Bantam and Del Rey

how did the switch happen? did Lucas Books just decide to switch or did Bantam go out of business? i havnt seen a Bantam books in years, and they were the best one

 

It was a contract change, although isn't Bantam part of Randomhouse? I don't know the reasons for the switch, but the Bantam books were starting to go a little downhill, overused plots, something new was needed.

 

thank you, i liked Bantam much better though.. o well

 

LFL probably wanted to try something new (which seems to have turned out for the better, so far.)

 

According to the inside of X Wing Isard's Revenge:
Bantam books is a divison of Random house, inc.

According to the inside of Dark Tide I onslaught:
A del Rey book, published by the ballantine publishing group which is also a divison of Random house.

The books never changed hands!

 

While Bantam/Doubleday/Dell and Ballantine/Del Rey are both owned by Random House, they're separate divisions who operate independently, much like The WB (the network) and Warner Brothers Domestic Television Distribution--both are owned by Time Warner, but they function independently.

(Also, IIRC, the Del Rey deal was negotiated before BDD was bought out by Random House.)

 

I wonder how many people switched brom Bantam to Del Ray to still work with Star Wars

 

My impression is that it was a grand total of zero; the Bantam editors continued to work for Bantam, simply on other projects.

 

Just for you Asimov fans out there, Asimov's science fiction was once printed by DelRey, it is now currently printed by Bantham Spectra.

So it was the opposite of SW.

A lot of people like the old company better than DelRey but this is for one reason: timothy Zahn and TTT.

Anyway I'm glad DelRey decided to do something like NJO. A change from the over-used idea of Republic vs empire

-Seldon

 

I don't think Bantam was part of Random House through most of its SW license. I think it was bought out near the end of the licensing contract.

 

One superweapon after another, or fleets. You had the 200 Katana Dreadnoughts, then the 40 Black Fleet ships. But you can't really blame Anderon and the Jedi Academy Trilogy. That was still early in the publishing years, when superweapons were a novelty and not overused.

 

Well that was just one of the things. Overall, I think that I like the Bantam books better, I guess that's just because they're the first ones that I read.

 

The Bantam line was pretty good but got redundant rather quickly, IMO.

 

Quality wise it seemed nearly all the Del Rey books have been good. With Bantam, it was really good or really bad. Not much room in the middle.

wolf

 

Quality wise it seemed nearly all the Del Rey books have been good. With Bantam, it was really good or really bad. Not much room in the middle.

I'm not sure this will remain that way. Give Del Rey some time to put out some really craptacular books.

Also, I think none of the "good" Del Rey books can hold a candle to the best Bantam books.

 

I think both lines have got much to dislike. There have been some bad books made people.
But I would probably rate Del Rey's line higher since they tried something new but failed (badly) where as Bantam did not try at all (warlord of the month/superweopan of the week)

 

I give Bantam a lot of credit for creating the X-Wing series. Del Rey is against most books without a major movie character, yet Bantam dedicated an entire series of books to books focused primarily on EU create characters plus a few minor OT characters.

Also, Bantam printed the anthologies, and Del Rey seems allergic to them.

I think it could be said that Bantam tried some new things too. We just take it for granted now considering that the NJO is more fresh in the mind.

 

Bantam's contract ran out in the summer of 1999 (or sometime around then) and was awarded to DR. DR's contract is actually up at the end of 2005. I don't know if they've been given an extension or not.

 

*hopes the next contract goes to a company that doesn't scream "Wheee! Look at us! We're dark! We're cool! We can KILL people!" *

 

When Bantam got a good book, it was an awesome book. Their bad ones sucked, but that's the point of a bad one isn't it?
DelRey has had the advantage of lots of previous things to base info off of, but also to avoid what didn't work. They have less risks in that department, IMO.

 

wild_karrde, I think it may have been renewed, as LFL currently has plans for books up to 2005.

Also, the X-Wing series, the main character (Wedge) is in the movies, and Tych, Wes, and Hobbie are too.

 

Yea, Im pretty sure that there was a thread floating around here a while ago saying that an extension was reached, but I dont know if its confirmed to be with DelRey or not. I think it just said that we're guaranteed to getting SW books for at least three more years.

 

Del Rey I believe did renew, but the contracts were not yet finalized.

 

That would be good. Just as long as they don't go to Pocket Books...

 

:: shudders ::

Increasingly the home of naught but TrekkieCrud as their primary moneymaking artery, lo these past several years...