Lit A Cynical Walk Through the NJO

Characters like that usually make the series for me, because they absolutely know how bad everything is, but they're determined not only not to let it affect their demeanor, but they make an even bigger effort to be supremely annoying and immature. But when everything gets shot to pieces they scragging know how to be serious, and they usually waste the bad guys harder than most anyone else can.

 

It just occurred to me, but is Betrayal supposed to be a pun on Traitor?


YOU MANIACS! YOU BLEW IT UP!

 

DigitalMessiah, I have been thinking that ever since I heard the title and found out what LotF managed to do to the NJO and Traitor.

 

I think the closest I came to recognizing the possible intent was that I gave the title as much credence in terms of sincerity as I did Traitor when it was first released. Alas...

Otherwise, it was just literally a "Wait a minute. That was our planet!" moment for me.

 

Random thought about Czulkang Lah -

I remember reading a thread a long while ago (maybe here, don't recall) where the question was "if the Yuuzhan Vong were in empty space for so long, how did he ever get to fight wars and become a military genius?" The consensus in that thread was that they must've been wars between the Yuuzhan Vong, since there was nobody else to fight.

Reading Rebel Dream again last week, another explanation occurred to me - the Vong have been staking out the galaxy for at least fifty years, right? Maybe Lah was simply engaged in battles out on the fringes of the galaxy (especially in the Unknown Regions, where the Chiss had already fought them in the prequel era). It would explain why he'd thought so much about the "how to think like an infidel without being contaminated" thing, and it might also explain why he opposed the invasion - being involved in the initial probes might have convinced him that the GFFA was too tough a nut to crack.

 

I really wish the Insiders had gone somewhere, instead it went into limbo. Great review Ben but why no mention of Operation: Emperor's Hammer? Or did I miss it?

 

Czulkang Lah is an interesting character. He's a veteran of a war we've never seen, venerated amongst the highest levels of the Yuuzhan Vong hierarchy and respected by even the Warmaster, his own son; I get the impression that the only reason that he is no longer Warmaster himself is because of his advanced age; Tsavong took advantage of his age and stripped his title from him but, out of respect for a hero, let him live. In many ways, Czulkang is the most un-Vong like Vong officer or leader we've seen to this point. He teaches tactics that are almost heretical: know your opponent, don't underestimate your opponents, and, most of all, learn from your mistakes and live to fight another day.

Something did this to him; something turned him into the General Rommel of the Yuuzhan Vong. A question I don't think we'll ever get an answer for is: what?

I mentioned it a couple of times toward the end, but I didn't feel like I had room to cover it fully. I did love it, though, it was one of the high points of the book and the best military moment in the entire series to this point. I went to look for artwork of it and there is none; how is there not artwork of this out there somewhere? There's nothing about it that isn't awesome: A Super Star Destroyer doing exactly what it was designed to do and raining fire on an alien presence that we've been wanting to see get this throughout of a bashing since Vector Prime. This is just Base Delta Zero lite, motherkarkers, take that to your war god in your prayers.

 

I don't have the books in front of me, but I always got the sense that he was forced from his position when he picked the wrong side of a political battle (whether to invade or not).

 

So maybe he backed Quoreal, or simply by being his warmaster lost his position.

 

Do anybody know were I can find this thread? I would like to read it

 

Czulkang Lah versus Ar'alani.

If Czulkang Lah was the warmaster under Quoreal that might preclude him fighting anyone from the GFFA, as there's an implication that the encounter with Zonama Sekot in 30 ABY was the first conflict between the Yuuzhan Vong and the GFFA, and occurred under Quoreal, and it convinced him not to invade the GFFA. If Czulkang was deposed as warmaster as a consequence of the coup de'tat, he would not have been able to engage the Chiss Ascendancy. Plus Thrawn implies the Chiss defeated whatever force they encountered.

