Tired of NJO

Dew, Bror called Conquest a commercial bust. I just don't see how that is possible when its sequel is already selling so well in preorder.
The second book in any series never ever does better tan the first. That is a fundamental of publishing... comics and novels.

 

Elaine...
"I've been knocking around cyperspace for quite a long time now, and I've come to realize that "more and more" people is a difficult term to quantify. The number of posts on a message board is not a reliable indicator of overall reader opinions..."

Excellent points. However, I've been telling Dewlanna (in particular) and others these exact same points for what seems like ages now. The whole validity of this forum's opinion has come up in the past and these same points made.

It just takes some people some time for things to sink in.

As for numbers - it seems that the "terrible trio" is in a vast minority of fans in disliking the NJO. Del Rey has brought back MANY old, long-time Star Wars fans who were run off in the past with poor linkages to existing continuity, erratic characterizations and other problems. At least more so than they may be losing to people in Dewlanna's situation. It's good that LFL, Del Rey and its authors are getting the novels right for people. And the overwhelming advance orders for new NJO books is certainly an indication of this.

The fact is that the NJO is succeeding on every level that Del Rey and LFL set out to achieve. The fact that a certain few (very few) people here dislike the NJO is proof positive that the rest of us know what we're talking about when it comes to Star Wars.

 

Argue all you want. I have and will continue enjoying the story. In fact, I think I'll leave now and get my name on the pre-order list for next installment of the NJO.

 

Jade's Fire...
"Take heart NJO Critics. They are bringing out the heavy hitters on us. We must be on to something here."

I see that hole you've been digging has been getting deeper and deeper, so I have to ask you - have you made it to China by now?

 

Is it coincidence that there is a character in Ascendance named "Jedidie"?

 

DL your not serious there names are jeedai die?

hehe , thats just classic.

 

A quick note with another point of view on "declining sales" in a series.

I've written continuing-character series. Whenever a new book comes out, sales of the previous books increase. The reason is that new readers come in with each book, sometimes from my other series, sometimes from word of mouth, often because they've read and enjoyed another author's series in the same setting. (Thanks, Bob.) If these new readers enjoy the book, they are likely to go back and buy the prequels. We fantasy readers tend to be an obsessive lot -- actually, I prefer the word THOROUGH -- and I get quite a few emails from folks who've just discovered a character and want to read everything there is out there about him or her. I suspect this is true for SW, as well, as people OF EVERY AGE discover the EU.

Obviously, not everyone who starts a series will read every book. You've got some people dropping away, but new readers come in with each new publication. Those new readers who get involved with the series go back and purchase the backlist books. So even if a series creates a groundswell of interest and the initial sales increase over the initial sales of the first books, the sales of the early books will also keep chugging along. So to say that the sales of CONQUEST are substantially fewer than the sales of RUIN -- and I don't have the hard numbers necessary to know whether this is true or not -- might not have considered this particular aspect of continuing series.

 

Just a side note, there actually was a Star Wars character in named something similar to that as well - Jedidah, or something. He was "the last Jedi" who wasn't necessarily a Jedi at all. Of course he was around something like 18 years ago, so I hardly believe he was influenced by NJO

 

I still find it cool that SW authors come here to discuss their works with us.

BTW RAS, I hope your leg gets better soon.

 

I am sympathetic to the fans who don't find what they're looking for in NJO, but I'm also aware of the incredibly broad scope of SW fans, and I'm amazed at the diversity of SW product and how well it addresses so much of the audience so much of the time.

But let's face it -- not everything with an official SW logo on it is for every fan.

A cousin's 9-year-old son is an SW fan and religiously reads a SW magazine geared toward fans his age. While I've browsed several issues of this magazine, obviously it wasn't created with readers of my age and interests in mind. I've recently contributed a story to the new STAR WARS GAMER magazine. As the name implies, this is geared toward people who play the new SW RPG. People who've never played an RPG and don't intend to CAN find things of interest in this magazine, but it's not written specifically with them in mind. Ditto the comic books, the young adult novels, the early reader series, and the (really cool) coffee table books that show sectional drawings of the ships and machinery. I suspect that few male fans under the age of 12 are going to purchase the Barbie-sized Amidala fashion dolls, but I imagine that these are part of the treasured collection of many little girls, and quite a few not-so-little girls. (Heck, I wouldn't mind one, and the Leia doll, too.) And what about the action figures? The models? The trivia games? Readers read, and collectors collect, and while there is some overlap between groups, for the most part people find some aspect of SW that appeals to them and focus upon that. For some, it's just the movies. Others, movies and collectibles. And so on. Not many fans, relatively speaking, have the time, money, inclination or storage space to indulge in every bit of SW stuff out there.

