Books So... The Courtship of Princess Leia...

Pretty much. Honestly, I think I like it for it's simplicity. There are some serious parts to it of course, and it's very much part of a larger ongoing conflict, but that's mostly in the background. It's really just a small, out of the way adventure taking place on this one planet; the type of story we didn't get enough of in the final days of the EU. Contrary to what others say, I honestly don't think any of the characters are OOC at all. Not Han, Luke, or Leia. Maybe the one part that I did think was out of nowhere was the part where Luke was defeated/killed, though it then led to an extremely awesome moment.

An all around good novel in my opinion.

 

Always reminds me of...

 

On second thought, I'm kind of sad/surprised that this book didn't have Luke run into Malakili on Dathomir. Seems like he would have been a great candidate to be Luke's sidekick.

 

The term as it's generally used, meaning catering to other's desires, isn't necessarily sexual, but it actually originated as a sexual term meaning facilitating a sexual relationship or procuring women; a pander is a pimp. The term originates from the character Pandarus, who in Renaissance literature was the go-between for his cousin Cressida and Troilus in their affair.

 

I liked that we got to see more Rancors.

 

And with people like Havac around, you learn something new every day.

 

You get so sexy when you act all erudite.

 

I hear that a lot.

 

I have this book at time, I have yet to read it though. It's definitely on my list!

 

when i first read it, i thought it was exciting.... force trained witches?

 

Easily one of my favorite Star Wars novels. It took me years to finally read it. I love the idea of the Witches. The first 1/5th of the book or so (basically, before anyone gets to Dathomir) is actually really... bad. But everything from landing on Dathomir forward is great, to me.

 

I agree, everything on Dathomir made the story more interesting for me - it even made the larger SW universe more fascinating as I read it. When the CW series and comics covered this topic, they also expanded on the mysteries of the planet, making it one of my favorite SW subjects. I'd actually like to see a graphic novel version of CoPL.

 

I always thought it was Jin-Lo Rayce. But, saying that, I did forget that Astaal existed.

 

This book killed any interest I had in continuing to read anything in the EU. It was only the second book I ever threw across the room in anger (the first was an algebra textbook in 9th grade). As a diehard Han/Leia fan, I was offended at the whole "kidnap Leia and get her to marry Han" angle. It's like Wolverton read a couple of bad romance novels, three back issues of Heavy Metal, and started writing while on a caffeine bender.

 

wow people like it or hate it. polarizing book i guess.

 

But the math books have become more and more silly in the later books. Like the "twist" that there are imaginary numbers and so -1 actually has a square root. This goes completely against its previous characteration and what I grew up with. The complexverse has really taken me out of the books.

 

I still can't believe Einstein rebooted physics continuity. It's still too soon for me to get over the Newtonverse.

 

I gave up on the Math EU when I got to the first volume of the Calculus series. It was just so...

... derivative.

 

I have been out of touch with the Math EU since College Algebra, I missed the boat on Trigonometry, and I am also unsure about the way the Math EU is being taken with Calculus.

 

I got this book in hardcover just because I loved the cover, but I have yet to read it...I've always wanted to because the witches seemed like a neat idea.

 

Okay I don't know how to follow that Caruso meme, so we're just going to pretend it's not there.

So I finished reading this recently, and this is total dog ****. It's really, really bad, and the best you can do is to just laugh at how dumb it is. Those first 80 pages or so truly are a doozy.

I find Mon Mothma wanting Leia to marry Isolder in the opening chapter to be one of the more sensible ideas in those first 80 pages. I really don't have the slightest problem with it. I don't have a problem with Mon Mothma encouraging such a beneficial political marriage. Sure, sure, but love! Something, something Leia is a free woman. Feminism! Yeah, that's fine, it's my viewpoint too, I wouldn't marry for political or material gain, but I'm not a character in the book.

I will say that the Gun of Command is just a really dumb thing, though. Oh, and Leia being given hundreds of gems, each one worth the cost of a MON CALAMARI CRUISER, is a dumb idea, too. I just can't get over the idea that Leia had enough gems to build hundreds of Mon Cal cruisers lying all over her bed on the Rebel Dream. Also I hate the fact that Leia lives on a Star Destroyer.

Wolverton had a cool thing going with Luke searching for Jedi knowledge. The cave of dead Jedi on Toola had that sense of intrigue that the movies had when they mentioned things like the Jedi Knights and the Clone Wars, made me want to know what happened. I could really feel that Luke was truly alone, at least for a moment. Surprising, because I usually don't go for the whole Luke searching for Jedi stuff idea, I usually just want Luke to move on and leave the past behind.

The way Wolverton paints the witches as...actual witches complete with costume and high pitched laughing was honestly one of my favorite parts of the book. There are several times where he uses dark clouds as a sign of their presence and it strongly reminded me of glimpsing the Wicked Witch of the West in the sky early in The Wizard of Oz. For some reason that used to scare the crap out of me when I was like three or four.

After reading Crispin's trilogy recently, the difference in Han's voice is striking. I don't think it's too bad, just definitely nowhere near Crispin's level.

There's a bit of a look into the Verpine as a species. They use radio waves to communicate, and these waves are picked up by antennae. Apparently individuals with damaged antennae have a much higher rate of criminality. Okay. So fix them. We figured out how to pick up radio waves well over 100 years ago, so I have to imagine it would be easy for the GFFA to come up with some fix for damaged antennae, whether fixing the antennae themselves, or installing some sort of hearing aid, or some implant that carries out the necessary functions on its own. I like the idea of criminals turning out to have some sort biological damage connected to their criminality, but this doesn't pass inspection.

Okay I flat out hated Leia and her characterization in this book. I can understand an H&L fan throwing this book across the room in the first 80 pages.

Apparently Leia is just incredibly easy to impress, as over and over its mentioned that simple courtesy and good manners are just sweeping her off her feet. And it is a bit hard to believe she'd be so blown away by Isolder's beauty. I can buy her considering the marriage for political purposes, absolutely, and perhaps even being won over by the guy, but I don't buy her being won over with blonde hair and good manners.

On top of behaving like a brainless romance novel heroine who can't get love out of her head and doing nothing but go head over heels for simple courtesy packaged with some muscles and blonde hair, she's not at all believable if you've seen the movies. A quote for example.

Yeah. Because Leia didn't call Chewie a walking carpet two minutes after she met him, because she didn't call Han laserbrain or nerf herder or anything else. Leia would never use an insult such as slime. And neither would Han, he wouldn't call Jabba a slimy piece of worm-ridden filth right in front of Leia or anything. Come on, this is just so wildly out of character.

Who is this woman? Has Wolverton even seen Star Wars?

Taking a break here. Up next, the kind of sabacc I hate and more terrible Leia.

 

Looking back...Leia was very poorly characterized. Her attitude towards Han being..."well you are respectable now and a galactic hero...so you can't ever act like yourself again or have any fun."

But we did get to see Han's weapons stash under his bunk.

 

I quite liked the opening parts with Luke on Toola. I wish that the Jedi librarian stash he found there had gotten tied into Jocasta Nu later on, especially since she got to escape Order 66 and Republic had Order 66 survivors on Toola. Missed opportunity there.

That being said, I think COPL has maybe the most accurate pre-ROTS description of the actual fall of the Jedi that came out prior to the movie itself. It's kind of suspiciously accurate. Since we know Lucas had trouble writing the ROTS script, he used stuff from the contemporary comics, and we know Katie Lucas read COPL for her work on Clone Wars, I wonder if she slipped him a few ideas from the book when he was trying to figure out how to kill off the Jedi.