A&A The Official John Jackson Miller Thread

Sorry for the delay in responding. Yes, I do know pretty much what happened in that skipped month because of earlier drafts that had it -- there could be some story potential there, though probably more likely for something like we did with "Labor Pains," which was a similar "what-happened-in-between" story. Anything's possible, I guess.

 

Hi there, John! I just wanted to say that I was really impressed with Lost Tribe of the Sith: Precipice. I can't get enough of that era in Star Wars history, and I'm not ashamed to say that I practically devour anything I can get my hands on when it comes to the epoch of Sith dominance.

All of these awesome short stories you've produced (I loved Labor Pains, and Interference, too!) lead me to wonder...When are we going to see a full-scale novel from you?

Well, not if it means leaving Zayne's story in the dust...

 

I've been running sprints, where a novel's a marathon. I definitely want to write some longer fiction, the big thing for me is getting my schedule to work out to permit that kind of time commitment.

I was surprised to realize the other day that my KOTOR scripts thus far had topped 300k words -- in the neighborhood of a three-book series, in prose!

 

You want to do it...The fans want you to do it...Looks like you have some major scheduling to do, Mr. Miller.

I'm not surprised! I can't even imagine the amount of work that goes into that series. You've done a great job.

 

Hello again JJM, I just had another question. My question this time is on Malak and his head tattoos, first off, in issue 31 when they first appeared, where those actual tattoos on his head then or rather just some makeup to disguise himself to evade the Jedi? As far as I know, the tattoos in "Masks" were real so now comes a few questions:
1: Assuming those tattoos in #31 were fake, did Malak get them tattooed for the same reason that he took the name Malak (because it was something he himself made for himself)?

2: If those were real tattoos in #31, are you ever going to write an explanation for them in the comics at some point like Zayne's explanation of where he got that lightsabre and his wereabouts back in #36?

 

Sorry for the delay in responding.

We deliberately did not address how he got the tattoos, or whether they were permanent or not; they were clearly part of his ruse to get back onto Coruscant, but we didn't go farther than that suggest (in #42) that he liked that persona and look. I can't say whether or when we'd see more detail on that part of the story; obviously, we haven't seen the last of Malak.

 

I'm terribly, terribly sorry to see KOTOR go, but you've done a fantastic job, Mr. Miller. If you ever stop contributing to the Star Wars universe, I think I'll throw myself from the 500 Republica.

 

Well, I'd hate to have that happen. Don't worry...

 

Spambot

 

JJM, quick query for you on a totally non-Star Wars topic. (But Star Wars-inspired, I guess? Heh.)

Do you know what the plans are for the trade for the Mass Effect arc you've written? And do you know if DHC and/or Bioware have any other plans to do comics set in the universe? I'd have picked up the first couple issues, but they've sold out well before I made it to the comic shop, and while I love having read KotOR as it came out and love having it in individual issue form, for shelf purposes I'm think trades are how I'll roll in the future.

Well, except with Knight Errant, because there's no way I'll be able to resist that much goodness.

 

Hi JJM, I'm enjoying Mass Effect right now but I think I speak for most of the lit board when I see we really need Knight Errant to kick off.

I just have a question about Faithful Execution... When Toki's strangling Jarael he senses something and then basically says something tothe effect of "So much the better I'm going to kill you." At the time I thought he just could feel she was Force sensitive, but subsequent events call that into question. I remember in some of your notes you mentioned you weren't originally sure what route you were going to go with whether she was a Force user so you wrote stories leading up to Demon as being able to be read either way, so I'm wondering if he didn't sense the Force, what was it? Could he just sense Arca's DNA? Or was it something else?

 

all of my favorite comics are miller and ching.
i just get sucked in.
i cant wait for the novel

 

Very sorry this took forever to respond to. On Faithful Execution, Toki just sensed something familiar about her. I figured much like being able to recognize someone's child from knowing what their parents looked like, a Force-sensitive might be able to sense something familiar about a partial clone.

And, yes, Master Keralys, as you've seen, they've already announced Mass Effect: Evolution for January. Sorry it took me so long to check in here!

