Lit Crosscurrent and Riptide: Random Throwback Discussion

OK I'll be honest I don't really EU or even Star Wars that much anymore --- I still check in on this forum nearly every day, and after much reflection I realized it was due mainly to habit and because I never got into Reddit. It's like... I open up my laptop, scroll through facebook for a bit, watch a few youtube videos, and am then like... "Am I really finished internetting now? I seem to remember I used to have more than just two websites. I guess I can go outside now... eh, let's visit Lit. Why not. Maybe people will be there with opinions on some book I read sixteen years ago with which I disagree. I'll give those jerks a piece of my mind!" But then I come here and you guys are talking about words I don't understand like Aphra and Sinjir and I just sigh and say "I'll try again tomorrow" and then aimlessly wander around my home for several hours before eating an entire tube of raw cookie dough in some misguided hope that it will give my life meaning.

But! Then there are those days where someone's started a thread asking for people's opinions on a book from the old EU, and my eyes brighten as I declare "I've read that one! And I remember who the characters are!!" and then I type furiously as the tears of joy leak into my thirteen unfinished snack packs of chocolate pudding. I think we had one somewhat recently about Isard's Revenge, didn't we? Man, that was a blast. In that vein, here's another thread where, apropos of nothing, we can discuss some novels that had the words Star Wars on their front covers.

Crosscurrent. Did you like it? I did. It came out between the third and fourth Fate of the Jedi books and was unexpectedly demonstrable proof that the post-FOTJ universe didn't necessarily have to be awful. I remember liking the prose, even if eight years later I couldn't tell you why, and the forty-page chapters did well to service Paul Kemp's commitment to developing a scene and seeing it through to the end. His Jaden Korr was a conflicted and fleshed-out character, and the tie-in to Lost Tribe of the Sith was a treat for readers who were eating up as much of the EU as they could. The book's climax, where Jaden was slowly penetrating deeper and deeper into a secret complex that had haunted his dreams, was genuinely eerie, and the clone-of-Kam-Solusar reveal at the end was completely unexpected.

It had its flaws --- the time-travel plot was ultimately pointless, as the ancient Jedi and Sith catapulted into the future and then remained entirely separate from Jaden's storyline, save for a brief hangout aboard the smuggler's starship. It was two separate and unrelated books in one. There was a marked overuse of characters drinking caf, and someone seemed to be vomiting every other chapter, too. It also felt like a bit of a stretch that Jaden's participation in the Jedi mission to Centerpoint Station in one LOTF novel was the event that had cast a cloud of uncertainty over his life, for no other reason than because it was his only post-Jedi Knight appearance. Continuity is good, but then there's leaning on it for the sake of leaning on it. Kinda like how in Medstar, Barriss brought up her mission to Ansion from The Approaching Storm as much as possible. Was that boring jaunt through some grassy fields really such a definitive chapter in your life ... ?

Riptide: Didn't like it. Unlike its predecessor, which I read during the tail end of a three-or-so-year stretch that was probably the height of my EU fandom, it came out at a point when I had cooled considerably on the EU --- Legacy and KOTOR were long-gone, TCW was starting to suck, I was finishing FOTJ out of a sense of obligation rather than any sort of genuine desire, and the rest of the novels coming out around that time were The Old Republic ones that I couldn't have cared less about, especially when they had such exciting premises as "The Jedi infiltrate an illegal art auction! Oooooh, scary!" So I didn't actually read it until a year and a half later when I picked it up on my Kindle on a whim. And what did I read? I read the exact same book as Crosscurrent. It was a carbon copy. Jaden Korr was on another mission in the Unknown Regions, with a member of a creepy species on assignment from Darth Wyyrlok to follow and confront him. Only this time, when the end of the book left you with more questions than answers, you were annoyed rather than intrigued.

Remember Paul Kemp's duology? The one that got canceled after the Disney buyout? We were once told it would "blow our minds" or something, but I've always suspected that it would have been more of the same. I didn't read any of his other books --- Lords of the Sith, and I think he had a TOR one maybe. Were they any good? Or was he another author who started off promising but then failed to ever capture lightning twice?