It seems to me that there's also a vast difference of experiences and interests among readers of the EU books. I came to the EU relatively late in life, and I read stacks of material, ranging widely in tone and scope, in a fairly short time. Stackpole and Zahn were not my introduction to the EU, and they did not form a template for books that followed. My perspective as a reader is therefore quite different from those of readers who started with the first SW books published and have read every one since.

On the other hand, I HAVE read books by Greg Keyes and Greg Bear -- books that have garnered both critical acclaim and solid sales. Readers with similar experiences may well come into SW for these excellent writers. If they like the world to which they're introduced, they may go back and purchase Stackpole and Zahn. RA Salvatore has an enormous following among readers of sword and sorcery, and his several original series have established him as one of the most popular authors of epic fantasy. This is another readership that's likely to come to SW because of previous experience with an author. They're going to have different expectations and perspectives than the folks who've been around since way back when.

There seems to be an assumption that people of a certain gender and age share similar characteristics, and that the opinions expressed here are a valid polling sample of the many. But there will always be exceptions to every generalization. Most people who see me in the context of my life as a suburban mom assume, upon hearing that I'm a writer, that I write children's books. Or "women's fiction." If Dewlanna, Jade's Fire, and I were typical of our demographics, we'd be more likely to be reading Oprah-recommended books and romantic thrillers than SW books. But narrowing the focus down to our particular little slope of the bell curve, what does a typical, "mature" SW reader want? There's still remarkable room for variation -- perhaps more so on the edges than in the middle -- and I really think it comes down to individual preference. Just because I'm female, it doesn't follow that my favorite SW books are those that focus upon "relationships." Romance has always been an element of SW, but I'd hate to see it become the primary focus. And I'm not necessarily draw

 

ME, QUOTED BY GHENGIS:

"I've been knocking around cyperspace for quite a long time now, and I've come to realize that "more and more" people is a difficult term to quantify. The number of posts on a message board is not a reliable indicator of overall reader opinions..."

GHENGIS:

"Excellent points. However, I've been telling Dewlanna (in particular) and others these exact same points for what seems like ages now. The whole validity of this forum's opinion has come up in the past and these same points made."

ME AGAIN.

Oh, I think the opinions on this forum are valid. Every fan who posts here, and the many millions who don't, has a valid opinion. There's just a difference between "valid" and "representative."

I have no problems with any of the opinions expressed here, and I certainly don't consider them invalid. I don't share all of them, obviously, but that's irrelevant.

 

Elaine...
"There's just a difference between 'valid' and 'representative.'"

Exactly. By "validity" I meant that people have been engaging in "projection of their opinion" onto things which are not necessarily true. As an example...

1. "In my opinion, the books are childish and condescending."

2. "Del Rey has purposely made the books childish and condescending."

Both may be opinions (and I have seen one used in discussions here) - however one is more "valid" than another. If for example, Del Rey has not purposely made the books childish and condescending, then the projection of one's opinion is clearly invalid.

That's not to say their actual opinion is invalid, it's just not the truth.

As another example, if the sky is red and someone says "In my opinion, the sky is green," then obviosly something's not quite right with their opinion. What they've done is project their opinion (that the sky is green) onto something they have no control over (the sky being red).

I won't ever say an opinion is invalid (because an opinion is an opinion, not a fact), but some of the methods people use to project their opinions certainly are. In this discussion, I've seen a whole lot of negative projection regarding Del Rey, the NJO and its authors that is simply not true.

Hopefully, that clears things up a bit.

 

it definitely has a more different, more mature focus than its previous publishers gave it

LOL! ROTFLMAO!

Pardon me while I laugh at the absurdity of that statement. The only mature focus of the NJO is IMmature.

Oh! Wait. I get it. You think that the sadomasochism of Ruin, the increased level of violence shown in the NJO, the muted torturing of a 14-year old girl, and the sexual innuendo of massaging a Yammosk to excitement make it mature.

The NJO has been softsoaping or totally ignoring mature themes that scream for exposition.

