"A Disappointed Fluke" or "Star by Star...The Disappointing Book"

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I've recently finished Star by Star, the much acclaimed and revered newest addition to the New Jedi Order series. Many of you JCers lauded it, claiming it to be, "...the best book in the EU by far!" "...amazing!" and much, much more.

But I was rather let down. You're probably asking, "Why, Fluke?" (Don't deny it). I'll tell you why:

1) Mr. Denning had a hard time describing the battle scenes on both the Myrkr worldship and the Battle of Coruscant. When the Jedi strike team was hunting the queen voxyn, I had a hard time understanding where exactly they were, and what was happening around them.

As for the battle of Coruscant, he seemed to lose control of the battle. It seemed as if there were too many ships for him to know what to do.

2) The way Mr. Denning compared stellar objects to every day things was rather annoying. For instance:

"The worldship was thumb sized in the viewport." ... "The worldship grew to the size of an arm." ... "It was now the size of a Kuati plate," etc.

4) The Jedi strike team was, in and of itself, a terrible idea. Why were these young, immature Jedi sent to kill the queen voxyn, deep in Yuuzhan Vong territory? I believe some of the more experienced Jedi should've gone, including Kyp, Kam, Corran, etc. Anakin was not a very good leader. He kept letting Jedi after Jedi get killed.

I also do not think all 3 of the Solo kids should've gone along together. They let their emotions and close bonds get in the way with each other. This was a reason why Jaina went psycho.

5) Borsk's death. Why did Borsk have to die? He was the epitome of what a politician should be. All throughout his existence, I supported him. Many people criticized him, by saying he was too gruff, backstabbing, etc. Guess what? That's the way politicians should be in the GFFA. They're constantly under durress. He was a stoic leader, and fought to preserve some semblance of government.

I also did not like the way he died. Just *poof* and he's gone. No foreshadowin at all. While I guess this could be a good thing, as it will surprise the readers, I would've preferred more of an homage.

For now, that's all for Fluke's periodic rants and rumbles. Please reply to my statements, and post your own opinions of Star by Star.

 

I agree Fluke(well that is indeed a first)Mr. Denning did a horrible time describing the Mykr mission. Half the time I thought they were on the planet. Exactly what the hell did happen?

 

4) The Jedi strike team was, in and of itself, a terrible idea. Why were these young, immature Jedi sent to kill the queen voxyn, deep in Yuuzhan Vong territory? I believe some of the more experienced Jedi should've gone, including Kyp, Kam, Corran, etc. Anakin was not a very good leader. He kept letting Jedi after Jedi get killed.

And the Vong would have noticed how easy they took out the masters and Knights, and killed them there and then. A group of youngsters was believable. Less experience, more naive. The Vong would see this as luck for them. This was all in there, when Luke said he wanted to lead

 

i also agree with chissdude. I got confused a few times there. i also agree with the jedi strike team. they should have used all older more experianced jedi. The jedi should have also been more aggressive, not to the point of goin to the dark side. A lot of jedi are startin to get just a tad bit soft in my eyes compared to the old days of the empire and the clone wars.

but other than that i liked the book

 

Yeah, that's the only thing that felt wrong with SBS... The Jedi on the Worldship : where exactly were they ? Inside, outside, where ? But otherwise it definitively replaced Darksaber at my personal best SW novel.

 

i agree with the worldship descriptions being hard to follow but obviously u people hav not read all the rest of the njo books. compared to BP, SbS is waaaaaaaaaayyyy better. id rather listen to n'sync then read BP again. SbS is lot better than anything we've seen so far, so dont dis it.

"disappointing book". hahahaha. u disappoint me...

 

I disagree. Star by Star is far from a disappointing book. In fact, I believe it is one of the best EU books ever. Troy Denning described the battle scenes on the worldship and the battle of Coruscant perfectly to me. I can agree about the confusion on whether they were on the worldship or the planet but that doesn't distract from the book. I agree with ReaperFett's assessment of the jedi strike team.

 

I am entitled to my opinion, you know.

