A question about current SW novels

I haven't read any of the novels from the past few years (I think the most recent one I finished was DARKSABER), but I've been curious lately.

Has the issue of characters' ages come up in the current novels or ones within the last few years? I don't know how long after A NEW HOPE the NEW JEDI ORDER is supposed to be, but I imagine it must be years, and I was just curious if any novels--even if briefly--had featured moments were characters realize they're not as young as they used to be.

Soft of like how Harrison Ford has said he'd like for Indiana Jones in INDY 4 to have moments where he realizes he's not the young, up-for-any-kind-of-adventure-type person he used to be.

Does anyone know what I'm saying? Even my own words look a little confusing.

 

The NJO is set 25 ABY (After the Battle of Yavin).

 

Ah. Which would put Han at about 54, seeing as how he was 29 in ANH, and Luke and Leia both around 43 or so.

 

If you go by the age actually presented in Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker (aka A New Hope), Luke and Leia would actually be 45.

 

The novelization says they're 20 in A NEW HOPE? Every mention I've ever seen of their ages state them as being 18, from A GUIDE TO THE STAR WARS GALAXY to THE STAR WARS ENCYCLOPEDIA.

 

Spacehunter, do you know of that very first Star Wars: A New Hope book? The one that says was written by George lucas, but I think was actually Alan Foster. It's nothing like what SW books are now.

Mine was getting yellow a decade ago; the pages mustbe orange by now! In that one it had a line "Luke was twice the age of his 10yo moisture vaporator."

Just discount it. It was waaaay long ago.

 

There are a few references to characters feeling their age, but not much. Really, the only age issues to arise in recent years has been the age foul-ups for the Solo twins in a few of the NJO books before the error was fixed. That's about it.

 

There may have been some talk about it. The characters are looking older on the covers.

 

In Destiny's Way, set about 27-28 years ABY (nearing the end of the NJO) Han, in the middle of a fight against the alien invaders, finds himself utterly exhausted, and covered in sweat and figures he's getting "too old for this"

Horn out

 

Luke and Leia were 18 in ANH.

 

How about Lando in Rebel Dream, who, while crawling his way across a battlefield to avoid being clipped by a thud bug, repeats "I'm too old for this; I need a drink. I'm too old for this; I need a drink." over and over again.

 

It actually says that Luke was twice the age of the ten year old vaporator he was working on when we first meet him in the book. Twice means twenty years old, not 18. Seems that it was later that he was 18. We'll see in the next movie.

 

That same novel also says Leia is 18.

18 is the correct age, because it is the age that is used throughout the EU.

 

Local Tatooine calender, is not the same as Local Alderaanian calender. Alderaan has a 11 month calender system for instance, which was used in conjunction with the Galactic Standard calender. It explains away the descrepancy of why one is 20 and the other 18 in ANH, because of different calender systems, and one planet having shorter years than the other.

 

They are obviously the same age going by the galactic standard calender, but by local calenders the ages are offset from each other.

 

How about Lando? He's a major character, really, but he tends to get written as "supporting" roles to others. It was great to see him in Outcast!

If his age is mentioned eben vaguely, t'd be in The Hutt Gambit, where Solo and he met up. It might've been mentioned Lando was a bit older, the way Wedge is to Luke.

 

How come you haven't read any more books ? They are qiut good.

 

Lando is 2 years older than Han.

 

"How come you haven't read any more books? They are qiut good."

I read a lot of them that were being published in the early- and mid-90s. But I eventually just started to lose interest in them. It seemed like every book just had recycled plots and nothing interesting.

I started to read the NEW JEDI ORDER series when it started a few years ago, but when I found out they killed off Chewie in the first book, I decided not to. I'm kind of glad I did, because I've heard mostly negative reviews for the entire NJO series: one of Han and Leia's kids (Anakin?) was killed off, popular planets were completely destroyed, writers started giving Han and Leia personal problems, etc. Now I even hear the rumors that some are expecting they may even kill off Luke(!!) in the final NJO book. What's up with that?

I'll just stick to rereading the earlier ones, which always entertain me no matter how many times I've read them.

 

You should give the NJO a try. I have all of the books and I kinda like the NEW direction. Rebel Dream and Rebel Stand are very good. I enjoyed Traitor. Don't listen to all of the complaining. Change is good.

 

All of the NJO is quite good. Don't let little things like Chewie's death keep you from enjoying the series.

Besides, Chewie was hard for authors to write. Often, they would just write something like "What's that Chewie? You say Timmy has fallen down the well?"

 

I just don't think I could read a STAR WARS book with Han but not Chewie. It just wouldn't feel right. It'd be hard, anyway, for me to get into NJO now because there's so many books. It would take me forever (and cost a lot) to catch up.

 

Where in the novel is Leia's age ever mentioned?

 

I don't recall her age ever actually being mentioned, but I always figured it was the same as Luke's since they were born at the same time.

 

That's usually what happens with twins

Think about it this way : in a nineteen-book series, naturally you will get great, good, average and bad novels. So far, the NJO hasn't been perfect, but there have been very few bad novels as opposed to good/average, and there have been some really great ones, so i'd recommend giving it a shot.

And let's face it, most of the big changes to the basic structure of the SW universe during the Bantam days occured during the first few years. Han and Leia got married, had kids, the New Republic was set up, Luke established an Academy for Jedi Knights. By 1995, there were no more significant changes to be made, so for several years mainstream Bantam novels took on the same basic structure and you really felt like you were living the same story over and over (e.g. one of the Bantam staples was the Solo kids getting captured, kidnapped or had kidnap attempts launched at them). The sense of familiarity was there.

Part of the X-wing series success was (apart from its humour) because it was a change of pace, it didn't follow the rest of the Bantam novels, it had unpredictability (to an extent). Similar thing with the Tales novels, you didn't know what was going to happen.

Perhaps i don't agree with everything the NJO has done, but i applaud its action. Change, for better or worse, is always more exciting than the same adventure over and over again.