 

100 pages into Knight Errant which is also my first exposure to SW stories set before episode one (Except for the original KOTOR game). Really enjoying it so far and I will admit that the comic in the middle worked on me to want to read the monthly series. Most likely wait for the first trade then jump in from there!

 

Warning this is a LONG review.

Knight Errant 1-5: Aflame Review *SPOILERS*

Knight Errant opens with a very troublesome premise that automatically makes me a bit leery. It's about a lone Jedi Knight trapped behind enemy lines during the New Sith Wars. First of all, the thing that makes me leery is Star Wars is fundamentally an ensemble piece. One of the major issues of the Prequels in many people's minds was the cast wasn't quite as tightly knit as the Original Trilogy. A character has to have a lot of characterization in order to carry off a solo series (Batman does it best because of his introspective brooding nature - and even he has Alfred).

The second is that we know that Kerra Holt's destiny is not to liberate the entirety of Sith Space from the control of the Dark Lords. It won't be until Lord Hoth leads his Army of Light to self-sacrifice and destruction (with the nudging of Darth Bane) that the New Sith Wars come to an end. On one hand, this means we'll never run out of stories for Kerra but on the other hand it also means that we know she's never really going to achieve a significant change in the status quo either.

Still, Zatoichi was a huge success in Japan (and I enjoy chambara films because my comic book store stold them for five dollars while I was in college) based on effectively the same premise. A wandering swordsman enters into a specific place during the Warring States Period and proceeds to help the situation to make the world a better place. Zatoichi never interacted with the same cast more than once but he certainly had interesting casts and he was always entertaining to read about.

So, with that, is Knight Errant good? Yes.
Will I buy more issues? Yes.
Is it better than anything else Star Wars right now? Maybe.
Am I completely blown away? Not yet.

Honestly, this book actually invites more comparisons to Dark Times: Blue Harvest for me than Knights of the Old Republic. The books are completely different in everything but art styles (YMMV) and are both effectively chambara films/westerns. Truth be told, I think I like Dass Jennir more than I like Kera Holt so far. Dass has a little more to work with, though. He's lost the Jedi Order in a more literal manner than Kerra Holt and has a somewhat more reflective personality that leads to more moral ambiguity. I give Blue Harvest a bit of an edge storyline wise but aside from Fate of the Jedi (and ironically Lost Tribe of the Sith), I think Knight Errant comes in a solid third for Star Wars enjoyability right now.

But yes, the plotline is surprisingly straight forward. The Republic has blockaded off Sith Space and effectively hopes it's going to collapse on its own because it's unwilling to intervene militarilly. A bunch of Jedi still want to help and make symbolic raids against the Sith, including a big one that Kerra Holt is a part of. The raid goes disastrously wrong and she's caught between two feuding Sith Lords with the population of an entire planet potentially caught in the crossfire. In the end, despite all the horrible stuff that happens, Kerra manages to save the entire planet's population and humiliate both Sith Lords.

Good triumphs over evil after great adversity, so I applaud JJM for taking that route. Bravo.

The first thing I notice is JJM is possibly the first author in a very long time to convey that the GFFA is actually a pretty massive place. I'm not sure whether we're supposed to think it or not but I honestly am not sure whether or not Lord Daimon and Lord Odion are actually meant to be major Sith Lords at all. In fact, my impression is that both are probably actually fairly minor guys on the totem pole. It's quite possibly there's a dozen, two dozen, or more likely hundreds of Sith Lords fighting over Sith Space and these guys seem so overwhelming primarily because Kerra is utterly alone against them and a single planet is a big space.

I hope JJM can confirm or deny this either way because if they are just two very petty warlords, it's a return to the kind of compartmentalized storytelling I lov

 

Oh no, I mispelled Lord Daiman's name as Lord Daimon! I must commit Jedi seppuku!