And, just for the record, I've read the entire NJO, and have been thoroughly disappointed and apalled by the entire series.

EDIT: I was talking to Even_Piell, who told me not to "dis it," referring to Star by Star.

 

As are we.

R.

 

Hear, hear, Fluke!

Borsk should of survived.

 

I enjoyed SbS and Dark Tide most out of all NJO

I agree that the Mykyr bits were very hard to follow

The rest was all good

 

Frankley I thought a Mixture of Kyps generation and The NJO bunch could have been better. And sending 3 members of the same family was a bit much. Jaina wasn't realy needed.

Other than that its a good book no real complaints.

I would have done thing a little diffrent But what'cha gonna do?

 

*spoiler alert*

Well, I had no problem with the book, with Mr. Denning's overall writing style. The Mykyr battle wasn't very clear, though.

My main nitpick, however, was the rather adult themes in the book. Yes, I realize that SW is not just for kids, but we must keep in mind that small children (including my younger siblings) are often the GFFA's biggest fans.

For instance; Tsavong Lah sits naked in his chambers, and is interrupted by a female named Seef. He is going to kill her, but realizes that it is not "honorable" to do so. So instead, he sends her to his chambers to "prepare herself and await him". Although we are not made privy to the details, rape and/or sex is still implied.

Smaller children may not pick up on this, but violence is abundant, including Tekli sticking her arm all the way into Anakin's stomach wound; and infants being hung upside down from their feet and shaken violently, while the distressed mother looks onward.

All in all, the book was good, but it was NOT for children.

This is my personal opinion, and was not made to offend anyone.

 

I can understand your problems with all but #2 -- but what's wrong with giving some reference?

 

5) Borsk's death. Why did Borsk have to die? He was the epitome of what a politician should be. All throughout his existence, I supported him. Many people criticized him, by saying he was too gruff, backstabbing, etc. Guess what? That's the way politicians should be in the GFFA. They're constantly under durress. He was a stoic leader, and fought to preserve some semblance of government.

I also did not like the way he died. Just *poof* and he's gone. No foreshadowin at all. While I guess this could be a good thing, as it will surprise the readers, I would've preferred more of an homage.

Though most of your points have some merit, I have to disagree with this. Borsk's imminent demise was clear by the end of Rebirth. There are several things in Star Wars so closely associated with the Republic that they have come to represent it's power. The Jedi are one. Coruscant is another. So is the military. And Borsk, Chancellor of the NR, is yet another. The Jedi that survive have left the NR. Coruscant fell. The fleet has was scattered across the galaxy. It's only logical that Borsk, symbol of the Republic's political power, would die as well.

Besides, lots of readers wanted him dead. I give Denning credit for letting Borsk die heroically. Sure, he killed Fey'lya. But can you name one author who treated the Bothan with more respect than Denning did?

As for the rest- I did find the worldship mission somewhat confusing, but the siege on Coruscant wasn't too difficult to follow. Sending all three Solos along on the same mission may have been an error on the part of the Jedi, but that doesn't necessarily mean that Denning messed up.

 

sure ur entitled to ur own opinions Fluke, but so am i. i was merely commenting on ur opinion. call it an opinion on an opinion if u want. and also i think njo is the best series yet because its the only one that gives us some hard-core action and allows seemingly invincible characters to die. so Fluke, my opinion is u hav a bad opinion on njo. (and sbs)

 

Im going to have to agre with sith1137 , the jedi have all become way to soft. there all way to scared to attack and kill, because that leads to the dark side killing somthing that dont attack you or shows no aggresion. ( i dont know how it works exactly) but i do believe the vong has taken over more then half the galaxy , so i think that is a big enough signal that you can attack and kill as many vong as you want at any time you want cause if you dont they will kill you first.

So im basically siding with Kyp and say kill before your galaxy is gone

 

SBS was a good book but one problem with this story is the mission was completed and there was no planned way to get them out.
that makes this a suicide mission and that is not the jedi way.

