Lit Will we hear any major book announcements from Del Rey in the next month or so?

Him using their Klingon language in a few scenes is one thing. That's just him using the setting of the shared universe that's been established.

But Traviss has set up this scenario in which her group of genetic supermen heroes have a single planet that is so advanced militarily the Empire can't attack it because of all the awesome super tech and yet they're also pastoral noble savage farmers when not busy building literally unbeatable starfighters, their worldview is incapable of being challenged by anyone else, they always triumph against whatever enemies they have (mainly because their enemies are cartoonishly dumb and incompetent by dint of not having that superior MANDALORIAN culture), the Empire is a laughable threat, the Jedi are reduced to a black and white single-note worldview, all her women aren't happy until they fall in love with handsome hunky clones...

If Traitor was his reaction to the overly-simplified worldview of the Jedi that came from the prequels, I simply can't wait to see how deep Stover's IC2 is going to dig into the ultra-simplified Traviss worldview of the Clondalorians.

 

We know that the Empire do enslave it though- between IC and Marvel Star Wars.

 

Yeah, and you'd never know it from where Traviss' series ends, because the Mandalorians have completely bamboozled those dumb Imps. Seriously, the whole City of Bone retcon is not only supremely dumb, but a huge slap in the face to both Marvel as a series, and previous Mandalorian continuity in general. Having Stover actually carry through with the enslavement of Mandalore would be awesome because not only would it be setting the continuity ship of state back on course, but since most Traviss fans probably have no idea of the earlier canon, I bet it'd be a total surprise to them.

 

Considering that the City of Bone looked vastly bigger than the Zillo Beast- I can understand the change to it not being a genuine skeleton.

 

I selected all options.

Because I WILL have my cake and EAT it too!

 

Yeah, it's not like this is an outer space science fantasy series with no limit on what alien beasts can be like, or anything like that

 

From what I remember from Traviss' notes for IC:2, Mandalore actually was going to be enslaved by the Empire even with her writing it.

 

Traviss already referred to the Imperial occupation in the Legacy books, IIRC.

 

Yeah, and the Yuuzhan Vong desolation of Mandalore, too.

 

I wouldn't count on any new annoucements for a while. At Dragon*Con yesterday, Zahn, Stackpole and Allston confirmed that all fiction is on hold for now. https://mobile.twitter.com/SWatDC/status/374291732751745024

And that's assuming Del Rey keeps the license. The current contract, in 2008, extended the license through the end of 2013. The last extension was announced in September of the year the former contract expired. So if we get any news from Del Rey in the near future, it will probably be the contract extension - or the license going to someone else.

 

So... we're missing a three-part collaboration between Zahn, Stackpole and Allston because of the buyout.

 

Losing this to the hiatus is more upsetting than losing any of the other books/series to it, imo.

 

Traitor was a reaction to the overly simplified worldview of the Jedi that came from the Expanded Universe. If anything, it is more consistent with the prequels.

 

If anything, it's more consistent with the original trilogy, particularly the scene with the cave:

"That place... is strong with the dark side of the Force. A domain of evil it is. In you must go."
"What's in there?"
"Only what you take with you."

I suppose we should start calling Yoda "Darth Gremlin".


Then, you know, there's the bit with Luke in RotJ where he defies everyone's expectations by choosing to not end Vader.

"You've failed, Your Highness. I am a Jedi, like my father before me."

 

Wait -- Stackpole was going to write something?

 

BUT A DOMAIN OF EVIL, IT IS. STRONG IN THE DARK SIDE.

It's consistent with the films period -- it's a reaction to the Expanded Universe dumbing the films down to the lowest common denominator.

 

Zahn and Stackpole and Allston were going to write something together.This screams Bantam-era style to me, and after Del Rey's recent books it would have been a breathe of fresh air.

 

Hopefully what they were working on is something which will see the light of day despite being on hold as Darth Plagueis did. Based on Zahn's recent history and stated desire to stick around the film saga, I have hope that whatever they were doing wasn't Legacy era or anything like that.

 

Zahn asked the question "Why is this particular place strong with the dark side?" - and came up with an answer- a very powerful user of the Dark Side was killed there.

 

So Zahn answered the question.

Stover gave a different answer, but it's not what people think it is. Though it applies to the Jedi temple rather than the cave.

Edit: Though I question the 'canonicity' of Zahn's answer now, though not on metaphysical grounds.

 

I suspect the next few to six months will be quiet, then we'll start getting some big announcements. Now I hope not. Waiting and silence is always awful, but we'll see.

 

I´m 50/50 about it. Vergere is right DS comes from within, but it´s also a very real thing. When she said there´s no DS, just the true power of the Force using a place tainted as an example, I was hearing Palpatine and Traya. Using the Force under negative emotions will corrupt the user, no matter how pure the intent. It´s just the way the Force works as a natural phenomena, you can argue all you want about gravity for that matter but it´ll still make you fall.

Fear, anger, agression, the Dark Side of the Force they are. Said by somebody who had a direct line to the other side. Good intentions don´t matter (cough...Mara...cough).

 

He wasn't the only author to paint certain locations as "tainted"- even in the present day books, it's mentioned.

 

I suppose I'd say that the post-NJO thread is more appropriate for the discussion than this one.

Sure, he also shows a taint in the orbit of the forest moon of Endor. Even if we accept the commonly held belief that Vergere is saying there's no dark side, that doesn't preclude dark side taint from "internal dark side." But the Jedi temple in Traitor is a different phenomenon -- Nyax wasn't killed there yet since Traitor occurs simultaneous to three other novels and Nyax is killed at the very end of the third.