So, go ahead and share your memories of these books. Were they worthy additions to the post-NJO universe, or were they forgettable side adventures that didn't accomplish much? Was Kemp's prose a treat to read, or were his storylines frustratingly repetitive and stale? Did you care about them when they came out, or were you already burned out by LOTF and the first year of FOTJ? Any discussion will be a welcome diversion from following the mailman around for want of anyone else to talk to --- the stun gun he used on me last week hurt a lot.

 

I agree with pretty much everything you said. Croscurrent was surprisingly incredible; the story, the prose, the action scenes, characters etc. And then Riptide was a massive disappointment. It just wasn't as good in any way.

Paul S Kemp's other books were pretty good. TOR: Deceived was about Malgus and was cool, Lords of the Sith was decent but not as cool as a Darth Vader/Palpatine book should have been. I'm disappointed he hasn't been given another novel or 2 or 3 since then though. Disney seem to be trying really hard to hire new authors (and Christie Golden over and over again for some reason) and the result is books generally ranging from "meh" to terrible. When you've got genuinely excellent SW authors like Luceno, Kemp, JJM, Denning* and Traviss* and you're ignoring them for the sake of trying new writers it's a bit frustrating.

*I know Denning and Traviss had issues, but I still maintain Denning is a very good author when not given creative control over the overarching story, and Traviss is an excellent writer who just got a but too personally involved with her characters and "political" views

 

Both books were better than all of LotF and FotJ, but that's not saying much. I found the combination of plots in Crosscurrent was stupid, as I think even in-universe someone suggests Jaden was in the right place at the right time to just happen to meet up with a Jedi who had come out of a five-thousand year hyperspace jump. Then Jaden says nope, the Force says he's got to go to that planet right now. Not to mention that other Jedi mainly won by drawing on the darkside and blowing up himself and the rest of the ship, which isn't exactly a great lesson (compared to say Ganner's last stand in Traitor, but its hard to compare to that).

And if I remember right Jaden didn't really find answers on the planet, but did find inner peace or something, but also accidentally let loose several dozen crazy Jedi clones. And there was that Anzati stalker who was just there to provide an escape ship for the clones. I also don't like the idea of, what was it, splicing Jedi and Sith genes? I like the idea of Thrawn setting up cloning experiments (which go horribly wrong of course), but not the gene part.

Riptide was just worse. Especially since it ends on a bit of a cliffhanger but no planned continuation (its not like it was book one of two), though there were probably plans that fell through. And its a waste of all the supposed character development from Crosscurrent. The misleading opening was good though. Also the idea of Grace is a bit disturbing. And unfortunately Riptide fell back on using the One Sith as mysterious villains again (LotF already did that too much).

The writing was fine and the canon references in both books were great (like the shield-breaking gem). Kemp's a good author, I had no problem with the Deceived novel.

 

The problem was Korr. He was and is a boring character.

My aesthetic

 

I'd love to see more about the Rakatan Mother.

 

I never bothered to finish LOTF and never read any of FOTJ, but remained interested to read stuff set in that era. Crosscurrent and Riptide were just that, they were fun and at times extremely weird and creepy. Kemp set the mood very well. It did not bother me much that Riptide was basically more of the same, mainly because all that weirdness with the clones and Rakata tech gone wild appealed to me.

(I also read Mercy Kill to get my post-NJO fix. I can't believe I'm saying this about an X-Wing novel, and it might as well be blasphemy in this forum, but I found it very boring.)

 

I remember really liking a couple of things about these, as they were rare forays into the late post-Jedi era for me:

Crosscurrent - Jedi clones felt very, very Thrawn. Thrawn was always about trying to control all variables and the Force kept eluding him, so clearly the solution is to have controllable Force users along with ysalamiri protection.

Riptide - I really liked that Darth Wyrrlokk really didn't want to anything to tip off Luke to the One Sith's existence, I thought that a far neater link to Legacy than the Caedus nonsense that got inflicted upon it.

 

I will take one sith anytime. I wish there had been more of them.


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JJM's Lost Tribe Omnibus remains one of the best, complete takes on the Sith.

 

You can always take up weight lifting like I did and try to get ripped like Savage Opress. It can be a pretty good distraction and external focus.

 

Loved Riptide. Loved Crosscurrent. Both extremely well written novels with interesting storylines. Now we get the same gray, boring plot over and over again.