I'm inclined to think that Czulkang Lah fought some Unknown Region powers that we don't know about, because service under Quoreal would seem to preclude him fighting anyone. I don't recall precisely but it sounded like the coup was more of a decapitation of the leadership rather than a conflict of any sort of scale.

 

Reminds me of the fall of the Ezo Republic at the end of the Meji restoration, the president wanted to go down fighting but his Commander in Chief told him "If it's dying you want you can do that anytime".

Also love how awesome the Super Star Destroyer is, bombards the YV then rams a world ship when everything is over.

 

Finishing "Rebel Stand." And...

"You persist in being an idiot. I am proud to say I did not train you. You would have been my most repellent failure."

"There is something wrong with the infidel ship!"
"I should hope so, given the damage we have inflicted on it."

I think I might actually like this Magnificent Bastard better than Thrawn. Between those two lines and the Blackmoon Eleven conversation, I just cracked up three times in front of the entire ZeeBurger restaurant. Thank you, Aaron Allston. Warts and all, you've still got it.

 

I remember that Rebel Dream and Rebel Stand were actually the first NJO books I read.

At age nine, my aunt signed me up for the Science Fiction Book Club. I got five (or maybe six) books with the subscription. So (remember I was nine) I got Jedi Trial (it had Anakin on the cover), the Original Trilogy omnibus (because I knew the story), Edge of Victory omnibus (it had Luke on the cover), Star by Star, Enemy Lines omnibus (it had Leia, Han, and Wedge on the cover), and MedStar omnibus. When they arrived in the mail, I powered through the OT omnibus and Jedi Trial (despite all the military talk, it was very easy for a nine-year-old to read, especially one who was an avid G.I.Joe fan), but I was intimidated by the other ones and let them sit for years.

At age thirteen or so, I decided to read the Enemy Lines omnibus (at the time I was more of a Transformers fan and didn't really care what order the books went in). I loved it. First of all, it was my first introduction to Piggy, who I instantly fell in love with–hello, talking good-guy Gamorrean! Also, at thirteen I didn't quite care about girls yet but I was starting to without really knowing it, and oddly I found something very sexy (though I wouldn't have used that word at the time) about Jaina's Goddess act (I don't really know why, though). I also loved the sense of humor the Wraiths seemed to share. Plus, it had Luke, Leia, and Han, so score!

This duology is definitely one of the best points of the series. Only a few books actually beat these out. I have reread them at least three times since then and I love them more each time (Wedge sharing his blaster at the Insider's table was unquestionably awesome, for example, and I didn't really pick up on it at thirteen).

 

That's not a canon image, is it? If so, where is it from? I've only ever seen two canon images of, ahem...him...and that isn't one of them.

 

It's fanart, but I believe it's more accurate to the description than the 'canon' image from the Jedi Academy Training Manual.

 

I'm not a fan of the JATM pic, no.

 

I'm not a fan of Lord Nyax!

 

Nyax was something I encountered while browsing the Wook years ago, back when I was still in high school and devoured all of the Star Wars books I could get my hands on. And even from the Wook's normal dry, academic prose, I thought it was a highly silly idea. I honestly don't even understand why he's a thing, but I haven't read the book yet, so, I'll probably post more thoughts as I actually get to him.

 

It's a concept that can't be improved upon. The NJO has a lot of divergent subplots that help power some of its novels, and Lord Nyax is by far the most bizarre and pointless of them. Gorefiend mentioned that Allston wanted to do something else but it was turned down so he used Nyax.

Maybe a Vongerella analog or some sort of Yuuzhan Vong or Vong-galaxy creature capable of commanding the Force but otherwise lacking sapience like Nyax would have better served the plot. Or some shaped Yuuzhan Vong Slayer-prototype with a Force connection. Maybe that's what got rejected and Nyax is the fill-in? I think it would have worked much better, and if my idle speculation is accurate, that's a shame.

 

Vongerella ?

 

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Vongerella

 

Okej, my reaction to this is: How? When? How?