Han's grief seemed glossed over. In one book, we get a very vague reference that Han Solo has hit the bottle after the death of Chewie, but it is never explicitly stated, so half the people don't think Han became a drunk. In the next book, all we get is Han running off on a personal vendetta to avenge Chewie. I don't remember any real, ongoing angst or pathos. The only one I really remember is Han standing at the edge of the path high in the Worshyr trees. Unless you became a drunk or started doing reckless things after the death of someone close to you, you wouldn't understand the depths of despair Han Solo went through because the authors never delved into it enough. We got the abbreviated, let's-not-go-too-deeply-into-it version.

I wouldn't have known that Han and Leia were estranged if the blurb on Balance Point told me they were estranged. We didn't see any friction in their marriage, no strong words or nasty things said to one another. I don't recall seeing any big fights, or things said that can't be or are very hard to forgive. The only thing that made Han and Leia estranged was that they were in two different places in the galaxy. Leia took off to help the refugees instead of staying with Han to help him work through his grief. Did we see any fallout or exposition of that? We got the less mature version of events surrounding a marriage that was on the verge of breaking up.

It seems like each book reminds us that Anakin feels responsible for Chewie's death, but after his brief moment of angst, he's back to the heroic fighter, and all is forgotten. It strikes me a fake angst. If would be different if Anakin actually was the cause of Chewie's death, if Anakin's reckless actions forced Chewie to go after him. However, Anakin and Chewie were both doing the heroic bit, and Anakin was knocked unconcious. Certainly, the heroic aspect isn't any different or more mature that Bantam. The only difference was that Chewie didn't survive this time.

Finally, Del Rey has never let a book end without the heros gaining a victory of some kind. In this aspect, it is no different than Bantam.

You want to see mature themes. Try "NYPD Blue" to see mature treatment of grief over the loss of a loved one. Try "Once and Again" if you want to see mature treatment of a strained or difficult relationship. The NJO has given us the fairy tale, fantasy treament of these mature themes.

 

Elaine, I couldn't agree more with you. The people who come to this message board have no relation to the reading public at large. Thank God people like Anakin SkySolo, Genghis12, Valiento and Darth Ludricrous are not representative of the public as a whole; society as we know it would be doomed.
Your post puts all those fans on this board completely into perspective.
Thanks again!

 

Ms. Cunningham,

The general line of your argument has been seen before in other threads that are critical of the NJO. Since you were not around at the time that some of these other threads were up and running, let me state that the critiques that Bror, Dew, Aleja, myself and others have leveled at the NJO are not as simplistic as having a single character excluded.

Our criticism of the NJO is far more sophisticated. As far as missing characters go, we look for characters who would be useful to the plot at the time; there is only one character that we always look at as an example: the Jedi-healer Cilghal. Mara has this illness, yet she doesn't go to see Cilghal right from the onset of her symptoms? Another missing character is Danni Quee. Jacen was apparantly starting to take a romantic interest in her in Ruin; then she disappears from the written page.

I can state that my reading interests haven't changed. I became an avid reader back during my junior year of high school. My reading choices were Star Wars novels and works on military history, strategy and military biography. I'm a junior in college and my reading interests are still the same, although now you can throw in the subscriptions to Foreign Affairs and International Security , two of the leading scholarly journals on international relations in this country.

So my reading habits haven't changed, unless one wants to consider that some articles I have read are of a highly specialist nature.

I've been involved with long-running series, as a reader and a writer and someone on the periphery of the gaming industry for quite some time, and I've noticed that over time, conflicting needs and expectations arise. We want each book to be as new and exciting as the first. We want characters to grow and change and develop. We want to be surprised. AND WE WANT EVERYTHING TO STAY THE SAME. "This isn't the character/setting/plot/style I remember from the good old days," is a common complaint. Other readers, and not infrequently, the same reader, will comment that TOO MUCH stays the same. Our desire is to have things be completely new and completely familiar at the same time.

Unfortunately, you cannot have it both ways. Something is either familiar or completely new and unfamiliar. For the most part, the NJO falls into the latter classification.

I look at Luke in an NJO book and I wonder if he's been replaced by something that hatched from a giant seapod. Yes, it looks like Luke and sounds like Luke, but it doesn't think or act like Luke. When did Luke Skywalker turn into a cold, unsympathetic character; on top of that, when did he turn into a wimp? Honestly, the only time Luke Skywalker was in-character, more or less, in the NJO was in Vector Prime. In VP, Luke was in the thick of things; while that did continue in Dark Tide, Luke also started to turn into a wimp as well; now he's like a monk. Luke Skywalker has lost the fire in his heart that had been a constant since ANH, and this is something that sickens me about this pathetic series.

