Lit Rogue Squadron by Michael Stackpole 20 years later My Review

I can imagine a series called "Super Star Destroyer," four books debating how long the ship they're on is.

 

But when the series is reprinted, the title will be changed to Star Dreadnought and a note will be added to explain that the series' old title was always just a nickname.

 

Yeah the Freedom and the Virulence. Still pretty hard to believe. Two ISD's should not be able to take down an SSD. The sheer size difference alone makes the fight utterly lopsided. Just look at the Malevolence against three Venators in Destroy Malevolence. The ship was so massive and so heavily armed that even with it's main weapon destroyed, Obi-Wan's fleet just couldn't take it down.

 

What the Executor in ROTJ?

 

We need an AT-ATs book!

 

I just finished reading Rogue Squadron for the 2nd time, about 18 years after I read it the first time. I still enjoyed it quite a bit and plan on reading the whole series again if I can track down all the books.

 

Just finished re-reading The Bacta War yesterday. The final battle was somewhat unstatisfying, and is evidence of early-era Stackpole's predilection to make his heroes invincible supermen and his bad guys shockingly incompetent. That being said, 1) The captain of a Star Destroyer that will hopefully spend its entire existence buried underground is probably not a tactical genius and 2) an SSD has blind spots big enough to hide a Star Destroyer in. At Thyferra, the Lusanyka got forced into exactly the kind of fight an SSD doesn't want to be in: no support ships, no fighter screen, and few big ships to bring its awesome firepower to bear on. If the Virulence was there to knock the Valiant off of the SSD's tail, or if TIE squadrons had effectively distracted the Rogues, the Lusankya would have been fine. And, for what it's worth, the Lu did cripple the Freedom in on salvo.

I think the battle would have been better if it was specified that the Rogue's initial torpedo volley targeted and damaged the Lusyanka's primary reactor, and if Valiant had been a little bigger. Say, a captured Providence-class that Alderaan "disappeared" at the end of the Clone War?

 

Exactly. The Lusankya was basically a lion trying to swat a bunch of tiny mosquitos. An extremely hard task and in the end not really worth the lion's time. Drysso should basically have realized he was fighting a losing battle where he had everything to lose and nothing to gain and just left Thyferra with the Lusankya intact. Though if he'd been that smart he'd never have fallen for Terrik's ridiculous bluff at Yag'dhul. No way a space station could ever support that many missile launchers. If he'd only had his crew scan the station visually, they would have seen that there were no actual emplacements on the hull.

Isard certainly chose a man as intellectually blind as herself to command her flagship. Now if she'd chosen the Captain of the Avarice instead, she might've been able to hold onto Thyferra. Sair Yonka was a much cannier and creative thinker than Joak Drysso.

 

Yeah, that battle was a bit unbelievable, but it was cool enough (a bunch of X-wings taking on a Super Star Destroyer?!) that I never minded much. Although even by the end, they were still sort of holding back a bit, as they thought the Rebel prisoners were still on board and they didn't want to blow up the ship.

Though I think Bacta War was written during one of those "SSD is 8km" years, but not entirely sure, and yeah, even MK-II Star Destroyers shouldn't do that much damage to one, but it just sounds cool. And while Yonka would have made a much better captain, its because he was smart that he defected when he had a chance, so someone like Drysso was probably more reliable and less likely to have independent thoughts (or ethics).

I still very fondly remember Bacta War for how to do one of those "underdog resistance groups vs. big ships" without resetting the galaxy or making the New Republic look too stupid or corrupt. Like the PL-1 thing, that's still one of my favorite scenes from the old EU.

 

In my headcanon, there were different classes of SSD's, and Lusankya was one of the "little" 8 km versions. Makes the battle a little easier to swallow, IMO.

 

This is also true of the Iron Fist, which somehow didn't wreck Mon Remoda in their numerous broadside-to-broadside passes.

Maybe they're both Mandator-classes?

 

Thou Shall Not Negatively Critique Stackpole's Work!

Isn't this is TFN Lit. Board rule?

If not... Shouldn't it be?

 

When the book was published, there weren't any ships recognized as being between the Imperial and Super class in size. (And yes, they were still 8-km Super-class Star Destroyers at the time.)