 

I enjoyed Crosscurrent, but I don't think I ever read Riptide - by that time I was just totally burned out on that entire era of SW novels, even when they weren't directly connected to the main-series mess. I've never been able to decide whether I should go back and do so or not; on the one hand, now that the post-NJO is dead and buried it'd probably be much more tolerable, but on the other hand Jeff's OP is not the first thing I've seen to assert that it just wasn't actually that good.

 

Oh good, discussion! That'll stave off a depressing Hoarders marathon for another day.

Traviss was whom I had in mind when I asked if Kemp was "another author who started off promising but then failed to ever capture lightning twice?" Back in 2005 on the Official Site Forums, you'd be hard pressed to find a dissenting voice when posters would sing the praises of Republic Commando: Hard Contact. Then one year later Bloodlines happened, and, well... yeah. Denning could arguably be put into that category, too, as everyone loved Star By Star (and maybe Tatooine Ghost? I dunno) but then Dark Nest was divisive as hell.

I wouldn't rank them above every individual LOTF novel --- Betrayal and Fury were diamonds in the rough --- but FOTJ, on account of how quickly they hurried through production without completing more than the barest minimum of planning, failed to produce a single good book, didn't it? It came close with Book 3, but a stale and frustrating Coruscant-set third of the book dragged the other two thirds down. The parts on Abeloth's planet and the mini-Centerpoint were great, though, and were the highest that the series would ever achieve. In general, though, Crosscurrent was a breath of fresh air.

Yeah, really bizarre. "The Force has ordained that I be here to receive this time-traveling Jedi! ... so I can give him a cup of caf. Then he can go do his own thing. But let's focus on the important thing: I gave him caf. Have we said caf enough this chapter? Caf caf caf."

YYyyeahhhh what was the message there? Sink to the level of your enemies? Have no self-control? Ignore the distinction between Jedi and Sith? Still trying to figure that one out.

Not only was the time-traveling half of the book very out of place, it also had an ending that read like it was settled on due to complete creative bankruptcy --- ie, Kemp just couldn't think of any other way to wrap the story up. As if it were a story he didn't even want to be telling in the first place.

I can't help but feel like Kemp wrote a book about Jaden Korr, realized it was too short, and so had the time-traveling idea foisted on him by the then-story group in order to pad out the page count. But he liked the Jaden book he had written so much that he kept the two stories separate, so he wouldn't have to change anything. Seriously, the two stories are so disparate that this wild speculation doesn't seem all that wild.

I liked a lot of Mercy Kill --- Piggy was a fantastic narrator/protagonist and some of the new characters were fun. But it lacked a good villain or climax, and the third act dragged the whole thing down. Much better than Allston's FOTJ output but nowhere near his peak.

And a far neater link than FOTJ having Darth Krayt walk up to Luke and say "We need to team up now to kill Abeloth." Seriously, that happened. Seriously.

And she still wasn't completely dead by the end of the series.

I was burned out at the time too, but in the summer of 2013 I had a new kindle and was reading so many books that I decided to go back and check out both Riptide and Choices of One, mostly because they were both sequels to something I had already read. Would have skipped them if they had been original novels instead of sequels, and I did in face skip most of the original novels that came out around that time... Scourge, Scoundrels, Shadow Games... I completely forgot the latter even existed until someone mentioned it on these forums a couple months ago. I even delayed Darth Plagueis for two years because I was worried that Luceno was still in his Dark Lord funk and hadn't gotten his groove back. I was very pleased to be wrong about that one.

 

I think the idea Kemp was going for was using the Jedi from the past as a foil to Jaden's inner conflict, to show him "this is what a Jedi who can't (and won't) tell the difference anymore between the light and dark actually looks like". The fact that he technically succeeded at taking the time-traveling Sith down with him wasn't meant as an endorsement.

 

It sure came off as one, though. He killed all the bad guys and stopped Sadow's Sith Empire from spreading. Mission accomplished. If there had been any sort of negative consequences --- say, a bunch of innocents in a nearby ship dying --- it might have been an effective demonstration of the ends not justifying the means. You're probably right about what Kemp was going for, but I wouldn't say he succeeded.

