Author Analysis: Kevin J. Anderson

Alright. Hopefully everyone knows the rules already. Commentary on Kevin J. Anderson as an EU author.

Author Analysis: Matthew Stover
Author Analysis: Michael Reaves
Author Analysis: Aaron Allston

Go at it.

 

OH! I'm going in, but with a good point of view. That's right! KJA is in the title and the first real post is POSITIVE!

His stories are quick and enjoyable. Some of them are downright awesome. He's a mixed bag really. Darksaber for example, not really his best work. He kind of tore apart the idea of Callista. JAT, I tend to enjoy that more than most people. In fact I may be one of the few that enjoy JAT more than I,Jedi. The first book, and the first half of the second book were really enjoyable. It kind of ended as a clunker, but I enjoyed the trip.

His YJK books are some really good Young Adult fiction. And here I was reading Goosebumps when I could have had these. What a fool.

But then we stumble over to the comics. This is where he rocked my socks off. Not everything was perfect, not even close. The Golden Age of the Sith and Fall of the Sith Empire, while interesting, weren't really all that exciting. But then we get to the Sith War stuff, and Redemption, WOW! Those are awesome! Everytime I read Sith War or Redemption, I find myself in a little disbelief because of just how good they are.

But I can talk about his work, or the author. I think he gets certain aspects of Star Wars that others don't, but I see a lack of restraint. He comes up with a good idea, and just seems to add more and more and more until it gets ridiculous. But he writes his stories with non-stop action, and their just so easy to read, so quick. I like that about his books, they're easy reads. Nothing to wrap your head around. Just quick romps. This is why I enjoy KJA more than most people.

 

As much as people hate him, I actually like KJA's work overall. The JAT was the very first piece of SW I was ever introduced to, and I attribute it to him that I got interested in SW. I'll always have fond memories of the JAT, when superweapons weren't yet overdone and finding out the Death Star's origins was neat. And also meeting my first Sith Lord, Exar Kun.

Darksaber when I first read it was a blast, although that was when I was younger. Now when I look back the unbelieveable portions of stick out. Although I want to say that Crix Madine dying never really bothered me. I guess it was because no other EU source ever used him I never cared about him.

The last thing from KJA I read was his Jawa short story from Tales from the Mos Eisley Catina. Oh how much I learned about the Jawa's culture and mindset from that one single story.

 

Again a KJA "fan" here.


I'll admit his writing style is a bit naive at times and he uses coincidence far too much but when he started out sriting Star Wars (JAT) most books prior to that were similar. His penchant for Super weapons was annoying and his characterisations can be poor but in general his books are full of imagination, they flow well and I've never failed to finish reading something he's written.

I believe if he were to write JAT now you would see a hugely different book as he has grown as a writer since he wrote it (Read Saga of the Seven Suns for examples)

 

His pedantic penchant to young adult every Star Wars story aside, his material contributed a solid foundation upon which everyone has drawn and expanded from. That's nothing to sneer at.

 

I do like his accruate depiction of what happens when some isolated admiral with 4 ISDs goes off and tries to whup some ass: She gets taken apart in quick order.

IMO, he's better at comics and being an editor than he is at writing.

Think about the Tales From books. Awesome stuff, no? Definitely alot better than JAT.

Ditto for ToTJ, IMO.

 

Another positive post for KJA.. when compared with some of the Authors that Bantam had after him.. hes decent.. and certainly not as bad as people have him.. I would say he was mid-pack for the overall novel authors.. not bad.. but not really good either..

Plus, let us not forget the ownage him and Tom Vietch created in TOTJ..

so as a Comic Author/Editor: A
Novels: C

 

Well, when I first started reading the JAT I ad mit I didn't like his writing style, but I could easily deal with that. However, he just crossed the line when he Kyp, who was an awsome character into a darkside force brat (and I think that started before he met Kun ). I really really liked Kyp, but once he got the force he was the most anoying, brattiest character imaginable. Since then, DR has been able to turn his character around into something of a cool guy, but KJA just ruined this very cool character in his books. Seriously, the only good thing to come out of those books was The Little Lost Bantha Cub.