 

I'm currently revisiting a lot of old novels from 20 years previous, and it just so happens that in the last few weeks, I have been re-reading the X-wing series. I just wrapped up Rogue Squadron and Wedge's Gamble for my third reads (my first two were in 1996-97...amazing how often I used to find time to re-read books back then. These days I can barely find time to crack open one at a time.) The series as a whole is generally just as good/bad as I remember it, although I tend to understand and appreciate the long diatribes on life and war philosophy than I used to, especially the ones in regards to how the Empire and Rebellion function internally (especially in light of Rogue One), and the multi-page sequence of Wedge and Gavin reminiscing on Biggs and his early battles was actually really awesome. It makes me want to revisit the Darklighter comics yet again.

My criticisms of Stackpole's X-wing books remain the same as back then; Corran is seemingly an unabashed tribute to everything someone would desire to be in the Star Wars universe, and real life...Pursued by multiple hot women, crackshot pilot, knowledgeable about life, streetwise, witty, funny etc. Even when Corran is taken down a notch in The Krytos Trap and I, Jedi, it's just an excuse for him to bounce back and kick some ass and drop one-liners. With some writers, that kind of thing is genuinely funny and fun, but with Stackpole is just comes off as trying too hard.

Also, it seems like most people love how he writes battle scenes, but I think he is one of the worst action writers. He will describe TIE Fighters, X-wings, speeders, or repulsortanks exploding in myriad different ways, always uniquely, but it's always long-winded and takes multiple paragraphs just to put into writing what would have taken no more than two or three seconds in realtime. I prefer simple, descriptive battles that use less words, but keep the action moving. I've got Krytos and The Bacta War coming up in the next week or two. Crazy how fast time flies, and I start to remember scenes and passages from way back when. I was 16-17 when I first read these, and now I am almost 37.

 

So how did you get on with Kyrtos Trap and Bacta War ?

 

Wow. So, I just read through this thread, and felt this terrible pang of missing Booster Terrik's privately owned Star Destroyer, even though I've only been familiar with it for a short couple of years. I missed the X-Wing series back in the day, and only read them in recent years (the first four, at least). I really liked The Bacta War, where everyone is out of uniform, lets their hair down, paints their X-Wings to reflect their individual pilots, and calls in favors to launch a...resistance against Isard. That setup is kind of what my mind speculates The Resistance from the new continuity is a little bit like in it's relationship to the New Republic, except for the part about individualizing their fighter crafts.

 

A while back I bought and finished Wedge's Gamble, found it enjoyable, didn't understand people's beef with Corran then just the other week I read I, Jedi, didn't really like it because of Corran's clearly OP'd characteristics. He lectures LUKE FREAKING SKYWALKER!!! on dealing with the dark side then gets propositioned by a female admiral into becoming her rent boy.

I would say the thing I came to dislike most about Corran was how he's always getting sex, or at least the offer of sex, off various beautiful women. It happened twice in the first rogue book and I particular found it grating in Wedge's Gamble when Corran reminisces about the six month wild sexual/sensual love affair he had with a random fox/tiger alien woman from work after he took her on a single pity date. I'm sure there's worse examples in the later books but I haven't got round to them yet....

This is star wars, people aren't supposed to talk about or mention sex (the occasional innuendo I'll tolerate). Just think over forty years and we've never had a story about how Luke and Leia were conceived despite them being such important characters. Hell Leia is practically stark naked when she's in Jabba's palace in ROTJ and she doesn't even get a single leer!

To put it simply: For those who like to whine about Ahsoka's overinflated importance by her creator look no further than Corran Horn!

 

I like Corran but yeah you nailed everything wrong with him. He can be such a freaking gary stue. I kinda wish they had went the other way with him and had him think he was this amazing ladies man, but in reality was just full of himself............did I just make Corran into Hal Jordan? I mean hot shot pilot who loves green?

"Corran Horn of Corellia, you are one without fear, welcome to the green lantern corps.....I mean Rogue Squadron".

 

This is the most uncomfortable thing about Stackpole's writing to me. Not just with Corran. Every female character is described in a very sexualized manner and all the male characters leer at women.


