Lit After the NJO ended, where did you expect the EU to go?

Agree to both. Though the part with Raynar becoming a Killik again was the only thing I actually found emotional in that book. I hope they get him back okay.

 

I was sad when Raynar became a Joiner again. His story throughout FOTJ was one of the best parts. Just like Alema was engaging in LOTF. Here's hoping as well.

 

I was sad when Raynar became a Joiner again. His story throughout FOTJ was one of the best parts. Just like Alema was engaging in LOTF. Here's hoping as well.[/quote]

Wait, WHAT? They reversed the one positive character development of the entire LotF series? How did I never hear about this?

*flips desk* Forget it. I'm never reading FotJ now, ever. There's nothing in that series that makes it worth my time.

 

Wait, WHAT? They reversed the one positive character development of the entire LotF series? How did I never hear about this?

*flips desk* Forget it. I'm never reading FotJ now, ever. There's nothing in that series that makes it worth my time.[/quote]
Oops. Spoiler alert!

 

Considering that I abandoned Star Wars fandom for years after reading Vector Prime (because the Yuuzhan Vong were stupid, not because of Chewie's death) and that a tremendous number of people who I spoke to about Star Wars at that time had the same sentiments - I recall lots of interest in Galaxies and lots of effort to pretend the NJO wasn't happening - the broad-based rejection of the NJO did not surprise me in the slightest.

I did not expect that Del Rey would compound one massive failure to understand the biology of science fiction in the Yuuzhan Vong by an arguably worse one in the Killiks. I did not expect a transition further from experienced space opera authors over to a cadre of former TSR employees. I thought they would act more cautiously after the controversial results of a massive 19 book marathon, rather than engage in an experimental round-robin format for two nine books series.

 

I think a lot of my expectations rested in the notion that the EU wouldn't be subject to another major series in a while. Trilogies, a duology here or there, maybe some books with complementing POVs. But nothing along the line of LOTF or FOTJ. I expected the wound Luke received at the end of TUF to place him in a supervisor support role with some rare exceptions. I thought Jacen would be something of an unorthodox Jedi and we might get novels about him teaching Ben. Jaina? I thought she might get some more "traditional" books about big heroics and be a really interesting female role model. I figured Jag would be important to the Empire but I didn't expect a dynasty. Leia and Han and Lando would still have their own adventures and be important.

I envisions "Tales of the New Jedi Order" and "Jaina Solo and the Crisis at [Insert Name Here]". I expected some type of "Force Journey" for Jacen. I thought we might see more from Rogue Squadron. Maybe a new round of Han Solo adventures. I thought we'd see one offs starring Kyle Katarn and Kyp Durron and others. I thought that there might even be a type of "Young Jedi" series with Ben, where we'd see the newer generation of Jedi grow in a post Vong GFFA. I expected a stable government as a reward for all that had transpired. Dreamed of a Jedi Order that was unique but still found some roots back to the old Order as well. I expected "smaller" things. No major war but smaller threats. Pirates and rogue Imperials separatists and next dark side sects. I thought that the Sith might be reborn in the war distant future but it'd be a big event. I expected to see the last adventure of Luke Skywalker, my hero.

Basically, I expected nothing close to what we got.

 

The cast did need to be bigger. Lando (hated that we didn't see him from TUF until Exile), Kre'fey (what the heck? Loved this guy in NJO and then poof in favor of Bwua'tu), Gavin Darklighter, Pash Cracken, Juder Page, Garm Bel Ilbis and whatever other NR officials we never learned the fates of, Droma, Danni Que, Harrar etc. A strong non-Force character! Engaging Imperials, Chiss, Hutts, Bounty Hunters, Vong etc. A continuation of Tahiri's arc! Not the mess LOTF gave us. Though now might be fun (Tusken Raider, Jedi, Yuuzhan Vong and Sith training) to give her an adventure. Now back to the before LOTF stuff. Maybe have her out in the galaxy rebuilding places and running into resistance from the natives. Have Corran come in and help or someone good like Anakin.

