WWDRD? Del Ray and the Legacy Line

So, what will Del Ray(or whoever recieves the next contract) do when the novels meet the line set by DH and Legacy?

-Will they write new novels in that time-frame to add depth, working w/ DH?
-Skip over it, pulling the same stunt DH did, and continue in like 230ABY?
-Slow down novel rates in the Legacy era, and expand in other time frames (ie Sith era, pre-TPM, fill gaps in post-Endor material NJO-DN, DN-LotF)?
-Or will they try something else.....

Discuss

 

Options 1 and 3 seem the most likely.

 

I hope they put novels beyond the Legacy comic era, and also some character centric novels during it. What I expect them to do during the main novel era is to continue to feel constrained by DH, bringing out rather feeble novels with unnecessary and badly done connections to the comics, slowly moving towards the comic era.

A limiting factor will likely be that large number of the future novels will be tied to the Clone Wars and Live TV series. During the Dark Times era DR will then be constrained by those series... I also expect DR to basically abandon the years between 1-41 ABY and that when the KOTOR MMO finally comes out, we will get at least one novel tied to it.

So, I hope it's 2 and think that it's a scaled down versions of 1 and 3.

 

There's no evidence for this, by the way. Seeing as LotF was planned independently, and that LFL approved both projects, it's likely that the quality of the novels has nothing to do with any other projects.

 

Personally I wish Del Ray would do what Dark Horse are doing and not limit themselves to focusing on one era. While its generally agreed KOTOR and Legacy are the more popular of the four DH series, all four get the same attention, we don't get more Legacy/KOTOR than Rebellion/DT (ignoring the temporary hiatus for Dark Times and Rebellion).

With Del Ray though the only guaranteed novels we have are the continuing adventures in the Post-ROTJ timeframe. We get the occassional novel in other eras, such as the Darth Bane books, the RC books, etc, but the main focus always seems to be the "continuing adventures". I appreciate the adult novels tend to be read by slightly older fans, so they need to appeal to the OT generation, but likewise I tend to assume its the older generation who like stuff like Legacy and KOTOR above the more children based Clone Wars stuff.

I do think they've been doing better the last year or so with Coruscant Nights, and the upcoming Shadows of Mindor, providing us with a bit more variety. But it'd be nice to know that there was another NOTOR on the horizon, that there'd be at least one "Old Old Republic" novel each year, the same way we know we're going to continue to get KOTOR from DH. Things like CN or SoM seem to be a rare gift, as opposed to something we can be sure of.

I'd also potentially enjoy them taking a leaf out of DH's book and doing a "future series". We could still have the "continuing adventures" but instead of 9 book series, maybe just a 6 book series, with a separate trilogy set in, say, 80 ABY, even if just to "test the waters" to see how well Post-ROTJ stuff sells without the Big Three around. Even a non-Big Three series in 50 ABY could help them gauge how much they truly need to keep having Luke Skywalker be the one to save the day, instead of retiring him to a Yoda role. Right now I can't help but feel worried whether they'll be thinking "LOTF wasn't well received, Luke should have killed Jacen not Jaina".

 

Was NOTOR a typo or am I missing something?

 

Novel Of The Old Republic.

Like DBoD:ANOTOR.

 

I think there is. Without Legacy and it's Sith Emperor who rules large part of the galaxy, wouldn't DR been a little bit bolder and let Jacen really take over the galaxy and start calling himself His Imperial Majesty?

There's no reason why DR couldn't really have done it now too, but they didn't and it looks to me like they are now scared of doing anything truly epic or great scale that would change things because of Legacy. Yet they still plan plots on epic scales, they just kill them and the villain off just as the thing gets interesting and then we have return to status quo and a few more links to the Legacy comic.

In my opinion, DR sould ask LFL for a right to start a new novel series far beyond Legacy so that they could not only plan but do things on an epic scale and change the galaxy, instead of LotF's "He would have taken over the galaxy if he wouldn't have been killed at the last minute" -plot, which made Jacen a kind of James Bond villain - they can never succeed. I'll expect to see many others in the same vein in the future.

 

Personally if they were going to start up a new mega series in a totally unexplored time frame I think I'd rather it be in the past, something to do with Darth Ruin perhaps, or any of the other unexplored territory of the New Sith Wars.

 

That's wishful speculation, not evidence.