RAS,

I strongly disagree about characters not being put out to pasture.

Some people seem to think that there was some conspiracy at DelRey to throw out the old crowd to make room for the kids!

Answer these questions. Who suddenly turns into an astrophysicist in VP and comes up with the entire strategy for attacking Helska? Anakin, age 16. Jaina, age 17, morphed into a tactician in Onslaught and developed the entire strategy to fight the Vong on Ithor. The kids have all the answers, the only purpose that Luke, Mara and Co. serve is to look stupid so that the brats will appear to be brilliant, even though it makes no sense for the brats to have all these answers.

I want to read a Star Wars novel, not Young Jedi Knights On Steroids.

The main characters--Luke, Han and Leia--have been reduced to nothing more than props which re

 

ElaineCunningham said to Dewlanna: "Yes, I can see that you, personally, are frustrated, and it's obvious that this particular series doesn't appeal to you. And I'm sure that there are others of your age group and profession who feel the same way. This is unfortunate, but I sincerely doubt it's deliberate."

I, too, seriously doubt that it was the deliberate "let's ignore the older Bantam fans" that other posters have accused Dewlanna, Bror, myself, and others of projecting or spinning into a vast, grand conspriacy. However, you must leave open the possibility that in planning the NJO, the folks at LFL and Del Rey decided that the way to capture new fans and invigorate the series was to appeal to the "Phantom Menace" fans, ie, younger fans. Ergo, the focus is now starting over again on the younger readers as opposed to the older readers who started and matured with the Bantam run.

More Elaine: "In my experience, people in their mid-twenties to late forties are the most avid fans."

Thanks for saying exactly what so many of us have been trying to say. Leaving aside whether or not it is happening, alienating that avid fan base seems like a recipe for disaster

Many of us know SW fans who do not participate in the TFN message boards, but are similar in age to us. When my adult friends tell me that SW no longer holds the same interest level that it did only 2 years ago, you have to stop and think about what has changed. People of this age group have fairly stable lives. Therefore, it is not an outrageous conclusion to say that it just might be the change of publisher and the new, darker, more violent focus of the books that is turning the readers off.

You said one of your children doesn't like the "extended battle scenes, gratuitous violence, or scantily clad dungeon babes". You should recognize why some of us don't like the NJO's increased level of violence. Did you, as a mother, not as a NJO author, find the masochism, self-mutiliation, and over-the-top violence in some of the NJO books disturbing? Is this something a child of 12 should be reading? How about a 16-year old? Do we need to be told that someone's blood spurted up as an amphistaff was removed from his chest? Or do we just need to be told that he was killed by a blow to the chest by an amphistaff? You don't need gratuitous or extended violence to get across the point that things are grave or gruesome.

 

I think one of the reasons that there are advance orders for REBIRTH might be because according to rumors, Luke and Mara's child will be born in that book. A Skywalker child has been eagerly awaited by many fans for many years, so it doesn't surprise me that folks would want to read about the birth of this little boy.

I don't care much about book bestseller lists. I think it's possible though that the mass exodus of older fans may be yet to come. If REBIRTH and STAR BY STAR aren't excellent books, I think there may be a significant drop in NJO readership. Longtime SW fans are very loyal, but there's a limit to everyone's patience, and I think we may be fast approaching that point.

Someone wrote: "The fact that a certain few (very few) people here dislike the NJO is proof positive that the rest of us know what we're talking about when it comes to Star Wars."

I tend to agree more with Ms. Cunningham about this. She wrote: "The number of posts on a message board is not a reliable indicator of overall reader opinions."

Very few SW fans write to discussion boards, and maybe that's why you're not hearing more negative comments. I only found out about Forcenet from a friend, as I don't have time to 'surf' the net; and since I discovered the Forcenet boards over a month ago, I've only read this thread and three others. Most adults are too busy with full-time professions, houses and yards to take care of, Church and community service, children, and taking their kids to soccer, ballet, cub scouts, etc. to spend time on the boards. Yet, adults do find time to read. For example, most of my reading is done on the exercycle. That way I can slay two krayt dragons with one blaster bolt, getting my exercise while feeding my reading habit.

I personally know three people who are no longer reading the NJO series, and another friend who no longer purchases the books, though she borrows mine. These people are all female, well-educated, and thirty years of age or older. This is the demographic that seems the most put-off by the NJO books. Women tend to prefer good characterization, well-plotted story, consistency, and a little romance to action and graphic violence. They also tend to prefer the original characters to the teenagers, and they don't care for the Vong with their penchant for needless violence and their glory in pain, death, and torture.

