Lit Writing Quality in EU

I do... got a problem with it? Too bad, carry on, carry on

 

So, thread derailment, rambling about things no one cares about, and copying and pasting lists that take up a lot of space and data on phones, is your thing? Sure... "Carry on, carry on" - can I now block you somehow here?

 

Hi. Enough mini-modding. Or you'll get real modded.

Those comments aren't off-topic: they're providing examples of how EU writers leave a lot of dangling threads and unused characters.

 

I noticed this in Stackpole's X-Wing book, and despite being declarative with his descriptions, the dogfights were really difficult to follow. I found myself hauling out my toys and acting out the scenes just to understand them better. Granted, playing with toys while reading the book did help make it awesome, but honestly... I don't think that in order to understand a scene's description, the reader needs to act it out.

When characters list off things or explain their actions, it mostly strikes me as the author had written themselves into a corner and they need to find a way out while still meeting their deadline. I usually just ignore it, or if I'm reading the book aloud, I'll ad-lib additional dialogue to lampoon it, and then move on from there.

 

My point was, it gets a bit obtrusive and annoying when he throws that same exact list into pretty much every discussion.

 

Do people honestly do this? Who reads novels out loud? Or acts out scenes with toys while reading? Do you hold the book in one hand reading out loud while trying to finagle an X-Wing and a TIE Fighter toy in the other?

 

Uh, anyone who hits a passage that's poorly written, and they want to try to make sense of it.

I never did anything like the toy thing, because I don't pay a whole lot of attention to action scenes other than "stuff happens". But I've definately read a passage out loud if it bugs me. If a sentence don't make sense when it comes out of a person's mouth, theres a problem.

 

Time to read Lucendo's Vader novel!

 

Do you read Tolstoy aloud? Tolkien? Vonnegut? Palahniuk? Dostoyesvky? Dickens? Homer? Plato? Hobbes? Spinoza?

 

All those authors are either from a period with different English speaking conventions, or wrote in another language altogether. Palahniuk and Vonnegut tend(ed) to be more intellectual and experimental, and Tolkien was imitating ancient storytelling con.

Star Wars authors don't have any of those excuses. It's pulp space opera written to be understood by any Joe Schmo off the street, and it shouldn't make your brain go cross-lobed with weird phrasing and confusing battle scenes.

Aside from books translated to German or Japanese or something, but there's no excuse why a translator can't get in touch with an author to get guidance on whatever doesn't survive the language gap.

 

Sometimes I read out loud, but only Twilight erotic fanfiction.

 

There's nothing wrong with reading novels outloud or silently.
To each his own. Why are we attacking people for how they read novels?

 

I love the story for just how goofy it gets. Throwing your dislocated arm so precise that it rips through a man's chest and comes out the other side clutching his heart?

 

No one reads Tolstoy these days, the movie adaptations are better than the books ever got.
Vonnegut himself said that only two of his works are really worth reading and one is little more than a long short story.
People only know Palahniuk because of the movie to his first major novel.
Dostoyesvky pff anything that encouraged Kafka to go into writing can’t have been a good thing
Dickens makes it much too easy to tell that he was paid by the word.
Homers works (if he ever existed) are meant to be sung anyway.
Plato has nothing on Diogenes, who pretty much invented trolling more than 2000 years before the internet
Hobbes is weak compared to Machiavelli who made the whole subject much less dry reading.
Spinoza wasn’t even sure what he was trying to get at in his major work

 

There *is* an ignore feature, if it is that frustrating.

Anyways, it could be worse. We could be reading Black Library novels. And not the good ones like Mitchell, Abnett or McNeil's work, but C.S Goto tripe. Backflipping Terminators? Are you out of your goddamned mind?

I find the writing of Star Wars EU to be passable. But that's not a bad thing. Few films can rise above being good, but that doesn't make them any less enjoyable. Starship Troopers is a deeply flawed book and film, but both of them are highlights of the science fiction genre for entertainment value and cultural impact. Star Wars novels are no different. You're not going to be reading the greatest book of all time, but you will get an enjoyable romp most of the time.

 

The writing is on par with that of other major sci-fi franchises such as HALO.
Some authors even work on both franchises (for example, Karen Traviss).

 

The thing is, real authors look down upon tie in stuff.
E.g. Robert Silverberg, Paulo Di Filipo, etc.

I have no idea how Lucasbooks mind controlled James S.A. Corey to do SW EU, but stang kriffing fierfek stang! P.S. Or is that just a rumour?

 

Nep he is going to write the Han Solo entry of the New Rebel books.

 

Nep they are going to write the Han Solo entry of the New Rebel books

fixed.

 

Pen names be damned.

 

"Real" writers can get over themselves and stop trying to hold their work to another level. There's just as much abysmally bad original works as there are tie ins.

 

I approach them with low expectations and I'm often disappointed.

I read a lot of the early books back in the day and became increasingly frustrated with the continuity marketing gimmick and the hack authors working on increasingly nerdy titles. I find military technology a tedious subject (sorry, Rogue Squadron fans) and I find a lot of the books seem to obsess over this aspect...

In terms of franchise fiction they're average. They're modern pulp, modern penny dreadfuls. For every Dark Force Rising or Darth Plagueis, there are hundreds of abominations like Crystal Star, Courtship of Princess Leia, Allegiance, NJO, etc.

 

I'd say the recent books were focusing less on minutiae and more on how they can justify having fifty Sith cults operating entirely independent of each other for centuries.

 

Not even remotly his Runelords series is pretty good, at least as far as I read and if you like Fantasy. Kind of like Denning, whose SW books I like, but are not even in the slightest as awesome as his Dark Sun fantasy novels, where he actually was one of the creators of the setting.