 

I didn't expect to see Jacen's Force journey because the way that it's described in The Unifying Force is that Jacen is going to go to Space Tibet and study with the Space Dalai Lama, which isn't necessarily conducive to an interesting story. Denning changed that into Jacen learning super Force powers to make him into a powerful villain only he never uses them so nevermind. The Unifying Force really left a mostly blank slate with a few dangling threads to pick up on. If Denning really disliked what Stover did with Jacen, he could have just not written Jacen. That he was going to Ando Prime to study with Space Buddha or whatever makes it really easy to write him out of your story. Frankly, I don't see how studying with these other groups could make him more assertive as a Jedi Knight since all the groups he studied with were a bit more reserved than the Jedi. The Jedi are the most proactive Force group in the galaxy (besides the Sith), and Jacen is already a Jedi, isn't studying with the Jedi, and he's not assertive or proactive, so it doesn't really make sense for him to become that because there's no one for him to pick it up from. Oh wait nevermind he got it from Darth Chicken duh.

On the other hand, I could see someone write a story in which he's presented with a more personal, smaller scale conflict in which he needs to choose and act, and in so doing realizes that he came into just the right place at just the right time to act as a catalyst for the most beneficial resolution for all parties involved, and consequently adopting a knight errant MO in which he travels the galaxy doing exactly that. And I fully expected Jacen to become that character, a guy trawling the Outer Rim resolving problems and ignoring whatever they're calling the Jedi Council. He may not ever achieve numinosity to the same level that he did against Onimi again, but he knows that he's where he needs to be all the same.

 

What was I expecting? Not a 5-year time jump to neatly skip the consequences of the frigging massive galactic war that killed 365 trillion for starters.

I wasn't expecting a trilogy that, by the end, all but screamed, in 20-foot high letters, with lights and fireworks going off: JACEN SOLO IS GOING TO GO DARK.

LOTF never worked for me due in part to the heavy handed preceding trilogy, but also the politics. Oh ye gods, language is insufficient to convey my contempt for that clusterfrell. But.....

But.....

Yes, like DM, I did wonder if Jacen might have done something interesting and different - which is noticed he was falling to the dark side and stopped his descent immediately! If any character in SW was going to pull it off, then Jacen, following his experience in TUF, really ought to be able to. Instead the direction was: Good guys go bad and they can't be reasoned, they gotta be killed, m'kay? You don't get your happy ending in real life, so this is just like real life, m'kay?

Frankly, I wanted galactic recovery. Throw in some scum who want to take advantage, opt for an entire line up of disposable villains - they get created just to be killed, it works. Have the Jedi and GA working together effectively, none of the bitching that went on in NJO, have their role established, set up a Jedi Internal Affairs-type team and have Rodan on the Oversight Committee, that'll shut him up for years. Have a load of Bothans demonstrate their species is more than a xenophobic, out-for-himself-at-all-costs insecure megalomaniac. Rebuild Coruscant, start settling new worlds because the Vongformed ones are too hostile now to the GFFA species.

 

I expected the EU to stop moving forward until they had a brilliant idea that made it worth it. And I assumed it would jump forward in time and star the new generation because I was still an idealist and didn't think DR would exploit the poor Big Three to death.

So I guess I kind of imagined Legacy.

 

I've somewhat warmed up to the NJO over the years. Its pretty dark, but I suppose it should be, as its a massive and different threat than has been faced in all Star Wars history. Other series' like aSoIaF have helped me redefine dark. But originally I disliked it.

FotJ and LotF I dislike for other reasons, better stated by others, that can't be 'fixed' as they are just bad writing and story premise. NJO the dislike for me was the alien nature and different tone.

The Legacy comics however, are great, and are how I saw things going forwards. After all, at the time we knew they weren't allowed to kill the big three, so it seemed clear they would just time jump.

 

The legacy comics are trash. if for no other reason then how it diminishes Luke's accomplishments. Also Cade was a punk

 

The post NJO destroyed Han, Luke and Leia more throughly than Legacy ever did.

 

Yup - that is why it wasn't perfect, all the little manipulations of the past. But apart from that and some other little dents and bumps, it was pretty brilliant.

The post NJO EU was doomed. Vergere was a mess - great character - but a great example of what ruined the EU. Vergere seemed to be the center of an inner war of two branches of thought among the authors; one wishing to follow a Harry Potter "all the world is grey" philosophy, based on real life humanity with its failures and successes, and the Jedi ideal (superhero mentality), which is that it is possible to rise above human frailty.

