Lit GENERAL QUESTION THREAD (What to read? Where to start? What's canon? What's not? Duros, etc.)

Then I suppose Shatterpoint it is

 

If you haven't read the Yoda one yet, go read that one. It's great, though not nearly as Yoda-focused as the title would have you believe.
There aren't a ton of books based on TCW proper, and most of them were aimed at younger audiences.

 

Thanks for the heads-up, Random Comments. I have looked into that one as well

Anyone read this one?

 

Shatterpoint, Dark Rendezvous, Republic Commando series, MedStar duology, and Labyrinth of Evil.

There are five adult novels based off the show, including the movie novelization. The movie novel's good (like a 1000x better than the movie), Wild Space is somewhere between meh and okay, No Prisoners is good, and the Gambit: Stealth/Siege duo are meh to bad.

Yeah, and...it's okay. Not amazing, imo, but not really terrible either.

Dark Horse's "Republic" comics are also fantastic, and should basically be required Star Wars reading for the CW era. Honestly.

 

Contessa You don't sound that excited about it. Not really worth the read, then?

 

There're parts of it that're good, ARC trooper Nate's a great character, Kit Fisto and Obi-Wan make a cool team, and there's some good action scenes. But I remember (full disclosure: I read it back when it came out and haven't re-read since) a good chunk of the book just really dragging, and a bunch of the side characters just being kinda bland and boring to me. Maybe it'll work for you, I don't know, but it's definitely not my favorite.

 

After Shatterpoint my top Clone Wars recommendations would be Republic Commando: Hard Contact. A lot of people soured on Karen Traviss based on her subsequent works, but in its day this book was almost universally praised - I recall the campaigns to get people buying copies to assure a sequel. Also, it is all original characters - so you don't know how everyone is going to turn out on the back end. The following two Republic Commando books I thought were really good, too - but they also had more stuff in them that I disliked. By the last two books the series had gotten pretty bad.

 

Hard Contact is indeed perhaps the only Traviss book that gets high praise across the board.

(Sadly, for me, it also established a standard she was unable to reach again.)

 

I found Hard Contact sub-standard but with some great scenes in it.

 

So looking at this article from the wonderful old HoloNet News website - and not having been terribly familiar with fan drama during the PT - I'm curious: was the criticism that an actor was "too famous" to appear in Star Wars actually a real thing? It certainly sounds like it's poking fun at an actual fandom complaint, but I've never heard of that one before, and I suppose it could just be parodying the culture in general.

 

I would still have that kind of complaint in some circumstances. I'd much rather have talented unknowns because I want to see the character, not the actor. If the performance is good though, I could get over it.

 

It still is. It is a tough thing in the acting business.
I find it hard to separate the actor from the character.
We can joke all day about how Padmé dated Captain Kirk's dad, or how the Doctor "did" Asgard.
Does it ruin it in the film though?

For TFA it did once, Bala Tik the Scottish fighter happened to be played by an actor who was in an English show at that time. I realised who it was.

Similarly this week Edmure Tully has appeared aa a corrupt government worker.

 

I seem to recall reading somewhere on here that the First Order (or at least Snoke) does not have a fixed headquarters but rather some kind of mobile command center. Is that just speculation or is it canon, and if so what's the source?

 

Stealing from the Wook:
"The First Order would lack an official capital as its Supreme Leader would constantly move his base of operations, thus administration of the government would exist on an amalgam of planets within First Order territory. With the construction of Starkiller Base, the Order would possess an unofficial headquarters for its expanding power." citing the TFA Visual dictionary.

 

When Leo's name was thrown out for Anakin back when he was primarily known as the Titanic hunk.

 

I have a question. Is the x-wing game (miniature) canon? It has some Legends ships which I presume are not, and some only new canon stuff like TFA and Rebels ships. I know that most mini games like this have canon elements, but I was just curious about this. (Sorry if it has been answered or answered already.)

 

I think FFG and TOR were the last to publish Legends material. But I would imagine that any of the Rebels/TFA stuff is canon elements. Personally, I don't pay attention to that kind of thing, but push them aside like reference books, but I know that that's not the official view.

 

What do Imperial Sentinels (prominent in Dark Empire) do that Royal Guards don't?

 

Loom far more effectively.

 

Has anyone read this one? Its by one of my favorite SW authors so I thought about picking it up.

I just finished reading Cloak of Deception. It was pretty good, its a pre-Clone Wars novel, sets up the events for Episode 1. I don't think I would recommend reading it to the younger generation. If you want a Star Wars book with a lot of action, then this is not your book. There is hardly any in it. Its more about politics, which is interesting to me but it can drag on for a little while. Still, if you wanna know why the Trade Federation did the blockade of Naboo & like how Padme became Queen, then you'll want to read this one.

I have now started reading Shatterpoint so we'll see how this goes

 

It's good, but you should read Survivor's Quest first, if you haven't already. They're a linked set, with Quest as mystery and Flight as retrospective resolution. You can read Flight first, but Quest first is the better experience.

 

^Agreed with the above. There are certain... scenes... involving the fates of certain individuals that are better read first in SQ. It adds a little extra tension to Flight because you have the bare clues of what went down but not the story and gritty details.