I wasn't all that serious with my earlier wild speculation, but thinking about it more... was the time-travel plotline thrust, to an extent, upon Kemp? Did he have some vague idea of using another Jedi (presumably one from Luke's order) as a contrast to Jaden, then people at LFL & Del Rey realized they could connect it to Lost Tribe of the Sith? It's doubtful that Kemp conceived of the idea of a time-traveling Jedi independently of the creative team; it ties into Lost Tribe too neatly for it to be a coincidence. If, say, it had been a book about two Jedi from Luke's order doing two different things, meeting up briefly in the middle of the book and realizing that they had two different paths... would the separateness of the two stories be quite so jarring?

As it is, the separateness of the two stories is pretty jarring, and the ending of the time travel story always felt kinda lazy to me. Jedi goes to the dark side, draws dark power to destroy the ship, and the bad guys are all dead in a neat little package. Could have been developed more in order to be an effective contrast to Jaden, but it ultimately left me wanting.

 

I wonder what Kemp's Duology was supposed to be about. And if it would have tied into these novels.

They were extremely tight lipped about it and we never learned much of anything regarding it. Not even the era it was to be set in.

 

Yep, I know of that by reputation only - it sounds awful.

One benefit of the Great Reboot is Denning was likely prevented from continuing to trash Legacy.

 

A lot of people are curious about this. Why don't they just tell us already? The project is dead anyway.

To answer my own question: Probably they just don't care, maybe they've already forgotten.

 

Crosscurrent was always overrated. The writing, the plotting, the characterization were not significantly better than Riptide. They were just stale by Riptide. It’s just that even mediocrity, especially fresh mediocrity in a side-story format as had been clamored for, looked pretty good in comparison to everything else coming out in that era. If it hadn’t been surrounded by dreck, coming out in the EU’s long slump toward the end, I think it would have been more rightly judged as what it was — a tedious, unfocused meander through a halfassed story.

 

If Star Wars didn't literally have a morality meter, well, that old Jedi going out in a darkside explosion wouldn't have been so bad. But we see it quite a few eras that even if a Jedi dies, its better to be at peace and stay on the lightside rather than risk going darkside and then becoming an even bigger threat yourself.

If the ancient Jedi had done something like rigged the ship to self-destruct then dueled his former apprentice to buy time, then apologize for failing him (like Obi-wan at Mustafar), that would have had better closure for him. Actually, there probably wouldn't have even been a need for the time-travel in the first place, but that's a different problem for this novel.

It was interesting that the Crosscurrent ship tied into the FotJ backstory, that it was the sister ship of the Omen, which crashed with the survivors forming the Lost Tribe. Beyond that, the time travel felt really unnecessary. But then Jaden's whole trip to the clone lab felt pointless anyway, particularly his rush. Like if he had found one last clone in a tank with a failing life support system, getting there just in time to save them, then it might work, but otherwise, meh, nothing to see there really.

 

Yeah, that was a pretty bad slump, wasn't it? Not even just in Del Rey, either --- Dark Horse never recovered after its dumb decision to axe KOTOR and Legacy. Its flagships sucked, its miniseries were uninteresting Darth Vader and Boba Fett crap over and over, and Randy desperately clung onto his pet project to the bitter end despite its inability to release more than two issues every twelve years. "Dark Times" was a pretty apt moniker for the era, amirite? Amirite??

Crosscurrent was probably overrated. But I do remember liking the writing.

The Del Rey guy who posts on these forums answered that question about Sword of the Jedi once:

 

While I agree that having Krayt emerge from hiding and actually encounter Luke was beyond absurd, you have to admit, he had one epic entrance.

In that one scene, all of our questions were answered about the Dark Man on the Throne of Balance. It was never Luke.

 

Well, there was Agent of the Empire. And I liked Knight Errant well enough, though it was no KOTOR. And that one random Qui-Gon and Xanatos comic that came out was pretty alright, and a good kind of different miniseries. But, yeah, there was nothing like the highs of the Republic/Empire/Rebellion/Legacy/KOTOR era. And so much dreck. Wood's Star Wars was just spectacularly awful.

The EU pretty much fell off a cliff after about 2008, 2009. Once Legacy and KOTOR died, there was nothing left.

 

Scoundrels is definitely worth reading. Might actually be worth it to read after Solo comes out to see how their pre-ESB Lando/Han partnerships line up.

Oh brother.

 

I'd be fascinated to know what Dark Horse's internal debates were like.