Bloom, IN Official Star Wars Book discussion Thread

New Legacy News:

A first look at the third book in the series, Tempest, due out in Nov.

Um, and who's on the cover? Mmmm... actual Tenel Ka artwork. <3 Troy Denning

And don't forget that Betrayal comes out this Tuesday!

 

new Tim Zohn book coming Jan 7th
CANT FREAKEN WAIT for this one!
Takes place between IV & V and has a great deal to do with....MARA JADE!

 

Just a heads up, for those of you interested.

The "Star Wars Omnibus: X-Wing Rogue Squadron Volume 1" is in stores now. The title is quite a mouthfull, but fear not! This is the first of three omnibus's (omnibi?) to be released that covers the Rogue Squadron comics. The three volumes will collect all the post-ROTJ X-Wing comics that lead up to the begining of the X-Wing novel series. Some of these haven't been collected in TPB format, while others have been out of print for some time.

This first volume has three stories, along with a kind of "Who's who" issue profiling the main characters. While this might not be the best selection for a casual fan, for any hardcore X-Wing junkie this is a MUST have. If you can't get enough of the Rogues, or just want to know what the hell everyone was reminiscing about in the novel "Isard's Revenge", this first volume is a great way to kick off the set.

I picked mine up a few days ago. Border's still has one copy, but I haven't checked B&N yet.

 

I was going to post this earlier but the Board (or my computer) was being crappy to the internet so it kinda just stopped working.

The dramatis perosna for Bloodlines

Barit Saiy (Corellian male)
Ben Skywalker (human male)
Boba Fett, Mandalore and semi-retired bounty hunter (human male)
Cal Omas, Chief of State, Galactic Alliance (human male)
Cha Niathal, Admiral, Galactic Alliance (Mon Calamari female)
Goran Beviin, Mandalorian soldier (human male)
G'vli G'Sil, Coruscanti Senator, head of the Galactic Alliance Security Council (human male)
Han Solo, captain, Millennium Falcon (human male)
Heol Girdun, captain, Galactic Alliance Guard (human male)
Jacen Solo, Jedi Knight (human male)
Jaina Solo, Jedi Knight (human female)
Jori Lekauf, corporal, Galactic Alliance Guard (human male)
Leia Organa Solo, Jedi Knight, co-pilot, Millennium Falcon (human female)
Lon Shevu, captain, Galactic Alliance Guard (human male)
Luke Skywalker, Jedi Grand Master (human male)
Lumiya, Dark Jedi-Dark Lady of the Sith (human female)
Mara Jade Skywalker, Jedi Master (human female)
Mirta Gev, bounty hunter (human emale)
Tawn We, scientist (Kaminoan female)
Thrackan Sal-Solo (human male)

And a dialogue teaser. Oh Han and Leia...

"Okay, maybe I'll relax by asking Zekk what his intentions are towards Jaina."

"That would help matters a lot. . . "

"I liked Kyp better. Whatever happened there?" Han asked. "And what about Jag?"

"I shot him down. You know perfectly well I did."

"Oh, yeah. I do recall. And I intimidate her boyfriends, do I?"

Bloodlines should hit stores August 29 (just in time for school to start) and promises lots of Mando action... because it's Karen.

Oh and my flake boss scheduled me next Friday night when I specifically asked off for the meeting. I'm going to leave a note to see if someone would switch me but... yeah... I'm the only one who seems to ever want to switch and I can't very well do it with myself can I? Wow, that was wrong.

Happy 4th all.

 

There was one correction made to the Dramatis Personae: "Tawn We" is actually "Taun We", and she's the same Kaminoan from AOTC, not a clone. Way cool!

 

I'm a little behind on my reading, but I just finished the Dark Nest Trilogy. Does anyone else hate what they did to Jaina Solo? The whole "joiner" plot twist really irked me. I lost all respect for Troy Denning's writing in these books. I feel like he weakened everyone's character except Luke and Mara's.

Anyone have any thoughts?

I am eager to begin the Legacy storyline. I hope it is better.

My brother just gave me a box of Star Wars books , and I have most of them already. Before I take them to Caveat Emptor, I thought I would mention them here for anyone who wants them for free. I was not sure if I was allowed to post the list here, so just let me know if anyone is interested, and I will email the list to you (also at no cost

 

Im sure some of us would love to get some for free.Me included.

 

OMG! Don't even get me started on what they did with Jaina's character in the DN trilogy! They just...ruined her character in many ways! It was almost heartbreaking, she is by fair my favorite EU character. The whole joiner thing just weakened her character.

I better stop, I'll end up with a page and a half of rants.

 

So, Bloodlines came out on Tuesday, and since I finished I was wondering if anyone else had bought and or started it? Their thoughts?

My main thought at the end of the book was concern for quite a few characters.

...that and Jaina got the raw end of the deal.

 

Just wanted to say that I've finally taken the plunge and started in on the Star Wars EU books. I'm right now about halfway through Timothy Zahn's "Heir to the Empire". I figured that was a good starting point.

