posts
Registered: Jul '06
41233_Darth Nihilus
Date Posted: 8/2/07 11:51pm Subject: RE: Shatterpoint: Good lord...
I liked it, but yeah, I thought his ROTS was better. There was alot in ROTS book that I wish was in the movie. I have only read like 6 Star Wars novels so far, but Shadow Hunter is probably my favorite on the basis that Darth Maul is a badass character to read. It's too bad he wasn't in more novels.

 

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topher694 
Registered: May '05
22677_Anakin's Lightsaber
Date Posted: 8/3/07 12:23am Subject: RE: Shatterpoint: Good lord...
When I first read this novel I was very impressed. Mostly for reasons that have been mentioned above. But, one of my first thoughts after reading the novel was that I was going to be in the minority. Shatterpoint is not a typical Star Wars novel and I assumed that it would not be well received by fans for reasons also mentioned above.

I must say, however, that that I -continue- to be impressed by the maturity of the average EU reader, at least here at TFN (and that includes those who didn't like it).

Although I do not post often I keep coming back and reading because the dialog here is interesting, intriguing and of coarse always a bit goofy (does a McEwok taste like a McNugget? What if it is wearing a Hat?)

That said, this is one thing that has bothered me about Shatterpoint. Plot and all that aside, Stover introduced a great new Force ability (or at the least a great take on an old one) and to my knowledge no author has used this ability since. Apparently the ability to lift stones with your mind and rehabilitate drug dealers is enough, or did I miss something?


Anyway...


ezekiel22x posted:
I didn’t like it, as I only like books with fuzzy care bear robots and cozy tea parties and frolicking adventures through bubble fields of joy and love.


LMAO

Jedi Ben posted:
Shatterpoint for me was Stover's best work without question. Sure ROTS is good but it pales to the impact Shatterpoint had. This book shows exactly what the Clone Wars exist to do, how and why yet also affirms why the Jedi do what they do. They lose? Of course they lose, the game was set so they could only lose. Shatterpoint was the 1st Clone Wars book, it had to set the standard and it did - too bad the rest of CW never matched it. It also took the realistic style being deployed by DR to its ultimate extension, after Shatterpoint anything would pale in comparison.


Well said

 

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SlackJawedJedi  1109 posts
Registered: May '04
6482_Exar Kun
Date Posted: 8/3/07 1:44am Subject: RE: Shatterpoint: Good lord...
It's the book that made horrific wartime violence awesome. No seriously. happy

 

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ausar_vos  172 posts
Registered: Feb '04
44054_Mandalore the Ultimate
Date Posted: 8/3/07 7:11am Subject: RE: Shatterpoint: Good lord...
Tricky posted:
The thing about Shatterpoint is that it is the only SW book to my knowledge that was written for a mature/adult audience, as opposed to every other SW book being written for a pre-teen/teen demographic.

I mean try & compare it to something like the Cestus Deception, another CW book dealing with an ongoing war. In there you have sentient eels, Jedi killer droids that hardly kill anyone, a cute but awkward love story between a clonetrooper & real girl & absolutely zero content dealing with the horror that is ground warfare. I liked the Cestus Deception, but it has an altogether different flavor compared to Shatterpoint.



right on!

 

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ausar_vos  172 posts
Registered: Feb '04
44054_Mandalore the Ultimate
Date Posted: 8/3/07 7:15am Subject: RE: Shatterpoint: Good lord...
cbagmjg posted:
I liked it, but yeah, I thought his ROTS was better. There was alot in ROTS book that I wish was in the movie. I have only read like 6 Star Wars novels so far, but Shadow Hunter is probably my favorite on the basis that Darth Maul is a badass character to read. It's too bad he wasn't in more novels.



I can certainly bare witness to that. Shadow Hunter was an extremely well written portrait of Maul. As I often said, Shadow Hunter and the more political Deception should have been the movie script for Ep.1. The story in these two novels are more relevant to the SW saga the PM in my opinion.

Also, SP should have been Episode II as well!

 

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DarthNidLoc  725 posts
Registered: Mar '05
48489_Anakin Skywalker (524091)
Date Posted: 8/3/07 7:50am Subject: RE: Shatterpoint: Good lord...
SlackJawedJedi posted:
It's the book that made horrific wartime violence awesome. No seriously. happy


One of the funniest posts I have seen in a while while at the same time being so true. The only SW author other then Strover to make the Clone wars seem as horrific as they should be is Traviss in the RC novels.

 

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ModernLifeisWar  128 posts
Registered: Apr '07
40308_Boba Fett
Date Posted: 8/3/07 8:34am Subject: RE: Shatterpoint: Good lord...
Charlemagne19 posted:
I used to be a Big Anti-Stover fan.

Then I read Shatterpoint and Revenge of the Sith.

What I love is the fact that he utterly contrasts Vegere/Jacen against Mace Windu.

They have the same thoughts, ideas, and problems with the Force.

....And come to utterly different conclusions.


Thats because Mace was smarter and cooler than those two combined.

 

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dizfactor  7826 posts
Registered: Aug '02
6896_Obi-Wan<br>LEGO
Date Posted: 8/3/07 9:22am Subject: RE: Shatterpoint: Good lord...
DarthNidLoc posted:
SlackJawedJedi posted:
It's the book that made horrific wartime violence awesome. No seriously. happy


One of the funniest posts I have seen in a while while at the same time being so true. The only SW author other then Strover to make the Clone wars seem as horrific as they should be is Traviss in the RC novels.


There's the Blackman/Ching Battle of Jabiim arc in the Republic comics.

 

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ghost_of_a_wookiee  348 posts
Registered: Jul '07
20898_Chewbacca
Date Posted: 8/3/07 11:05am Subject: RE: Shatterpoint: Good lord...
What is everyone smoking? Shatterpoint is far and away the best Stover novel.

Traitor was different. Nothing more. Nothing less. The fact that it was abstract and morally ambiguous throws people off because it's hard to judge it and therefore people either declare the best or the worst.

Revenge of the Sith was excellent until the Mace and Sidious duel ended and then it fell apart. Stover rushed through everything else and that destruction of pacing and detail almost makes it feel like one of the other novelizations.

Shatterpoint is an excellent novel about the nature of war in a Star Wars setting. I won't call it great, but in terms of Star Wars novels it was actually literature rather than pulp.

 

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TwiLekJedi  69991 posts
Title: Classic Trilogy Manager
Registered: Jun '01
49704_H213: Halflife
Date Posted: 8/3/07 11:33am Subject: RE: Shatterpoint: Good lord...
I really didn't get into the whole gritty, horrific, destructive, depressive, sweaty, bloody, gruesome war thing, so Shatterpoint is my least favorite Stover SW novel. I might reread it sometime, esp. before LSatSoM, to see if my opinion changes (it happens), but so far, I really don't like that aspect. It was just a little too much.

I liked the way he handled pain in Traitor much better than the way he handled war in Shatterpoint.

 

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