Ms. Cunningham wrote: "The point is, in a long-running series it's often the reader who changes."

I doubt that there was much change in most readers in the single year from VISION OF THE FUTURE (which most women loved) to VECTOR PRIME, but the Star Wars galaxy certainly changed. It instantly became colder, darker, and more graphically violent, and the intangible 'Star Wars feel' , the spirit of adventure was gone. The universe felt more 'alien' and it wasn't all due to the invaders either, though they certainly were a part of it.

Ms. Cunningham wrote: "The editors and continuity folks work very hard to create good stories that people will enjoy. But it's inevitable that not every person will like every story, every line."

As I've said before, I think the biggest problem is that there is only ONE basic story in the NJO series, with a few minor plotlines. If a reader doesn't like that story, there is no alternative. There is no new storyline in the next book or trilogy. It's all more of the same: more refugees moved to another world, another world devastated, more cruelty by the Vong, more Jedi bickering. That pretty much covers it.

Intelligent readers are disappointed by books of less than 300 pages, and by books with inconsitencies, weak and inaccurate characterizations, dropped plotlines, and promising threads that go nowhere. They aren't happy about characters who flit in and out of the series with little explanation and with little purpose. They're also disappointed in some of the ways the Jedi and the Force have been written.

For example, in many books prior to the NJO

 

Excellent posts, JF and ChildOfWinds.
Wish I had time to comment, but I have to pick up the cubs from school now and probably won't get a turn on the computer until after they are in bed for the night.

 

"Elaine, I couldn't agree more with you. The people who come to this message board have no relation to the reading public at large. Thank God people like Anakin SkySolo, Genghis12, Valiento and Darth Ludricrous are not representative of the public as a whole; society as we know it would be doomed.
Your post puts all those fans on this board completely into perspective.
Thanks again!"

I have know Idea, Newbie why your flaming me. But I happen to agree with what Elaine says as well, her perspective is the one I've tried to explain so often(Too bad I'm not the best at find words to explain what I meant, . ). I also agree with stuff that RAS has said. Saying that I'm dangerous or the world would be doomed is very flammatory, you should be ashamed of yourself, . You were probably being sarcastic, but mind you don't list peoples names. Especially when I've different tastes than all people you mentioned. So I am different fan as well. Which is what she meant, most likely.

I'm in the middle, like Elaine says. There are going to be fans who like a series, and those that don't. But in the end it's still going to be populer to large group of people. Later there are going to be another series that other fans will enjoy.

Really if for instance after the next book and star by star, the series plummits, and no one is interested in buying the books afterword. I would say the series is a failure financially. But as of right now. Doesn't seem that way. Seemed to be hitting plenty of buttons both directions. A neutral point between NJO-detractors, and NJO-fans.

"Intelligent readers are disappointed by books of less than 300 pages, and by books with inconsitencies, weak and inaccurate characterizations, dropped plotlines, and promising threads that go nowhere. They aren't happy about characters who flit in and out of the series with little explanation and with little purpose. They're also disappointed in some of the ways the Jedi and the Force have been written."

there we go again the inference that people who enjoy the books, as they are, and aren't disappointed are less intelligent than you are. That's pretty much a no no, and majorly incorrect, Sentence and idea to be saying.

 

Jades Fire--

When my adult friends tell me that SW no longer holds the same interest level that it did only 2 years ago, you have to stop and think about what has changed.

And what about those adults, like myself, for whom Star Wars holds a vastly increased interest level today compared to only two years ago?

This argument cuts both ways. I have a pretty good idea about what's changed (I had read TTT and the JAT a couple years before TPM was released, so I had some awareness of what EU fiction had to offer), and that change appeals TO ME.

To briefly list what has changed:

Many (perhaps most) books and comics now focus on the prequel period, a previously unexplored part of SW history. In particular, we can finally learn Anakin's backstory. With the NJO, the story of the New Republic and Han, Leia, and Luke moved beyond the conflict with the Empire into a conflict with a new alien race. The Solo kids, along with Mara, become major characters in their own right and can begin their own hero's journeys. And the series is presented as an epic story arc told sequentially that stretches over about 20 books.

Those changes appealed to me, and increased my interest in Star Wars and the EU. I don't believe that has anything to do with my age or my gender. I see plenty of other 30+ or 40+ individuals of both genders, and plenty of younger females as well as males, who enjoy the NJO and/or the prequel books and comics.

