Lit Who is (subjectively) the worst EU author and why?

As great a man as George is, being the creator and all, from what I've seen of interviews and what not I wouldn't think his understanding of anything is "that great".

 

A question: is the Slick you mention "Mad bomber" Slick?

 

It is- someone so angry at what he perceives as his enslavement and that of others- that he's willing to resort to violence against Republic members, even if it involves harming fellow clones in the process.

 

Denning. Every time another author does something good he manages to wreck it. Or make it sound bad. Or just show a complete lack of understanding regarding the characters. Dark Nest was just...urgh! Why does DelRey like him so much? The only good book he wrote was SbS, and I wasn't so happy about everything there either. (I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say DelRey made him kill off Anakin and imprison Jacen, but still!) Ever since his writing has gotten increasingly worse - and I didn't think anything could be worse than Dark Nest. If there's one author who will make me stop buying SW books its Denning. (I refuse to buy anything he's written...) Why can't Allston write more books? At least his battles are awesome... And Zahn stands in a category all to himself. He likes the earlier days of the EU though, and I don't blame him one bit. Sigh... Remember when everything was black and white and the galaxy was a fairly peaceful place to live in... Actually, I'm changing my choice. DelRey is the worst for making everything so Dark. Then Denning.

 

thanks

 

A lot of things are disjointed too in the EU. Leia goes back and forth whether or not she hates Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader. Zahn had her in the second book of TTT mourn briefly that she never knew him as Anakin Skywalker. A few years later in another book she is cursing him as Vader and if I remember correctly wishes that he would burn in a Hell for what he did. There seems to be no forgiveness.

Leia also has a million and one excuses not to make room for her Jedi Training. Some of it seemed that Mon and others were blocking her and then she wasn't making time. The best excuse I read for her not training was in a fan fic where she knew that she carried a lot of hate for her birth father and that if she trained she could follow in his dark footsteps and be responsible for a lot of pain and suffering. THAT is a good excuse; not "we need her for other things" or "I am the Chief of State I don't have time". Come to think of it didn't they say in one of the books that they didn't want another Palpatine? I would think that they wouldn't want a known Force Sensitive in a seat of power just to be n the safe side.

Then Leia doesn't want children out of fear that they will go Dark and what do those (insert nasty name here) do at Del Rey do?!?! They had Jacen go Dark.

I have read some of the Star Trek Titan books and they seem to be really good and I have read several other books from TNG, VOY, Final Frontier and a few of Shanter's books. I didn't care for Shanter's books good but Kirk was a little too cool, if you will, The TNG ones were good, Frontier was okay in places and the captain was interesting, I have only read a few VOY books but I remember liking them but that was YEARS ago that I read the VOY ones. But everyone has different opinions on which ones are good.

A few years ago now my friend Bryg told me that, in her opinion, the Star Wars EU should go to the distant future where the events of the movies are legends and myths. I will admit that at first I was annoyed with her suggestion but she is right. That far into the future they could do a lot of things.

 

The single worst EU book I've ever read is LotF: Revelation. So Karen Traviss easily gets the nod from me. The reasons why this novel is pure drek have been cataloged enough, so I won't go into details. This book, plus everything I've ever seen about O66 and ImpCom (in addition to comments she has made herself about large swaths of the fanbase) made me more than pleased to hear she would never pen another Star Wars novel. No other author has ever come close to generating that kind of feeling in me.

 

Denning has slowly become one of the worst. It's hard to sya exactly where he went so wrong, but if I had to hazard a guess I would say it was around Inferno.

 

If only George had written that note about LotF as well...

 

The two that bother me most are Zahn and Denning. Zahn it's because his style is simple, too brief, and he quotes the films way too much. Also can't *stand* Mara Jade. Denning, if I remember right it's because he's too dark for my taste.

 

stover is the dark author, not denning. denning is the one that ruins characterizations and makes people stupid.

 

Thank you. I stand by my choices while standing corrected.

 

I'd say there's plenty of room for both beige prose and purple prose in Star Wars. I like both the Zahns, and the Stovers & Hamblys, of the EU.

 

Interesting you see it that way. I don't reduce prose style into colour shades I simply don't like how Zahn writes anyone but Gilad, really.

 

It's a generalization, for convenience - and a well known one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_prose

 

Wow, I didn't realize there were other shades of prose than purple!

 

I'm not sure if the term exists outside of TV Tropes:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BeigeProse

 

Oh God did you just put a link to that place? There goes an hour of my life ..... or five.

 

Another example, besides that one:

http://thewritepractice.com/beige-prose/

 

Wow, was this a case of thread necromancy.

As for the question: it has to be Denning. He may not be the technically-worst author, but there's just no one else who's harmed the franchise as a whole the way he has.

 

Yeah, there's just too many bad nigh-on unavoidable roadblocks with his name on them - if you're reading strictly chronologically.

Crystal Star? Can ignore. Hambly? You can ignore, but has its positive points. TAS? Can be buried. Apocalypse? Invincible? Much harder as they're only the final volumes of a 9-book series.

 

His books negatively affect other books through continuity with their lasting ramifications. Jedi Trial and Ruins of Dantooine might as well not exist.

 

You know, I was all set to answer "Karen Traviss," because she's just such an obnoxious [self-censored]ing [self-censored]. Funny someone way back said he picked her up expecting to find Tom Clancy type stuff, because I actually think that's exactly what she was - some really good military fiction, but as time goes by, increasingly crowded out by longer and longer Author Tracts against her pet peeves.

You've all done a pretty good job of selling me on Denning, though. "He destroys, he doesn't build" probably sums him up best... and the entire post-NJO, sadly. Hmm. Can I just tie Traviss and Denning for Worst Ever?

The authors of Crystal Star, Children of the Jedi, etc - no, I don't consider them among the worst. Because their effect on the franchise wasn't comparable. They were limited to one or two books, so even if they were bad, you could just forget about them and move on to something better. And if the post-NJO had been treated like the post-OT, then, for example, Denning's Dark Nest Trilogy wouldn't have mattered as much because it could've been forgotten about the same way. Once Denning and Traviss were charged with co-writing an event on the same scale as the NJO (in Denning's case, TWO of them), though... then you can't ignore the crap anymore.

I leave it to you to decide whether that distinction is about the authors or about Bantam/Del Rey's decisions on who to keep on. But I do think if you're being asked to write events as big as LOTF or FOTJ, you owe it to the franchise to try harder than they did.

Kevin J. Anderson... I don't share the hate for him, which I admit is in part just nostalgia - first author I ever read as a kid, introduced me to the EU. But I also think he did find a great niche for himself writing the young adult corner of the Star Wars universe. I also agree with those who say "good as an Ideas guy, not so much at the execution," which means he kind of reminds me of... George Lucas. (That's a good AND a bad thing, to be clear).

 

I have heard of purple prose, thanks. I just don't adhere to these tropes never mind let them define if I like something. If I do, I do. If I don't, I don't and I state my personal reasons why. Tropes are too shallow for me. All they are is pointless labels.