 

Yeah, instead of anything epic, they are ruining the whole story and continuity one little chip at a time. They are ironically just like the Senate of the Old rRepublic, "Whilst the body was sound, the head grew feeble and rotted from within......"

Ouch, harsh.............

 

Actually, Rouge, the backstory of Legacy was run by the authors of Legacy of the Force (Link). If they had planned to put Jacen in power as an evil Sith Lord at the end of the series, they would have told Ostrander and Duursema so, and it's likely that Legacy would have been different, not LOTF, as Ostrander and Duursema stated that they were taking into account and working with what was happening in LOTF (Link). Del Rey's plans for LOTF were not affected by Legacy --- the evidence strongly points in the contrary direction.

 

I don't frankly put much weight on this claims, as people involved in the series say different things. I have read claims that even Jacen's final fate was left undecided almost to the end, even that it was Denning's to decide in Invincible, and even if these claims are wrong, the plans for LotF seem to have changed much even after the first books had come out - just think of the chronology. Legacy couldn't have taken these changes into account as it launched at the same time as LotF.

I think that large part of these claims about the planning of LotF are probably just polite nonsensical PR.

There are few things in Legacy that might be the result of LotF - Legacy Vergere is clearly LotF Vergere - and the mention of Darth Caedus (wrongly written, though) is of course a certain example of influence of LotF to Legacy. But Legacy has influenced LotF more: Just think of the One Sith and Jagged Fel in LotF. One Sith wouldn't be there without Legacy, it's certain, and without Legacy, Jagged Fel might not have appeared at all and certainly his meteoric rise to power can be explained only by Legacy. Legacy has nothing similar from LotF.

 

It would be great if the Sith-Imperial war was covered by Del Rey.

 

I agree that his sudden rise to power was due to Legacy, but Jagged Fel was intended to be in LOTF with or without Legacy.

 

As far as the Jacen-Legacy comic issue goes, I don't think it would have mattered what happened to Jacen. What they mention of Jacen in Legacy was vague enough that they could have done just about anything.

He could have ruled for 20 years or something, and Legacy continuity would still be fine.

In fact, it almost would have made more sense, it terms of what was said of him in Legacy, if Jasen was a Sith for a longer period of time.

 

L

We saw the overview for LotF and they saw our overview. They made the choice to include the One Sith in the series. It was a CHOICE that was made. Those are the facts and not polite PR. We could not use more of LotF without giving their story away; they, OTOH, could use our elements because those elements had already appeared.

 

IMHO, we need LEGACY era novels. ANYTHING for my LEGACY goodness

 

My point, bad expressed as it was, was intended to be close to this. Just that Legacy influenced LotF more than LotF influenced Legacy, because the past has to be in agreement with "today".

 

And your assumption has always been that it was done grudgingly, with a sense that DH had ruined everything. It's equally likely that they chose to include things from Legacy because they thought it would be cool.

 

Please no more massive jump-skipping.

Del Rey does another 9 book series (Fate of the Jedi); then skips to the year 300ABY, so that its what - 50-60 years post-Legacy comics - and then that limits/hampers the Legacy comic line. So by issue #45; DH stops Legacy and then they jump to 400ABY; and then this hampers Del Rey; so they eventually jump to 550ABY, etc, etc, etc.

As much as I LOVE the Legacy comics; overall I think it was actually a bad idea to do a not-so-massive jump; if they were going to do a jump it should have been straight to like 350ABY rather than 240ABY (of course; the problem is the current background storyline for how Legacy was set-up wouldn't really work though).

 

DR can ruin things quite well on it's own, as the last couple of books of LotF showed. One could say that the inclusion of cool things should go vice versa too, but there weren't all that many cool things in LotF in the end I guess.

What comes to the borrowed elements of Legacy in LotF, One Sith had promise but didn't in the end tie to the main plot all that much and what comes to the founding of the Imperial Mission and establishment of the Fel rule over IR, the less said the better.

 

Legacy happens (at the moment) between 130-137 ABY.

 

Since Legacy is pretty popular now, I think DelRey / anyone else would use some of the many opportunities the era offers.
They may explore other timeframes as well. I remember a year ago or so, Sue Rostoni talked about KOTOR/Revan novel/project post-2010...

 

Considering that Bioware is doing a KOTOR MMO, a tie-in novel or novels is pretty much certain. When the game is eventually released, that is.