Lit The best author of Star Wars novels. Who do you think is the best?

Troy Dennings
Drew something - author of the Darth Bane trilogy and a couple of books of the New Jedi Order
good old Timothy Zhan
Alan Dean Foster
Karen Traviss- I think she's been picked on harshly even by Sam Witwher for no reason why
James Luceno - good author especially with his Prequel trilogy in betweeners

 

Are those the only choices available, or just a starting point for discussion? Because that's somewhat limited...

Sam Witwer is actually an admitted Karen Traviss fan, noting it in personal conversations with fans and bringing it up during an interview with EUCantina.net. He apparently only disagreed with her usage of Order 66 as a contingency order rather than a behaviorally conditioned trigger phrase—though the original decision to make the order a contingency came from Lucas in the first place—and even then, that's only after he's now become an ongoing presence in TCW, so his personal opinions may be colored by his professional ties.

 

Wasn't there a thread that totaled up the average review score for all writers based on JC Lit reviews?

Matthew Stover is the best SW novel author. Get ready to see that name a lot.

Btw, a poll with nine of the commonly regarded best authors and "other" would have been cool.

 

Luceno.

 

I can think of a number of names that shouldn't be allowed to touch Star Wars again. As for ones I think are the best (from my own perspective), Traviss's microcosm, Stackpole's X-Wing series, and Matthew Stover.

 

For me it's Zahn and Luceno at the moment.

 

STOVER

 

Stewart, Stover, Moran. Even though Moran technically did short stories.

Luceno, Allston, and Zahn land firmly in the second tier.

 

I would have to say my favorite novel authors are Matthew Stover, James Luceno, Karen Traviss, JJ Miller, and Sean Stewart. In no particular order or ranking.

 

In terms of prose, I have to give this to Matthew Stover.

There are obviously a lot of factors, though. If I had to pick a personal favorite, both Star Wars output and original material, I'd again have to give it to Stover. However, in terms of writing novels that connect the various works of the EU, and really make the EU feel like a unified work (something that I feel is incredibly important in franchise work, and indeed, might be one of the most essential factors in making tie-in fiction worth attention), James Luceno deserves attention. In terms of capturing the feel of the original movies, and doing great work in expanding the roster of characters beyond the ones that appear in the movies (which even the best authors seem content to use), Timothy Zahn is top tier.

I also consider Sean Stewart one of the best Star Wars novelists, despite only writing one.

 

I really feel that Stover not doing any recent Star Wars novels hurts my appreciation of him. Mainly because I WANT A NEW STOVER SW NOVEL!

But from what i have read so far, Zahn and Luceno and Stover are the most consistent. I hope I will enjoy the other favorite authors too.

I don't like Traviss after Triple Zero. I will brave through the rest of her books but her bias is really distracting. Its been done to death, I know.

 

Stover's a slow, slow writer

I'd actually be okay with him not doing more SW, since I enjoy his original work as much (the Acts of Caine series really deserves to be more famous than it is), but I undoubtedly would like to see what he could do in the GFFA.

 

This.

 

Used to say Zahn with his Trilogy which was a great fun adventure continuing the characters and introducing Thrawn (a good villa) and Mara as really the only really memorable and interesting EU characters. Then his ego got the better of him, and his writing quality has gone way down hill. The adventure stories are not even adventure stories now and rather boring at that, like it s a video game, while Thrawn and Mara have been turned into all powerful/all knowing who are always right and never wrong, which he seems determined to tell the audience every chance he gets.

For me now it's got to be Stoover. He turned lead into gold with his Revenge of the Sith novelization, and Shatterpoint was again another example turning the most dullest and bland prequel character into an interesting and highly developed character in his own right. Also doing Heart of Darkness in Starwars get's props from me again

 

1. Moran
2. Stover
3. Stewart
4. Keyes
5. Bear

Although putting Moran first may be cheating since he only wrote short stories and the only full-length novel of his that I've read I didn't care for.

Off the top of my head I'd probably put Luceno at number six. He's a talented genre writer but doesn't quite transcend the boundaries of mass market media tie-in fiction like the others do. I also like James Kahn's ROTJ novelization a lot but it's very short and it's an adaptation of someone else's work so I'm not sure how representative it is of his writing as a whole.

 

I probably should have included Keyes in my second tier, though my Keyes fandom is partially due to the fact that his Elder Scrolls novels showed a great grasp of that particular universe. Edge of Victory I was a fantastic story, and can work as an entirely self-contained Hero's Journey. I also have to give him credit for being very willing to utilize and develop secondary characters such as Tahiri, Anakin and Corran (finally, a non-Stackpole Corran).

 

STOVER STOVER STOVER STOVER.

Are we clear?

 

Luceno, though Stover is close

 

Allston, Zahn, Keyes, Luceno, Stackpole, Anderson, Tyers, Stover, Steve Perry, Michael Reaves just to name a few

 

Hmmm....

 

Too many to just pick one, so: JJM, Karen Traviss, Jim Luceno, Matt Stover, Tim Zahn, Mike Stackpole, Sean Stewart, Paul Kemp, Charlene Newcomb (short stories), Patricia Jackson (short stories), Chris Cassidy with Tish Pahl (short stories), Bill Dietz (Dark Forces novellas), and John Ostrander with/without Jan Duursema (if we add in graphic novels)

 

Derek J. Reda.

 

I am going to have to go with a list, James Luceno, Matthew Stover, Timothy Zahn, Michael A. Stackpole, Aaron Allston, Paul Danner (short stories), and Chris Cassidy and Tish Pahl (short stories). I really want to read other short stories by Danner and Cassidy/Pahl that weren't in Tales from the New Republic.