 

The original plan was to simply destroy the worldship and run. There was no planned escape because the Jedi never planned to land. After they realized that there were humans being held by the Vong, they had to improvise.

 

Time for Reno's Two Cents.....

I was also confused during the battles, etc......but that's not fair to Denning, because I get confused during every battle I read. From Zahn to Stackpole to Cavelos to Card to Tolkien to Crispin....I just can't visualize images like that and put them in my head. So while I was confused with the Myrkr thing, I was also somewhat confused during every other SW book....So I can't really give criticism or defense there.

Borsk dying was a neccesity. I didn't like it because he was my fav character, and it's always sad to see your fav go....but at the same time, I loved it. I thought it was the right decision at this time, and I would've been more surprised had he survived the book. At this point in the story, the NR needs to focus on forming a fighting force and eventually rebuilding....that IS NOT a job that Borsk can do, and as he said, he can't be anything else. He is what he is, and that's a conniving politician. And Borsk knew that what the NR doesn't need now is a conniving, power hungry politician. At the same time, he knew that now that he's been the leader of the galaxy, he couldn't do anything else. He's a person who needs power who would've been forced into a position where he had none....that is worse than death to a character like Borsk. There just wasn't room for him in the story. A great choice to kill him off, and very well done.

In fact, I predicted his death almost exactly as it happened long ago (when the NJO started). Except I had him being killed by Nom Anor inside the Senate Chamber after the Vong had taken Coruscant, and he was the only one who stayed behind, to heroically accept his death. Props to me...oh yeah.

Either way, as great a character as Borsk was (and more consistent than any other character in SW) he just had to go.

 

mos def. the worldship hood shikaka was so confusing i had to put the book down and think hard before picking it back up. i even SKIPPED a coupla pages, which i hardly EVER do. too bad they dont have Cliff's Notes on star wars.

 

I was even more disappointed/disgusted than Fluke by Star by Star.

#1: One of the few points I thought Denning could deliver on (based on other books of his I've read) and he didn't.

#2: A minor, personal, irritant that is just one more problem with SbS as a whole.

#4: The strike was poorly thought out on both sides, poorly thought out, porrly executed all on fronts. Poorly thought out both in the team, the makeup of the team, the size of the team, how it was handed over (somebody among the YV should have been more suspicious of that many Jedi being kept under control and handed over so easily. That was asking for a disaster begging to happen using Lando and the Lady Luck. Both should be high on the YV's alert list and I don't remember Lando using any disguise at all.

#5: When I knew Borsk died all I wanted was for him to die and not be a hero. Not be a martyr and Denning in a dumb mistake makes Fey'lya a hero. What Fey'lya did was not heroic and nothing else in his career ever was. It's his own fault he was killed.

Overall pretty disappointing for me (considering I wasn't expecting much, I saw through the hype and remembered how Denning writes a book) and it surpasses Ruin for sure as the worst NJO book.

Personally I'd rather reread a KJA or Hambly, etc. type bad SW story than reread part of SbS.

 

Another gripe I have was the situation with Viqi Sesh. That was ridiculous. Trying to kindap Ben? *coughREDUNDANTcough*

I do have a question, though. What was the deal with The Mon Mothma? Is she dead?

 

Why would Lando be high up? Hes a nobody. He did things 20 years ago. Doesnt mean the Vong can watch them all. All Lando now is is a businessman with ties

 

I thought that SbS was an incredible book. Your complaints about it are feasable, but it does not take away with the quality of the writing in the other scenes.

I thought that he portrayed the characters very well and had a nice twist of good to bad throughout the battles.

The Myrkr battle was unclear at first but started to make a little sense to me after a little while, but I thought that the Coruscant battle was fine.

Also, Borsk's death as a hero was probably a good thing over all. It gave the NR citizens a hero other than the jedi to look up to for courage and I think will enspire them to fight twice as hard as before.

This is unfortunate because I want the NR and the rest of the galaxy to fall to the Vong and then have the next books be about them and disention in the ranks that breaks them up from the inside and lets the native populace to repopulate the galaxy