Knight Errant novel review *SPOILERS*

I'm not one to argue with success but I think that JJM should have started with this novel to begin the Knight Errant series as opposed to Aflame. in a weird way, it seems that Aflame is pretty much the same sort of action-filled teaser as episode 00 was. The Knight Errant novel doesn't really require the first comic book arc to appreciate and really, I think an adaptation of this novel would have been a far better recieved jumping off point than the initial comic series. JJM should be proud of himself, I don't know if he's written any novels before but this is an extremely good one. I wouldn't have minded a self-contained work handling her introduction and the start of a series (I hope Del Ray also has him write more books - spread this book's worthiness far and wide folks!).

Why is the novel good? It provides Kerra Holt with a supporting cast and an archenemy as well as a reasonable goal for the start of the series. Just as Zayne Carrick had his "Count of Monte Cristo" quest for justice and revenge, so does Kerra Holt now have her Emperor Palpatine. As much as I like Lord Odion and Lord Daiman, the simple fact is neither were particularly good archenemy material. My earlier theory that these two were relatively minor Sith Lords actually was born out here (yay for me!). They reminded me a bit of Wonder Woman's (I know I'm getting skeptical looks here) villains Phobos and Deimos. Neither of them were particularly threatening on their own because they're crazy bastarves but you should watch out for their father Ares. Simply put, both were almost cartoonish in their evil and you couldn't imagine either of them being the kind of Sith that Palpatine wouldn't squash like a bug.

Which is why we're introduced to Vilia.

I was wondering why JJM created such oddball cartoonishly evil Sith Lords like Odion and Daiman (but in a good way!) when we knew he could create something better in Lucien Draay and Haazen. Here, he actually makes both Sith Lords have a great deal more depth and interest by making their apparent immaturity a plot point. Odion and Daiman are actually just immature brats playing Sith Lord. I was blown away by the discovery that both are just henchmen for their grandmother, the reigning Dark Lord of their territory who has at least a dozen grandchildren ruling a vast empire underneath her but keeps them all under her thumb by playing them against one another Ming the Merciless style. Yellow Peril villain or not, Ming was one of the greats for his simple philosophy, (Paraphrased) "The key to successfully ruling disparate princes and kings is making sure they hate each other slightly more than they hate you. That way, they can never team up against you and overthrow you."

Vilia is the first sign that the Sith Lords in "Sith Space" could run anything more than a cult of personality and a large pirate gang. She's a nice explanation for 'who makes the trains run on time' and an excellent "Big Bad" for the series. I don't mind soulless incarnations of evil (Nihilus, Palpatine, and Cronal are effective because there's no sign they're anything BUT monsters), but I enjoy villains who have a personality more. Vilia is a nice contrast between a kindly grandmother archetype and the ruthless scheming Sith Lord beneath her veneer. In a way, she reminds me of Darth Traya only perhaps without the moral ambiguity (Traya is a pretty hard act to follow in that respect). I anxiously await seeing her appearance in the comics and possibly more books.

Now that I'm done praising the Dark Lady of the Sith, I'll get to the basic plot. Really, it's Kerra Holt attempting to explore the vast Sith Territory and try to get a handle on a land where hyperspace communication doesn't exist and every world has it's own set of petty warlords. JJM surprises me here by having Kerra Holt rediscover a way out of Sith territory in this book, which allows her theoretically to act with the ap

 

Oh, we have one of these? Cool.

 

I can't believe we didn't have this thing open when Kenobi came out last year--shame on us.

Anyway, the official reason I asked for this to be unlocked was because AND was coming up, but the real reason is I finally read Overdraft: The Orion Offensive and while I enjoyed it a great deal and am happy to know there's more coming, something stuck out to me and I was hoping for an explanation from the generous JohnJacksonMiller himself.

Spoiler: Major Spoiler

I've gone back and re-read most of the later Kolvax scenes, and I still can't figure out why he needed Jamie on the bangbox to carry out his whole spore scheme. Considering that he was able to sabotage the whole thing purely by trying to escape, I don't get why they needed the whole fake trade deal at all. My best guess is that the box wouldn't have been allowed onto Earth without a human inside vouching for it, but he'd have known about the spore by then, so that doesn't work.