The 'grey' ideology, accepted by many authors, infected the series in a really, really negative way, to me. Who'd of thunk there could ever be a character called the "Sword of the Jedi" or that murder could be plotted with little remorse by the Jedi. What is the point of a Jedi "Hunter" and what place has Mando training in the world of a Jedi? Jacen's trip around the Force world opened up a can of worms that may have been planned - but badly so. All kinds of Force perceptive peoples were spread about the universe - using the Force in their own way, some good, some bad, some this funky "grey" - and all were acceptable except the bad. The bad were like the Sith and immediately could be destroyed based on their bad decision to use the Force to their own ends and/or to destroy others. So meeting up with the "bad" Force users, Jedi could view and learn from them (as Jacen did) - and end up 'bad' or could come in guns a blazing and destroy them (like Luke and Ben) and the latter was decided to be the "good" course, because they were bad. Huh? When meeting up with the good or grey Force users, the Jedi suddenly became all Star Trekkie and took the hands off approach of learning from new worlds - even if their philosophy was a lot shady - and even adopting a bit of the shady philosophy.

There are many, many examples of how the "grey" philosophy infected the series negatively. I pretty much stick to this genre because of its propensity for superheroism (i.e. a Jedi/Sith). But you need good guys to cheer for and bad guys to boo. The EU mixed that all up, so that you could not latch onto anyone and cheer or boo definitively. There were "good and bad" Sith and "good and bad" Jedi (very death eaters v. order of the phoenix - great series, but we didn't need to adopt it here). Watching the OT, it was very clear who the good and bad guys were, the EU did not follow suit. It never hurts to delve into the grey on a sidequest (i.e., Vergere was a great character for a storyline), but when the main storyline is infiltrated by human frailty and 'grey' it can only go downhill from there. Which is exactly where the EU went.

 

I was sad when Raynar became a Joiner again. His story throughout FOTJ was one of the best parts. Just like Alema was engaging in LOTF. Here's hoping as well.[/quote]

I'll say this: Alema was engaging–when she wasn't written by Denning. Traviss made her a character who was sad to have lost her beauty, her culture, and her ability to connect with others (especially her dance in Sacrifice; that was the only time I ever felt bad for Alema besides her death) and Allston did something similar, but a bit crazier and more amusing to read. Denning, on the other hand, writes a one-dimensional evil character bent on revenge because Leia made her not-sexy anymore.

But Raynar? He was well written by pretty much everyone in FOTJ, including his sacrifice of becoming a Joiner again. I loved him in Backlash: "I am Jedi Thul. I have not fought for real in many years. I should be a pushover. Come get me." So incredibly awesome.

 

my bold

Can you explain this to me, bitte. Both the Yuuzhan Vong and killiks part sounds intresting

I have not read LotF and have no planes to read it in any near future, so can you spoil me about the politics?

Can you explain why you think the Lecacy series are trash?

But was not Cade ment to be a punk?

 

Legacy doesn't diminish Luke's value at all. The defeat of Palpatine is the single most important moment in galactic history. Ever. There's no more important moment in all of the GFFA's existence than that.

 

With the films soon to be done and over with (ha), I expected Jacen to become not only the centerpiece hero of the EU, but Star Wars in general moving forward. Yep, I was still pretty naive back then.

 

I never expected Jacen to be killed a couple years later.
By the time Invincible rolled around I saw it going one of 4 ways. Alive and evil, alive and redeemed, dead and evil or dead and redeemed. I was hoping for anything but the 3rd option but wasn't holding my breath. Lo and behold option 3 happened.

 

I bailed after Betrayal and that's now a long time ago, but there it was:

The Corellians decide they want to secede and arm Centrepoint to threaten their way to a successful result.

The GA response is to blockade the Corellian system and have the Jedi kidnap key Corellian political leaders.

And it all kicks off from there and yes, it really is this dumb. Allston's good but he can't salvage material of such drecktitude.

 

Actually, the Jedi never actually succeeded in capturing any of them. All the political leaders escaped it because Han and Leia warned them about it beforehand.

 

And that's what happens when I try to recall the events of a book 9 years later that I didn't care for at the time!

 

It's better to suppress the memories.

 

One of the biggest issue with post-NJO writing is the inability to get away from the Sith. Old Republic era? That's fair game; you can have as many Sith as you want as long as there's the gap that leads to Phanius' new Sith Empire. But after the NJO? It really shouldn't be happening.