I'm actually finding that, for right now, the evil characters seem to have a lot more, I don't know, personality/feeling/depth than the good characters do. To elaborate, Zahn uses a lot of unnecessary "memories" when dealing with Luke, Han, and Leia, i.e.:

"He clinched his teeth, a memory of his brief skiff-battle encounter with Boba Fett flashing through his mind. Wrapped in the bounty hunter's smart-rope, he'd escaped only by snapping the cable with a deflected blaster shot. But here there would be no blasters to try that trick with." - Luke's perspective, "Heir to the Empire", Timothy Zahn

I rather feel that this "memory" was unneccessary. Sure, it gives an automatic perspective into what Luke was thinking, but it also unneccessarily takes you away from the situation at hand. There were no blasters in the scene, so why speak of it? Luke wasn't bound by smart-rope, so why bring it up? It was referenced only to get you to think about the particular scene from Episode VI. Zahn continually uses these "memories" to try and bring visual and emotional depth to Han, Luke, and Leia. For the evil characters (and admittidly some of the good ones), though, Zahn is forced to write more out of what is directly related to what is currently happening to create the characters' depth. This is simply because these are characters that either completely new or weren't really featured in any of the movies, so Zahn can't rely on a instant visual aid.

This comes into play primarily with the current main evil dude, Grand Admiral Thrawn. Right now he is a far more interesting character than even Luke is! The detail Zahn puts into Thrawn's art collection, for example, is great. Zahn uses this art collection to draw us into Thrawn's mind and his way of thinking, showing you how Thrawn respects his opponents and learns from their culture while at the same time showing you in the next few pages that he can be one heck of a ruthless person. Luke, though, feels a bit wooden to me, going places and doing things without Zahn giving us a good look into his thought processes and feelings, the whole Why of it all.

But in any case, I'm rambling on. To make a long story short (too late!), I'm enjoying the book and I look forward to continuing the series.

 

You make some good points, Tim. I think part of the problem with the Thrawn Trilogy is that it was the first time Star Wars was brought to life in the form of a novel. Before "Heir to the Empire", there was only the Lando Calrissian trilogy, and the Adventures of Han Solo trilogy -- both written in the early eighties. When "Heir" hit shelves in 1991, the Star Wars flame had yet to be rekindled. In fact, a lot of people credit the Zahn books for bringing Star Wars back to the mainstream, because not long after the novels took off, Lucas rereleased the Original Trilogy, then began work on the Special Editions... and here we are today, with three new movies, and a live action TV series in pre-production.

Because of that ten year gap between ROTJ and any worthwhile Star Wars media, the Zahn books -- and a few of the other Bantam novels in general -- try to ease the reader into the GFFA, reminding them from time to time about events that happened during the OT. Of course any hardcore fan will already know what happened in the movies, but at the time it was written, it wouldn't be uncommon for someone to pick up the novel regardless of having not seen the movies in years. It's understandable why Zahn made these references early in the Trilogy.

On the other hand, some novels totally "phail" at this memoir stuff, and it really hurts the book. For example, when everyone winds up on a planet full of Rancors in "The Courtship of Princess Leia", the blatant lack of creativity almost ruins a really great novel. The Jedi Academy trilogy is notorious for using tons of dialogue from the movies that sounds forced. Still, the later EU strays from the "movie memories" and eventually evolves into some sort of massive multi-headed beast from Nubian mythology.

 

OK, I'm now done with the original Thrawn trilogy, and I have to say that overall I'm pleased. Individual Mini-Reviews follow. Warning - I did what I could to keep spoilers out of the reviews, giving no more information than what you could read off a dust jacket, but if you want to know absolutely nothing about the books I would stop before reading.

Book One: Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn
Personal Score: 6.0 out of 10
------------------------------------
This was a fairly good beginning to the trilogy, but in end I thought it could have been a lot stronger. Zahn's characterization of Thrawn was really the best part of this book. Thrawn oozed a manner of intelligence and brilliant emotion that simply couldn't be matched by anybody on the Republic's side. I think this may be because, in typical good vs. evil form, the side of evil has only a couple champions representing it (i.e. Thrawn and C'baoth), whereas the side of good splits itself up into many different champions who have to work together as a team to defeat evil (Han, Luke, Leia, Chewbacca, Mon Mothma, Karrde (in his own way), Mara (in her own way), etc.). Having only a couple evil entities allowed Zahn to concentrate more on them and tell their story better, whereas Zahn had to split his storytelling efforts many more ways on the side of good and I think some of the feeling/emotion got lost on the way. As I said in a previous post above, this book also made heavy use of "memories" which distracted from the storytelling, and I occasionally rolled my eyes at yet another Star Wars analogy/metaphor which really didn't need said (i.e. stuff like (paraphrased) "he was as nervous as a rancor on ice").

But, thanks to a couple really good characters and a storyline that was intriguing, I was interested enough in the series to continue on to....

