Books STAR WARS: AFTERMATH

I always felt that some genuinely disdained such things on moral and practical grounds, like Gilad. It's not all 'so yesterday, I'm better'.

 

Essential Guide to Warfare says that many generals and admirals resented the Death Star because it meant that their Star Destroyers/AT-series vehicles/TIEs/Stormtroopers (whichever they commanded) were no longer the primary symbols of Imperial might.

 

I haven't read the Bounty Hunter Wars trilogy as often as some others - so it took a bit longer to find the quote - but this was it (Slave Ship) :

The much-vaunted Death Star hadn't been a Kuat Drive yards project — Kuat of Kuat himself had forbade the organisation from even making a bid on any of its subsystems — but the reasoning behind it had been understandable.
"Not just wisdom," said Kuat, but cunning." He repeated one of the lessons he had received from his own father, the Kuat of Kuat before him: "Force and terror accomplish what reason and understanding cannot."
The Kuat family had been in that business a long time, supplying instruments of force and terror. His reluctance to get involved with any aspect of the Death Star's construction hadn't been based on a moral objection, but purely practical. Kuat Drive Yards' wealth and power came from building warships, and the Death Star, if it had succeeded in the Imperial admirals' purposes, would have wiped out much of the need for such expensive — and profitable — craft. A stupid creature fouls its own nest; only a suicidal one helps destroy it. With relief, and a measure of vindication, .Kuat of Kuat had heard of the Death Star's own destruction at the Battle of Yavin. For the Empire to begin constructing an even bigger Death Star only meant the admirals hadn't learned their lesson. Speed was not so important as maneuverability; the Death Star's hyperspace capabilities had not been enough to outweigh other elements of military force, such as numerical superiority. No Death Star could be made so powerful and impervious to attack as to outweigh the loss of those factors.


Kuat wasn't at all pleased about the destruction of Alderaan, either:


For the Emperor to succeed in his ambitions, his mania for universal control—and for him to turn back the threat of the Rebel Alliance—all that would mean the destruction of any number of inoffensive and otherwise prosperous worlds. Potential clients, mused Kuat—if not directly for his corporation's products, then for other companies with whom he had already done business. The Emperor had already shown his disregard for maintaining the galaxy's customer base, by sanctioning the late Governor Tarkin's destruction of the planet Alderaan with the massive firepower of the original Death Star. That had personally rankled Kuat; there had been an outstanding contract with the local government on Alderaan for a utility fleet of perimeter observation scouts and orbital customs stations, all to be furnished at a considerable profit by Kuat Drive Yards. The units had been just about ready to leave the KDY construction docks and head off in a delivery flotilla to Alderaan when the word of their destination being reduced to a few charred ashes drifting in navigable space had reached Kuat of Kuat. A near-total write-down for the corporation, salvageable only in part by breaking up the undelivered vessels and recycling some of their components into the next order for Imperial battle cruisers. For a while, he had considered presenting a bill to Emperor Palpatine, for the losses sustained by Kuat Drive Yards, but had at last decided not to press the issue. Better to leave the red ink on the books, Kuat had figured, than make an enemy out of one's biggest remaining customer.

 

That's what I was thinking of! I vaguely remembered he had some sort of catchy phrase that explained why KDY was so miffed.

 

There seems to be a gap in his logic, though. Does he think the project will succeed or fail depending upon KDY participation?

 

What I am most looking forward to with this novel now is being able to debunk many of the fan theories I unfortunately read tonight. Yes I have to admit it I started reading through that dread and am now looking forward to the book just so I can once and for all get that stuff out of my mind. Many of the theories I saw I can almost put to rest just by reading the premise of Aftermath.

 

Definitely reading this book.

 

I can't wait to read this, since it's the first NEU book to take us into completely new territory. I imagine it'll be worth a re-read after watching TFA too, since we'll be able to see what aspects of the plot Wendig seeded.

 

Since its a trilogy, gonna get Hardcover for pre-TFA release because TFA reasons then wait for the paperback for the next two installments.

 

This is part of a trilogy? I thought it was just part of the "Journey to TFA" publishing project, with the YA novels and comics?

 

From the original starwars.com announcement:

So yes, this really will be the first major contribution to the new canon in literature!

 

Hmm, I wonder when we'll see the other two books and how much Legends stuff they'll use!

 

The second and third books in the trilogy are both due out in 2016. I assume they will be by different authors.

 

Not necessarily. Wendig clocks about 3K words per day, all told (though a good chunk of that is for his blog).

So the timeframe won't be the thing that precludes him from being the author of the two following books.

 

He does write a lot. He's currently doing proof work and editing on both Aftermath and one of his own books, in addition to writing daily posts for his blog and taking time off to go to conventions. One thing I've gotten through his books on writing is that he preaches a strong work-ethic style, saying that writing 1,000 words of pure dreck is better than writing nothing. He's not one to sit back and wait for his muse to show up. He actively hunts his muse down, straps a saddle to it and rides it through the streets with a beer in one hand and a notepad in the other.

 

Have you seen his Twitter feed? I'm convinced the man is partially insane with all of his bizarre and visceral non sequiturs. One (mild) sample:

Chuck Wendig‏@ChuckWendig Jun 8
Anytime a company wants to reassure awful people that they're welcome, an angel gets shot in the face by the poltergeist of Dick Cheney.

 

I read his 30 Days in the Word Mines yesterday. It talks about similar things that I can't repeat here. He's a great writer and motivator, but he can be very profane.

 

I waited for the novel Lords Of The Sith with excitement for months and forgot about this novel. When LOTS arrived I ended up disappointed.

Therefore I intend to not think about this book at all and end up pleasantly surprised when I read it

Yeah that will work

 

You didn't seem to like Lots for the same reason I and some others in it's thread did like it. It had a strong focus on the Rebel group. I don't think it would have mattered if you thought a lot about it or you didn't. The focus of the story wasn't where you wanted it to be.

 

I think one point of the book is a moral question: What is the line between a Freedom Fighter and a Terrorist?

 

Which side you're on.