hmnn. i always thought that Obi Wan showed remarkable restraint in not going after Vader actively after he found out he was still alive on tatooine. It might have saved billions of lives from Tyranny if he had stopped Vader when he was still getting used to the suit. Of course palpy would have found someone else.
It's probably because he believed that if he killed Vader then Anakin couldn't fulfil the prophecy as the Chosen One, thus meaning the galaxy would suffer under even longer tyranny. Some EU even suggests that Palpatine meant to suck the life force out of entire planetary populations, so perhaps Palpatine could've lived forever if not killed by Anakin.
Rise of Darth Vader touched on it. Can't remember perfectly, but one reason presented is that Obi-Wan was not wholly confident that he would truly be able to bring himself to kill Anakin, having already missed his opportunity. Plus, of course, Vader is going to be a hard target to reach.
What we established was that the magnetic field oscillated over long periods of time, such that offworld communications were impossible in the periods in which the Doomed, the Tribe, and Jelph arrived. It's getting a tiny bit better in Jelph's time. By the FOTJ time, it's evidently possible again. As to Kesh's effectiveness as a "ship-trap" and whether that emanated solely from the planet or other local conditions, we never tried to put that fine a point on it. I do think the idea of hyperspace lanes allows for a system where they're dynamically changing, creating occasional (and temporary) cul-de-sacs -- but nothing has been said to that effect in the stories. The desire certainly was not to let Kesh become a Gilligan's Island (or Planet, if anyone remembers that cartoon), with visitors arriving and popping out all the time and only the castaways remaining; the place couldn't stay hidden for long in that event. Instead, the parties that have arrived have never left -- but I don't think it's been established that they couldn't leave if their ships were able and they were willing.
And then there's the fact that if he fails, or even if he succeeds, the Emperor would have all his spies and agents actively tracking Obi-Wan forever, and that would've put Luke right in his sights.
John - just so our imaginations don't completely run away with us over the next year, can you say on a 1 to 10 scale how likely it is that you'll involve contemporaneous Obi-Wan material (in particular Ferus Olin and A'Sharad Hett), versus doing an utterly self-contained story? One thing I remember loving about Stover's RotS is how he managed to maintain a consistent depiction of Mace Windu from Shatterpoint, and reference a fair amount of other EU besides, without alienating newer readers. And surviving Lucas' line edit, no less.
You say that like that's a bad thing! Really, it's best if I leave things to their proper course -- there'll be interviews, the book solicitation, and other opportunities for people to learn more. For now, readers familiar with my work probably have a pretty good idea about my approach.
If Ferus Olin at least gets a mention, I will love this book no matter the quality, though after the Lost Tribe stories and the Knight Errant novel, I am in no doubt about how great this will be. Anyways, Last of the Jedi: Reckoning was the first real piece of the Expanded Universe I read and is what has gotten me into it, so I really hope Ferus can at least be mentioned, and would like it even more if he made a cameo.
Tell me, John... are there any chances of this book being about Obi-Wan freeing a carbonite encrusted Gryph? That's a dynamic duo if there ever was one.
Perhaps he'll free him, and once he experiences Gryph's, um, electric personality for himself, decide he liked him better as a dining room table.
Actually, this is the perfect opportunity to include Goodvalor's in the era of the Empire. 3,945 years of 5-star service.
People, people, people, this is the perfect time to showcase Obi-Wan's adventures with those "duck" creatures he mentioned to Luke in ANH.
So this mens a lot of continuity references and rarely seen species. Please. please you said you loved the Tapani Sector. Let's see Kenobi have some adventures there. I love Herglics.
This is what I imagine Kenobi being about: Obi-wan is drowning in guilt over having to fight Anakin, not finishing him, not saving Padme, and how to look over young Luke. His struggles with drugs and alcohol become so invasive in his life, that his psyche creates "Ben" to compartmentalize his current duty and his past failures. The problem is that it gets all crazy and the Ben personality destroys Obi-wan! Kenobi goes through a psychological thriller style adventure to reunite his fractured identity. There will be something about a murder, and being a tomato in the mirror (I read too much TVtropes). In the end, Kenobi reconciles his past but still loves to drink. Eventually, he goes on to become the Tatooine Pinball champion, hence them calling him "a crazy old wizard".
This couldn't have happened to a more deserving writer, John! Congrats! I can't wait to read it. Hopefully there will be even more filled in spaces of his time and watching over Luke.
Argh, figures that I'm off-line for a few days and the best Star Wars news in months (or years) is announced. And I know I'm really late in replying to the thread but just can't help but add that THIS SOUNDS TOTALLY AWESOME!! I had been worried with no news of JJM's next new Star Wars project with KE over (for the moment) and while I still miss Zayne, this sounds really good. The Knight Errant novel was excellent and glad to hear JJM's next book is a hardcover, it just seemed odd that the KE novel was one of the few paperbacks and it was so much better than almost everything else. This will probably be my first Star Wars hardcover in years (well, bought an e-copy of Plagueis, which was probably the last really great SW book, but as a Sith book, I wasn't that interested). Really glad to see JJM finally writing another story set in the OT era (I think he wrote at least an Empire comic, right?), especially one starring Obi-wan. Everything he writes is pretty good, but not a Sith fan and as far as we know no more Kerra or Zayne unfortunately. Not to mention that beautiful cover (now that's something nice to look at). Just when I think Del Rey has no idea what they're doing, this sounds like it has so much potential and is an example of what they could do, rather than another book that symbolizes everything wrong with most of the recent novels. Really looking forward to this, whenever it comes out, yay, more JJM stuff is always good.
I like Kenobi. But didn't care for Knight Errant at all (book or comics). And didn't care for the Lost Tribe collection book much either. I feel mixed.