Book Two: Dark Force Rising by Timothy Zahn
Personal Score: 7.8 out of 10
------------------------------------
Ah, now this was a better book. The Republic's characters are finally starting to feel "alive". There are far fewer moments of "memories" (they still exist, but not as much), in general all the characters feel like they are actually living, breathing, sentient creatures, and I wasn't able to predict what was going to happen or be said quite as much. Except for Luke, that is. For a lot of the book, he was still quite wooden to me. Now, I know he is supposed to be guided by the Force, but I was constantly wishing the Force would cause him to do something surprising. I was able to predict most of his movements, what he was going to say, and in general what he was going to do. It was no surprise for me to imagine that Thrawn could predict his every move as well! But I was happy that he started "thinking" a bit more towards the end and I was happy to see him in more situations with "grey areas" that would need think his way through.

Beyond that, the continuing struggles during the war continued the intriguing storyline and the couple surprises at the end were great (well, not for the Republic, but you know what I mean). I like that the Noghri were more featured and the reasons for why they did what they did were explained. And of course, the story didn't end here, it ended in.....

Book Three: The Last Command by Timothy Zahn
Personal Score: 8 out of 10
------------------------------------
A good ending to a mediocre beginning, The Last Command was the closest book in the series to be called a page turner. One of the main things that bugged me about the last book, i.e. Luke's woodenness, was fixed by putting him back into more situations with Mara. Luke's character simply came alive when he was put into situations with her, and it was enjoyable to read the interplay between those two characters. Of course, part of this comes from her wanting to kill him, but what are you going to do?

My main complaint with this book concerns the ending and the events leading up to it. Now, I'm not going to spoil the end for anybody who hasn't read

 

LOL
very good review Tim, This series is one of my favorites. I dont read many books, even SW related but Tim Zahn is my favorite.

 

[image=http://images.darkhorse.com/darkhorse/downloads/desktops/starwars1/starwars1_sm.jpg]

A Tag and Bink TPB has been announced. I thought this picture of the cover was cool.

 

For anyone else who's now reading the Legacy Series (the books, not to be confused with the comics) the next book: Tempest comes out in a week! From the leaking of the DP and different tid-bits it looks awesome. (and Denning is the coolest guy ever, so it's awesome no matter what).

 

OK, I have a question for whoever might know. I'm currently reading "Jedi Search" by Kevin J. Anderson and Luke keeps referencing when he apprenticed for a while under the resurrected Emperor and learned some of the ways of the dark side (just like Vader did). Now, as far as I know using a list I found at Wikipedia (Link) the time line went straight from the early Thrawn trilogy (9 ABY) right to Jedi Search (11 ABY). Is there a book that's missing in this list that chronicles what happened with Luke and the resurrected Emperor in 10 ABY?

Later,

T.

 

Technically it was a comic series by Dark Horse. Try reading Dark Empire I and II and Empire's End. That should fill in all of the holes. You should be able to find them all in trade paperback.

 

Thanks!

 

Not a problem! They just released Dark Empire II together with Empire's End in one trade paperback. You should be able to pick it up at any comic store. Finding Dark Empire I in paperback may be a little harder, but with a little digging you should be able to find it.

 

If you can't find them let me know and I can help you out

 

Cool beans, thanks. I'm probably going to go ahead and go through the Jedi Academy trilogy first and then look up the Dark Empire stuff then.

 

Hey guys , I just wanted to let everybody that dint know, iTunes has a huge assortment of books up starting at $12.95.
Today I bought Shadows of the Empire & The Mandalorian Wars for $12.95 each. The cool thing is they only break it up into 2 parts instead of 50 or more. Try loading a 5 disk book onto your ipod . Its like adding 100 songs and if it doesnt add them in order...auuuh.

 

Just thought I'd see what everyone was reading recently? I managed to haul my books out of "storage" and am reading them in chronological order. Finished all my PT books (mostly novelizations of the movie and Jedi Healer duology), and I maintain that Matthew Stover's novelization of RotS is still a must read for all fans. I have fallen deeply in love with the writing style of the book. Every "this is ____" section is wonderfully crafted.

Yeah, so anyone else reading/listening to anything good? I forgot to mention that only a week or two back they had a free expert from Sacrifice on iTunes, unfortunately I don't think it's there anymore

 

Currently, I am not reading any thing Star Wars related, just going through the Harry Potter books again in preparation for the last one coming out this summer. After that I might go back to wading through the New Jedi order series. I really should get through those so I can read the legacy books, which have looked really interesting.

 

I just this past weekend finished SACERFICE by Karren Travis. Its the 5th(?) book in the series.
With out any spoilers I'll have to say over all I did not like this book as I felt it was to boring threw out the most part and the kick ass SHOCKING part was too short, but thats just me.
I loved BLOODLINES wich Travis also wrote but this book was just not for meI guess my biggest gripe was that is way to political.

$$/$$$$$