Lit Crucible by Troy Denning

Bit more info here, bit contradictory though:
http://roqoodepot.com/2012/07/17/star-wars-crucible-update/

So, will it be standalone or not? Who knows?

On the other hand, there is a next generation to pass the torch to, criminally under-used and developed perhaps, but not dead!

 

This could be a convenient way to keep the big three out of Sword of the Jedi and subsequent Post FotJ outings. If Luke, Leia, and Han are in the outer rim, it'll take the safety net out from underneath Jaina, Ben, and the rest of the next generation. It also gives Big three lovers an outlet for "WHERE IS MY STAR WARS!" rage.

This isn't really a bad move on Del Rey's part, if they do it well.

I just hope we get more one-off books. Mercy Kill was really good, and proves that you can have really good, self-contained stories that fit into the overall narrative of the GFFA.

 

I'm going to hold Del Rey to that whole "passing the torch" bit.

 

That's what I've been hoping this is too.

In effect, if they're giving us Jaina, Ben et al cleaning up the Lost Tribe in SOTJ, and are letting Luke, Han and Leia deal with something else in a separate book/series of standalones, then it'd be exactly what I've been wanting for years. LOTF and FOTJ so easily could have been designed similarly too had they not been set on combined meta-arcs.

Heck, I'd even be happy if while Jaina is hunting Sith, Luke was hunting relics to put an end to the threat of Abeloth. At least with two separate novels/series it ensures the plot has more coherency and direction.

 

I don't hate Denning though. I'm just saying that in response to the post saying they need to be focused on more

 

Of course Crucible will be the PERFECT ENTRY POINT FOR NEW READERS! The question is, will it be a better PERFECT ENTRY POINT FOR NEW READERS! than Apocalypse? Because that was much more PERFECT than the previous PERFECT ENTRY POINTS.

Oh right, every book is a PERFECT ENTRY POINT FOR NEW READERS!

 

You know what Crucible actually is? The Perfect Exit Point for Old Readers! Actually, I'm preemptively bailing on it - I'll probably read it a year after it comes out, but I'm really not intrigued by the concept or creative team...

 

Heh, it's kind of odd but, despite companies' numerous attempts to create them, more often than not new readers will just plunge straight in and, if they kind of like what they find and it makes sense, they tend to stay. Some find their way here and get advised on whatever they ask about - cue the reading order Qs.

 

Agreed.

I often find plunging the best way anyway.

Look at most TV series. Is Epsiode 1 of a new season special? Maybe, maybe not. Last week's Doctor Who episode certainly wasn't designed to be any "easier" to follow, but I'd say that's half its appeal: you don't need a bunch of boring backstory to get into it; you either like the setup of this dude fighting alien robots, or you don't.

Or just look at Episode 4!

Often, I think EU "entry points" score own goals by including too much explanatory exposition of "what happened earlier" when plunging in media res like Asylum of the Daleks or A New Hope is a much stronger way to pull new audiences in.

 

I plunged into Babylon 5, about 2/3 of the way through season 3, the Shadow War was raging, did I know what was going on? No, but it was interesting, had some smart effects, great ship design, so I played detective to work out what was going on, bought a SF mag to get up to speed and that was that.

 

I'm definitely the type of reader who prefers to know everything; it borders on OCD. I just can't watch any TV show, even most comedies, without having seen all the previous episodes. I have to start at the beginning of a comic series, even though they're designed to be easily accessible. And so on and so on.

 

I did the same thing with Stargate. Saw it in syndication one day, thought, "what the heck? Didn't they blow up Ra? Weren't we done with this Gate thing?" and then got hooked on the idea, so I backtracked.

Sadly, I have discovered that the average person with a casual interest in sci-fi is nothing like this. I have therefore grudgingly come to accept that we do need an occasional point of entry for new fans.

However, those entry points need not be mind-numbingly stupid, and must be fully compatible with existing canon, so TCW doesn't count. Hence the need for a book that does the job.

 

Could be a problem if you start reading Action or Detective Comics ID!

 

But yo! They both have/are rebooting everything! Just buy all the new number 1s! (Very bitter, I am)

 

My compromise; start post Crisis on Infinite Earths. Doesn't fully satisfy me, but it's much better than reading 50 years of comics that I'm not interested in.

Do they have fairly clean "restarts" post-crisis?