Which is an odd statement to make because I have absolutely nothing against the One Sith. Legacy is phenomenal when it comes to their Sith, and Legacy II shows no signs of stopping since they've made an interesting main villain. But that's the thing: the One Sith have an identity; Darth Wredd has an identity. Things like Caedus and the Lost Tribe (even taking into account JJM's work with them)...don't. FOTJ's biggest mistake was the creation of the Lost Tribe and the failure to properly use Abeloth as what "it" should have been: a terrible eldritch being with incomprehensible actions and motives. Heck, how easy would it have been to have a group of darksiders that weren't Sith for FOTJ? Amazingly easy. Cultists who want to revive Abeloth, or whatever. But FOTJ screwed that pooch and even messed up with the "Force journey" stuff by making it barely matter in the end.

A strength of the Bantam era of books and Del Rey's work with the NJO was that things were constantly being created. The Fallanassi and Yevetha. The Aing-Tii. Ssi-ruuk. Wraith Squadron. And a hell of a lot more. The galaxy always felt like it was, well, expanding. That things were changing and progressing.

Some of this is the fault of the prequels, to be sure, but I don't think we can lay as much blame there since writers have shown that it's possible to do very unique stories in that time period. Shatterpoint. Plagueis. Outbound Flight. Kenobi. And others. The Clone Wars era and Dark Times can more than hold their own by themselves so accusations of homogeneity stemming from the prequels only goes so far, I think.

But post-NJO and even post-ROTJ should always feel like the galaxy is getting bigger. That there are new things to learn. And, sadly, I really think that ship has sailed given the baggage of LOTF and FOTJ. Even Crucible. The biggest potential rest in the past or far future, it seems. But that well will never be properly used as the hallmark of the EU since it's not about Luke and the others.

And all of this stems from the slow build up to have more Sith in the post-NJO era. It utterly hamstringed the EU.

 

From a storytelling perspective, the Sith were a problem that was resolved in Return of the Jedi, and Luke's new Jedi order was a clean slate that was no longer haunted by the errors of the old Jedi which gave rise to the Sith.

Whichever apparatus that is responsible for the Expanded Universe at Lucasfilm seems to have decided that the Jedi vs Sith conflict is the central conflict of Star Wars which is necessary. A few years ago, Paul Kemp defended the idea:

From time to time, I’ll see a reader of Star Wars fiction give a longsuffering digital sigh, cock a jaded eye at all the newbies on the board/list/whatever, and say, “Oh, geez. Another Star Wars novel with Jedi and Sith. I’m just, you know, so sick of the whole Jedi-Sith thing. And you would be too, if you were only as well-read as me. What I want is a Star Wars novel about how hard it is to be a toilet-cleaning droid on Coruscant. Now that would be interesting.”

This has always struck me as a bit weird. We could, after all, offer similar complaints about epic fantasy. I mean, all those swords and magic and dark lords get annoying. And urban fantasy? Please. Don’t even get me started on the whole world/veil beyond the visible, which only the gifted/magicians/devilborn/whathaveyou can truly see through/into (or we could think across genre and complain about all those Chosen One books, or all those quest books, or all those damned books with MacGuffins).

Those would strike me as equally weird. Swords and magic and dark lords are integral to a lot of epic fantasy, and the conceit of the veil/hidden world is common in urban fantasy. And, yea verily, the Jedi-Sith dualism is at the core of most Star Wars fiction. And that’s cool, baby. That’s as it should be. That’s what makes those kinds of books those kinds of books. But it doesn’t make books that feature those things the same as all other books that feature those things.

The Jedi-Sith dialectic didn't exist in Star Wars until 1999. I guess if you went back to 1998 you'd complain about New Republic-Imperial Remnant dualism, but even Bantam didn't dominate its books about that. The Jedi-Sith dialectic resolved itself in Return of the Jedi, and I agree with AlyxDinas that those types of stories are fine but they belong in the proper era. If the writer wants to do a Jedi vs Sith conflict, you can set it anywhere you want except after the films. But I guess the answer is if we're sick of reading Jedi vs Sith novels we are mistaken in reading Star Wars novels, because it's not like most of the best Star Wars novels aren't about that.