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I'm glad Rogue Squadron dealt with sex.

It's something which made it feel like a more realistic soldier group.

 

But no one have problem with Kyle Katarn OPing...

 

Kyle Katarn is just awesome. And has both The Beard and Shoulderpad of Holding.

Corran is a bit much, with Stackpole's dialogue making it worse. But he's no worse than Kyp Durron when it comes to Gary Stu credentials. Corran is a charismatic cop and fighter jock with skills in energy manipulation and illusion (perhaps he unconsiously is affecting those around him with the force slightly, making them like or favor him more?) while Kyp was a slave kid who survived in the mines of Kessel for years, became buddies with Han Solo and helped rescue him, blindly navigated the Maw, stole a superweapon, became Lukes star student who was potentially "stronger" than Luke, got corrupted by a Sith Lord, stole the Sun Crusher again, beat Luke in a Force Duel with the help of his new Sith friend, blew up a planet, had to be talked down by his buddy Han while the other Jedi stopped the Sith Lord, and made an act of "sacrifice" that saw both the Sun Crusher and a mini-Death Star destroyed that he managed to survive and all was forgiven.

 

Corran Horn is a great character but it becomes somewhat hard to take him seriously with the way the narrative tends to bend around him. It's a a squadron book with Wedge Antilles and some other beloved characters in it.

So if they'd spread around the love a bit more, it probably wouldn't have been as problematic.

Also, his opponents are a bit flat compared to him.

Corran is a Police Officer/Jedi/Fighter Pilot as well as Ladies Man.

That's not actually that bad of a character and I like Corran a lot but it's a bit of a weird trajectory as a character. I think really a lot of fans just wished someone would wipe that smug grin off his face sometime.

Partially why his suspicion of Tycho being DEAD WRONG worked so well for me.

 

I haven't read Rogue Squadron since 1997, myself. I can certainly believe that the dialogue isn't great, because I can't remember any of that. What I do remember liking is how the squadron feels like a diverse group of people, some closer in-focus than others, and how the plot isn't just a single-book thing but a slow-building setup across several novels. There's intrigue early on that doesn't get resolution until far down the line, but I don't recall feeling like it was being withheld, because more than any other Star Wars books of the day, the X-Wing series was more like a TV show than a film or trilogy of films. Each season had objectives, in addition to the ultimate objectives of capturing Coruscant, etc.

On the particular subject of Corran Horn, I really liked him when I read Stackpole's early X-Wing books in the late 90s. However, maybe ten years later I finally got around to reading I, Jedi and in that story I found my self straight-up loathing Horn. He came across exactly like what others here have been saying - as an author's-fantasy avatar. I don't know if his characterization had changed or if that was just me being older (probably a bit of both).

 

Well, Corran is a horndog, but I don't think that's true of "all the male characters." Wedge isn't constantly assessing the attractiveness of women. He's interested in Iella but he's not particularly carnal about it. Tycho isn't that way. Gavin's portrayed as a fairly innocent farm kid. Hobbie and Janson chase women a little in the comics. So there are three skirt-chasers among a pretty big cast. What I think makes it seem so predominant is that Corran's the main POV character and he's definitely a young dude with sex on the mind, and pretty much all the female characters come to his attention at some point.

But I don't think that's a characteristic of Stackpole's writing per se so much as it's a very deliberate decision he makes in portraying Corran. Corran's a ladies man in the first two or so books, but we see that aspect diminish as he commits to a relationship with Mirax, and I think that's part of his maturation as a character. He's not ogling anybody in the later X-wing books, except for being turned on by his wife. And Corran's "leering" only returns in I, Jedi, both in conjunction with the idea that Corran's separated from his wife, and his faithfulness is one of the many aspects of his character and morality that's tested during his undercover mission, and to sort of return to the idea of Corran's maturing. I, Jedi is very much dealing with the idea that Corran may think he knows what's going on, as a thirtysomething veteran in his field, but he has a lot of growing up still to do when it comes to being a Jedi Knight. Note that when Stackpole writes a middle-aged, long-married Corran in Dark Tide, there's not much in the way of sexuality there. He's settled in with family life and he's finally a really mature guy, and nobody's leering at anybody in those books.