Anyway, it didn't hurt my enjoyment of the story, but I feel like I missed something important.

 

Sorry for the delay -- hadn't realized this thread was active again. In response:

Spoiler

It's established (or I tried to establish it, anyway) that cargo units had to be cleared through the whirlibangs between star systems; something like packets being routed on the Internet, the unit being transferred has to carry its own clearances with it to be linked to the next destination, since there's no way of calling ahead. Solar System security is tight enough the intervening hubs wouldn't have sent it automatically onward without its clearances and flight plan entered, which Jamie had.

The Earth codes CAN be entered externally if you know what you're doing -- most transit boxes are not manned -- but Kolvax couldn't be sure the Xylanx could enter them correctly, even if they tortured Jamie for them. (Imagine an alien figuring out a FedEx routing slip!) So Kolvax determined the better way was to put Jamie aboard. Once the codes were entered and changes were locked out, there was no turning back, as Jamie tells us -- and Kolvax would have known that all whirlibangs operate in a vacuum once they're engaged and on the tracks, so any attempt to open the hatch anywhere along the line would have killed Jamie.

This is why he felt no compunction revealing his deception once the 'box was on the tracks and moving. He figured Jamie would be too chicken to do anything but ride it out -- and indeed he would have had to do exactly that, had the Xylanx not overlooked the spacesuit that Jamie remembered. I suppose someone should have planted a timed knockout gas grenade or something to take Jamie out after the thing was moving -- but Kolvax clearly didn't have quality help!

Thanks for asking -- be sure to also check out my notes on the series, at my site. The next Overdraft story, "Burnout," is the lead story in the Apollo's Daughters anthology, releasing later this year and is a prequel showing one of Bridget's first missions for the company.

 

Awesome, thanks for the answer--and for the heads-up about Burnout.

Spoiler

I work in a mail room, so the second you mentioned routing codes it clicked into place. Coming from SW, it's still weird for me to think of the box as a shipping container rather than a passenger shuttle--which is actually one of the things that's so interesting about the premise. Lest you think I was reading absent-mindedly, I can proudly say that I picked up on the I Love Lucy thing right away and figured out who the Xylanx were about a page before you outright revealed it--which for me is really saying something. Keep up the good work!

 

Spoiler

There you go. These are envelopes, in a sense -- and no mail gets through to the CEO or the president without the proper routing code affixed. Jamie, by virtue of his scam, happened to have exactly what Kolvax needed.

Cool that you got the little secrets -- they were fun to work in there. I hope to do more with the universe, as the time makes itself available. The premise is ideally suited for a railroad-style boardgame, and there has also been some interest in that. Something for the 26th hour in the day...

 

So I just read Kenobi. I could go on about how amazing it was for hours, but I just want to say,

Spoiler

I don't think I've ever had my opinion of a character slowly deteriorate the way it did about Orrin Gault. "Okay, this guy seems alright. Okay, he's kind of an idiot for dealing with Jabba. Oh my god, this guy is the worst." And it only hit me at the end that he was essentially a small-scale Anakin Skywalker. It's nice to see that a slide into the dark side doesn't need the dark side or any side of the Force to happen. You don't have to be a Sith Lord to slide into evil, you can just be a moisture farmer.

It might not be part of the new canon, but it will always be part of my canon. There's no way that anything could even contradict it, because it's such a small scale story. I've always thought that the EU was stronger with small stories, the big galaxy-shaking stuff tended to be mediocre at best. And Kenobi is probably one of my favorite Star Wars novels ever, I can't wait for A New Dawn now.

 

Wow. Cool thread. JJM I have to say I absolutely loved KOTOR, Knight Errant, and Lost Tribe. It's some of the best EU material out there. My hardcover Kenobi just arrived yesterday, and I've already pre ordered A New Dawn. You rock.

I do have a quick question: what was it like working with the story group on A New Dawn? How much faith do you have in the idea of a new, completely cohesive narrative in the new canon? To what extent did the story group influence/control A New Dawn? You can be as general or specific or not answer at all, as you like.