Nonetheless, I cannot, from my personal, subjective experience, reach definitive conclusions regarding whether the demographics of the NJO fan base compared to Bantam have changed, because I'm aware of the fact that my experience is probably not representative.

 

ChildofWind and JadesFire have made some very good points. Dropped storylines and leaving cliffhangers dangling are signs of poor storytelling.

Why did they bother to estrange Han and Leia if they were going to glance over and ignore the reunion in the following books that were to deal with it? Why was Leia allowed to be injured so severely if nothing at all was going to be done about it? To me, it seems those two storylines were done for shock value or to inject dark realism into the storyline without caring for the characters. Both storylines had much potential and could have been very engaging, but the potential was completely wasted.

Conquest was supposed to pick up the parts Knightfall missed, but Han and Leia are barely mentioned, rendering both plotlines dealing with them pointless. By the time we see them again in Rebirth, everything will have been in the past. Everything the H/L fans wanted to see between them (their full reunion, Han's reactions to his wife's injuries, how their marriage stregthened itself from their brief separation) happened "off-screen" and between the books. I don't buy the books to read about what happens off screen.

 

"Since when was Luke a pacifist, afraid to take any action and totally clueless?"

started in hand of thrawn, when Mara Lectured Luke about overuse of force powers, told him what she thought was overuse of force powers. MAS a long time fan of Zahn and who agreed with zhan's theories(than can be found in many interviews), took it further.

"If these books are supposed to appeal to adults, why are characters, from some obscure children's books brought in, like Ikrit?"

Not obscure, he has been mentioned in plenty of resource books easy for any writer to have access too, or any reader to have some basic idea of who he is.

Ms. Cunningham said that characters shouldn't be brought in for no reason. I agree. I don't think Ikrit was needed here. I felt nothing when that character died, as I had no emotional attachment to him. As far as I'm concerned, Luke Skywalker was and is Anakin's Jedi Master, not Ikrit.

Umm yes, Ikrit was his master, for a short period of time. Helping Tione teach him and tahiri at the academy. Learning about ancient jedi Lore.


"Some adventure that Anakin might have had with him in a children's book is meaningless to me."

You may not care, but Ikrit was part of anakin's life for 6 whole known adventures. Plus many of anakin's teaching, and behind the way anakin is today.

"I felt true sorrow when the Jedi Temple on Yavin was destroyed, but nothing for the loss of this living being. Rather sad, don't you think?"

You may not feal sorrow, but there will be plenty of those that do. Those children's books were as good as many of the short stories that were seen in Adventure Journal. Even had tied to continuity between those books. That you may not have any access too. There are going to be plenty of people that will shed a tear over losing that character.

"Something's wrong when the destruction of a building is more gut-wrenching than the death of a character."

Nothing is wrong, you just weren't awhare of his important background to anakin. Those that are will find it sad. the important thing is you did find something sad though.

 

Childofwinds comments:

"As I've said before, I think the biggest problem is that there is only ONE basic story in the NJO series, with a few minor plotlines. If a reader doesn't like that story, there is no alternative. There is no new storyline in the next book or trilogy. It's all more of the same..."

I can see your point. The NJO dedicates a lot of books to a particular story, and if this isn't for you, you're left with the prequel novels for several years. Valid concern, good argument.

 

RowanRaven writes:

"Elaine, I couldn't agree more with you. The people who come to this message board have no relation to the reading public at large. Thank God people like Anakin SkySolo, Genghis12, Valiento and Darth Ludricrous are not representative of the public as a whole; society as we know it would be doomed.
Your post puts all those fans on this board completely into perspective.
Thanks again!"

Mind you, I'm capable of recognizing and appreciating sarcasm when I read it, but it seems likely that at least a few people will misinterpret the above quote. So allow me a brief disclaimer.

RowenRaven, my comment about this forum not being representative of most SW readers was not directed at any particular person or persons on this forum, or even any particular side of the NJO opinion. It was a comment about us all, myself included. The people here are all very active and involved fans, and our opinions will tend to be more extreme and more vehement.

 

"RowenRaven, my comment about this forum not being representative of most SW readers was not directed at any particular person or persons on this forum, or even any particular side of the NJO opinion. It was a comment about us all, myself included. The people here are all very active and involved fans, and our opinions will tend to be more extreme and more vehement"

Which is what I thought you meant as well.