As for the comics, I have only read The Fall of the Sith Empire, so I'm not in a place to judge them as a whole, but let me say the Sith species are possibly the lamest things imaginable. A Sith is supposed to be vicious, calculating, terrifying. These guys have red fur, and are supposed to look like devil people, but that really fails to make them intimidating in any way. In fact, the best way to describe them is as corrupt and sometimes incompetent politicians with bad intentions. And even in that feild they fail, because real life politicians are much more intimidating than them


I felt that YJK was kind of boring and could have been done much better.

 

Anderson's work, JAT and DS especially, suffer from One-Up Syndrome. He seems to think that in order to create a credible threat, he must one-up the OT. People complain about the NJO trying to make the Vong badder than the Empire, but look at Anderson: The OT had an Emperor? Well, I'll make my own 4000-year-old Sith Lord who defeats Luke! The OT has a Death Star? I'll make a device that kills entire star systems! The OT had Luke? I'll make uber Jedi-boy Kyp! The OT had Jabba? I'll give my Hutt a superlaser! I think that the main problem with his plotting is that he's just too derivative of the OT, and won't go off and do his own thing. TOTJ proved that he could, but he never seemed to want to in his OT work.

My other main beef is that his writing is just childish. I don't mean oh-he-doesn't-use-enough-metaphors childish, I mean written at a seventh-grade level or lower. It's very basic stuff. I don't know if he thought that was the Star Wars target audience or what, but his work suffers from it. "Daala was sad. All the other Imperials had been mean to her. She looked sadly out the window. If only they had recognized her genius." That's the level of his writing, made even more disappointing in that he shows flashes of power and emotional depth, then throws it away with more middle-school prose.

Anderson had potential to be good, he got chance after chance, had far more effect upon the EU than his skill ever deserved, but he just blew it IMO. He was mediocre, and this was only exacerbated by how many projects he got. Had he been a Jeter, who writes a mediocre trilogy and never shows up again, I think many fans would simply ignore him, but Anderson was so prevalent that it aroused the reaction against him. I think that's why he's so disliked.

 

My main complaint was the lack of originality in his books. His superweapon fetish annoyed me to no end.

Overall I rate him just above Hambly, McIntyre and Watson.

Oh and I'm still POed about the way he killed Madine.

 

I actually didn't mind Madine's death. Not everyone goes out in a blaze of glory. Now, whether or not he was foolish to go in on his own is another question entirely.

 

Don't allude that to the Academy trilogy, guys. At that time, there were no overused superweapons. Don't cite the movie balloons as examples, either, they're not the books.

 

What made me mad was that he deserved a more dignified death. Or at least a better written one.

 

I enjoy a good bit of his Star Wars stuff(YJK was my intro into star wars books, and I enjoyed them at the time and they are good for what they are).While I don't like the superweapon of the week stuff, Kun's a cool character and the Tales of the Jedi comics are some of the best SW comics ever made. But he is destroying Dune with Herberts son. The only intresting character for me in the whole Prelude to Dune series was Erasmus. The Harkoneen, Corrino and Atredies ancestors were boring with the exception of Vorian and in the end he comes off as a lunatic and unlikable during the battle of Corrin. G-d help us for whats to come in Hunters of Dune and Sandworms of Dune.

 

His death was fine, and nice to see.

Madine looks a bit like Anderson too . . .

 

Like certain Mandos...

 

My very first Star Wars EU novel experience had to be KJA's Jedi Academy trilogy. Like said his writing style at the time was easy to get into I felt. The flow was great, nice action and even dialogue I felt. Which is most likely why I enjoyed it at lot more then Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy. Sure you can look at KJA's writing as a bit childish, as in being aimed at certain grade levels. You know what though, there isn't anything wrong with it. Lets be honest with ourselves here. Star Wars itself isn't extremely well writen or was done as if it was going to be graded by a college english professor. Why anyone should really expect novel version to be on that level or above is beyond me.