 

Hmm, how best to describe DC continuity? Take the worst elements of SW EU - say Clone Wars, feed it a ton of steroids, let it breed and produce numerous, insane spawn and you still won't be near the insanity that is DC continuity! I know no one that can make sense of it all, the solution? Pick the stories you like and stick with them!

 

Batman seems to have a somewhat coherent story starting from Year One, but that may be just what it looks like from the outside looking in. I'm reading Crisis on Infinite Earths now, actually. Good read, but makes my head spin in places, considering most of these characters, as well as the multiverse concept, is pretty foreign to me.

 

I love the DCAU. That is my DC continuity.

As for this book, I'm rather afraid of letting Denning "set up" future stories. Dark Nest was not the best set-up. Invincible was a bad set up. The last FotJ book is not that great of a set up. All of them end with things that seem to set up plot points for the next books, but are poorly thought out. Flowwalking, Daala as CoS, Luke meeting Krayt and Vestara on the run.

Vision of the Future has a good set up, with the Force vision and the Peace Treaty at the end meaning things will change. Champions of the Force was a decent set up, with the new Jedi Academy and Leia as CoS. Unifying force was a pretty good set up, with the galaxy changed forever (or 5-10 years then back to normal).

 

Comics continuity, DC continuity in particular, is just a totally different beast. Time passes inconsistently between titles, things don't add up, it's a universe that includes notions that contradict the reality of other titles, and it always will be. Yes, I like it when things line up - I like nods to other titles that ensure shared reality - a sense of the "DCU". But it's...a mythic universe. It's mutable. One of the things I like about DC over Marvel is that it acknowledges this, metatextually, by tying its various bit "reboots" to "crises of reality". Like, literally, reality is fragmenting, shifting, changing.

What's "canon" usually depends at any point on a calculation of what's recent, what's popular, what's memorable and what's needed for the current storyline until a sort of consensus shows up that, these days, Batman is a Miller-inspired shadowy terror. And then Grant Morrison shows up and decides, no, he's a silver age whack job. Superman's the staid symbol of stability and authority, until no, he's part of the 99%. It just...shifts. All the stories are true, all the stories are myths. Some of the stories tie in with each other better than others. A reasonable attempt is made to make sure at any given time, stuff is sort of in order, but look to far ahead, or behind, and it will start to fray at the edges because they're four-colour stories that try to fuse archetypal mythology, nostalgic morality, whacky science fantasy and hip selfaware metatextual irony into one package.

I'm a completist too. Star Wars actually taught me that I can't actually CONSUME all the media, but I am a completist when it comes to it all being "real" to me.

For comics...it's just not feasible. It's not trying to be feasible. Follow characters, arcs, authors and artists you like. Build your own version of the world.

But yes, for the record, the New 52 is a pretty clean reboot. It does reference other stories, in some cases because some version of them is still considered to have "happened" in the past, in others because they are retelling them in this new universe, but you don't need to know them, because it's designed to be a restart so if you need to know stuff, it's generally explained. So if you DO want to be a completist, you only have a year's worth of titles to catch up on. Which is still gonna be a mammoth task since 52 + miniseries are published each month.

Re Crucible: I'll believe the torch is getting passed when I see it. ::skeptic::

 

Oh that's right, Grant Morrison does like using silver age stories, so that makes the whole "read past the Crisis" idea I had a bit flawed . Eh, screw it.

I've read a little bit of the New 52. Some of the titles are pretty good, and I like the general idea, but I actually really love reading something and knowing that it will take a long time to get to the ending. Once the New 52 goes on a bit, that will work fine, but with only 12 issues or so out now, seems like whatever title I pick up only has a bit of life in it at the moment.

And I'm not a total completionist (masochist)... don't plan to pick up every N52 title. Just follow whatever individual title from the beginning, and like I said, even that can get somewhat confusing.

 

Denning is pretty much a failure at ending a series. His ending books aren't satisfying and leave way too many things unanswered. His best books imo are Inferno and Star By Star. The Unifying Force was the perfect ending to the NJO and had so many interesting plot lines that it could do but Denning ruined that with DNT. I will read Crucible but I will be wary about it with Denning. Denning should be moved into the Pre-Republic era with the Killiks I think.

 

Another Denning novel.

 

I'll read this. But I doubt they'll actually pass the torch.

 

Who are they going to pass the torch to? The whole adventure is solely about the Big 3.

 

I can't resist a Blackest Night quip Mani:

Anakin Solo.... RISE!