Lit A Cynical Walk Through the NJO

Back in 2002-2003, I hadn't played KOTOR and it seemed that the future of Star Wars was the future.

 

The problem is, though:

a) people only want to read about the main characters from the movies and TV shows, or at least that's the unshakeable position of books and comics publishers
b) everything is supposedly 'canon' so all the stories 'count'
c) there's no way in the Corellian hells that LFL will allow anything other than one-off adventures with no consequences for the main characters from the movies and TV shows

 

This is true. Zahn has never done a collaborative project inside SW (aside from those short stories with Stackpole). Stover's other books are all standalones. Stackpole collaborated with Zahn and Allston, and he had his books in NJO, so I think he'd have been okay with doing big projects again, it's just that with his problems at Del Rey, it's exceedingly unlikely, unfortunately. Luceno can do standalone or collaborative with equal ease and skill, so if asked I'm sure he'd comply.

Seeing JJM do something as long-spanning as KOTOR (and the Lost Tribe novellas), I think I'd like to see him tackle a long-running series, whether by himself or as a collaboration. With his skill at writing, and Luceno's thing for canon references, I think the two of them could make a great pair-up. I'd never want to see a three-author, nine-book series again, but if they did, I think JJM-Kemp-Luceno could be a great trio (of course, it occurs to me that these are the only three authors we have confirmed as still writing SW books in the NEU).

 

I hope that we get a series following the ST Jedi.

 

Yeah, I don't really expect to see the NJO again. But I didn't expect it beforehand either. The fun of the post-NJO before Disney bought Lucas was seeing how long it took for it to hit rock bottom.

 

What turned out to be the problem with this (one of the things) is that the supporting characters cycled instead of coming into the story, telling their part, and leaving. We get a Boba Fett side story that starts and stops over the course of the series. With the NJO model, we could get a side-story all in one shot - and it made more sense for the characters and flowed better.

 

Exactly. The authors weren't compatible. One wanted to write about Rogue Squadron/Wedge, another wanted to write about Boba, etc. DR should have stopped to see if everyone could work together and if they were on the same page with their characters, their vision for the series, and their political views. In the end, we got rotating stories where the authors would be, in theory, continuing the grand plot, but in practice were just continuing their own story from three books ago. It became like some kind of passive aggressive thing, or some kind of competition. You can really see it toward the end: Aaron and Troy arguing over the type of finale, and even more so when Karen writes the Mandos so powerful that they knee-cap Caedus in Revelation... and then Troy directly rebuts that by having our 'Dark Lord of the Sith' wipe out a whole team of them in the next book. It just didn't work.

I think the NJO just lucked out. As DigitalMessiah pointed out, it was a sort of lightning in a bottle thing. Yes, the NJO was incredibly ambitious, but if you looked at it and compared it to LOTF and FOTJ, it was also pretty unorganized. You have your five hardcovers that cap off each year of the series, but between them was chaos. Authors were dropping out, picking up extra books, losing books, etc. Four books between one hard cover, two between another. A trilogy here, a duology there and a bunch of stand-alones over here.
What's more, there was still much of that thematic disorganization as well. Corran shows up and is a main character for two books, then is completely left behind for much of the series. Droma is introduced as a major new character, then abandoned. Rogue Squadron is brought in, but only comes back when authors want to play with them. Ikrit's prophecy is left untouched, so is the 'Insiders' idea that was introduced as a major plot line. Hell, The Final Prophecy is all about Tahiri and Corran right before the final book, and then they are essentially forgotten in TUF. So, the NJO still has some of the same issues as the series that follow it. It just worked, in the end. There were some amazing books in the series, and the chaos of the different authors actually, in the end, drowned out any one person's crazy point of view. I also think a large reason of its success was Luceno doing a bang-up job of concluding the series. I remember on these boards right before TUF came out- no one thought that all the series' loose ends could be tied up satisfactorily in one book. And then... they were.

 

What exactly is Stackpole's beef with DR? I've heard this before, but not exactly what it's about.

 

I am not familiar with Stackpole's issues with Del Rey either, since I got into all of this after he had already left Star Wars.

 

He has problems with the editor at Del Rey.

 

i would like to see a new njo written like the old one for the NU

 

Do we know what problems?

How do you mean?

 

What'd be the point? It wouldn't give you the experience you had way back when reading NJO first time around.

 

well it would not be identical. It would not even have to have Vong. But it needs to be about the formation of a New jedi order, and have the same diversity of characters and a huge threat from somewhere to deal with. In the end they all come togather and defeat said threat through the force. kind of like the end of JAT

 

For some reason I like NJO Kyp Durron where I couldn't stand JAT Kyp Durron. I think it is because he is an author's pet in JAT and an actual antagonist in the NJO.

 

right. i agree. and at the end he and Luke finally got along better and Kyp actually showed some maturity near the end.

 

Too bad trillions of red-shirts died for their epiphanies.

 

I didn't get the sense that JAT Kyp is an author's pet, he's just written by KJA.

 

when was Luke ever at fault ? Kyp was the one that destroyed a planet at a whim

 

I assume he is referring to the NJO, and seems to be assuming that trillions wouldn't have died if Luke fully committed the Jedi to fighting on the front lines from day one?

 

I'm assuming he's referring to Luke doing nothing more than giving Kyp a timeout after everything he did in JAT.

I need to crack JAT open because I don't even remember Luke being particularly disturbed.

 

Well that's because he's suffering the handicap of being written by KJA.

Edit: I dunno if WEG or KJA is to blame for this idea of the dark side corruption and the consequent abrogation of personal responsibility. The dark side made me do it.

 

And bingo!

Which is why I dislike NJO - take it seriously and you end up in some very unpleasant territory. With no way out.

..... Which is why TUF remains the greatest escape trick in the EU-that-was.

(Seems odd there was no consequence to the politicians' mass betrayal of their constituents nor their hamstringing of the war effort too.)

 

Idk, I take it seriously enough and I don't find it particularly unpleasant, and even if I did I find that there are several ways out.

I guess that's because I just don't agree with what I think you're saying in regards to the death toll, Jedi action and epiphanies.