Star Wars first and formost was meant to be enjoyable I feel. Which is why I agree when someone says that KJA is one of the few authors that really got what Star Wars was. I still think that today even with new authors coming in. He's one of the very few that managed to do Star Wars in novel format. A lot of other authors, while their books are good, they come off as generic scifi. They don't come off as the space opera Star Wars is and was suppose to be. Which is a huge problem when you look at the New Jedi Order series of novels. KJA can't be blamed for having a superweapon of the weak problem. At the time the JAT was writen that wasn't a problem I believe. He might have started it to some degree but superweapons are apart of Star Wars. Don't tell me that the Death Star isn't a really enjoyable aspect of the series.

About him trying to one up the OT. I'm not sure. I know it can be seen like that. I take it now as him trying to be similar to the movies in order to pull people in. Which goes with him getting Star Wars better then most authors and managing to get that cinematic feel that few authors are able to capture. That's something that I don't hear people talking a lot about in terms of SW authors in general. If they can create that feel or not, or if it's a good thing or not if they can't or do. There were times reading the JAT that I could really picture a lot of what was going on without to much trouble. I like to say this is due to a combination of using familier locations along with new ones and his writing style. Other books, I read the discription of the place but even then I can't really picture it like I'm viewing it as a movie. A few others I can do that with though, KJA's work is among those few.

I really enjoyed the Young Jedi Knight novels as well, never got to read the last few books though, or if I did I don't remember them that much. The comics are great like said too. I haven't read the Jawa short story though. I have the book it's in but for some reason I think it was bought for me and I just never got around to reading it. Got it during a time when my interesting in reading Star Wars had disappeared.

 

I would have prefered Madine wasn't killed. He is one of the most underused character from the movies. Instead of focusing on a damn Bothan, they should have created more stories with Madine.

The KJA had to kill him off...

 

It's great to see all the positive feedback for KJA. I think he's a terrific author, and it's really easy to get into his stuff. I finished each of his SW books in about two days, because they just sucked me in and kept me reading until the end. Sure I scoffed at things like Daala's continued appearances, but it was sensible enough that it didn't irk me. And "Darksaber" was the extreme highlight in the Callista trilogy.

 

I enjoyed Darksaber in my jurassic age days. The pairing of two villians, Pelly and Daala was unseen before. Age and an illicit wisdom modifer has boosted my awareness of the silliness of Darksaber now.

 

I love the JAT and the YJK. I think he wrote some damned fine SW novels. And wasn't the Darksaber a parody of superweapons?

 

Forgot to mention. The only thing that I really dislike about KJA's work is how he handled Callista. He could have done a lot better job with her but don't think he did. Especailly since I was and still am a fan of the Luke/Callista pairing.

 

Exactly how I feel about Darksaber. I loved it when I first read it and loved seeing Pelleaon in command of his own little fleet. But time tends to change your view of things.

Loved JAT. I believe those were the first books of SW I owned. Those and SotE. Someone above said how they hated Kyp when he got the Force and are glad Del Rey turned him into a reasonably cool guy, I disagree. What Del Rey did with Kyp was to take the same character journey of Kyp from about halfway through Dark Apprentice when he became Arrogant through CotF, DS and then Simple Tricks and repeat it through NJO and beyond.

 

Generally, I like most of the concepts that were in the JAT, etc but KJA's execution left a little to be desired.

Kyp has grown to be one of my favorite characters. So far the peak being Dark Journey, of course, with his reflections to Jaina on his experiences. The NJO had good reasons for him to disagree with Luke's path (especially given Luke's mea culpa in Destiny's Way). I was a little irritated to see an apparent reversion in Dark Nest, though...

 

The Jedi Academy covers were nothing less than spectacular. John Alvin's a legend!