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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Lit you're gonna think i'm crazy but...

Discussion in 'Literature' started by jacktherack, Oct 5, 2013.

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  1. DigitalMessiah

    DigitalMessiah Chosen One star 6

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    Feb 17, 2004
    Darksaber is probably conceptually KJA's worst novel of his four "adult novels," IMO. I think if you look at his plots he shows that he's very much in the same storytelling vein as Lucas with ROTJ and TPM in that he likes to juggle a lot of plotlines; with Darksaber you have the Callista plotline which seems to be the reason why the book exists, to get her out of the picture, then you've got the Daala plotline and the Durga plotline that gives the book its title.

    I haven't inflicted Darksaber on myself in several years but I don't think that the Darksaber storyline has any overlap with the other two, except I guess superficially at the beginning when Luke and Han go on Tatooine so that KJA can reuse material from his The Illustrated Guide to the Star Wars Universe with them riding along with Tusken Raiders in a scene that doesn't do anything to advance the plot, but they're there investigating Jabba's palace because the Hutts were snooping around there because Jabba had codes to Coruscant computers or something and the New Republic keeps the Death Star plans lying around because they might forget to target the exhaust port if someone built the Death Star from the plans they leave lying around, and Bevel Lemelisk needed the Death Star plans to build the superlaser for some reason. But then Luke and Han were also there to ask Obi-Wan for help at his hut, because Luke talked to him there before, and not anywhere else. :confused:

    As I recall, the last time I re-read the novel I found Leia's "diplomating" to be embarrassing for both KJA and me to read.
     
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  2. purplerain

    purplerain Jedi Knight star 4

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    Sep 14, 2013
    Sometimes I wonder if the Old Republic era is better off or worse off with KJA creating many of its fundamentals.
     
  3. DigitalMessiah

    DigitalMessiah Chosen One star 6

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    Feb 17, 2004
    I don't think that KJA's influence is that great considering most of the conventions of the Tales of the Jedi stories were discarded in favor of those of the prequel films. The era was untouched by anyone other than Veitch and Anderson until 2001 with Jedi vs Sith -- which did not use the prequel paradigm to represent the Jedi knights at all, and then Knights of the Old Republic in 2003 which did. But now with KOTOR being the bigger touchstone to draw from most stories of that era are more similar to the prequel Jedi than anything Veitch or Anderson established, including JJM's comics, Red Harvest with the agricorps, Karpyshyn's trilogy, and SWTOR.

    Plus KJA's "Bane of the Sith" was treated the same as Jedi vs Sith by Karpyshyn.
     
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  4. purplerain

    purplerain Jedi Knight star 4

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    Sep 14, 2013
    But without KJA, there would be no Korriban, no Exar Kun, no Sith species, etc. KJA wrote a lot of the lore that Karpyshan was beholden to.
     
  5. DigitalMessiah

    DigitalMessiah Chosen One star 6

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    Feb 17, 2004
    Apart from Korriban, those things could easily be written around, and were in KOTOR. Even Korriban wasn't necessary as the New Sith Wars show, but Bioware chose to use it.
     
  6. VanishingReality

    VanishingReality Jedi Knight star 3

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    Apr 21, 2013
    I feel like the OP is mostly insane when it comes to Darksaber. I liked JAT though.

    Omg the Pirahna Beetles were definitely the highlight of Darksaber.
    Since Yavin wasn't blown up after all, it's like he rescued them for absolutely no reason!
    Of course Lemelisk would have to pay for that.
     
  7. DigitalMessiah

    DigitalMessiah Chosen One star 6

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    Feb 17, 2004
    Palpatine did something green for nothing.
     
  8. Revanfan1

    Revanfan1 Force Ghost star 6

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    Jun 3, 2013
    More Denning logic!
     
  9. purplerain

    purplerain Jedi Knight star 4

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    Sep 14, 2013
    Wookieepedia says that they first appeared in Champions of The Force, but I don't remember that. Could someone elaborate?
     
  10. DigitalMessiah

    DigitalMessiah Chosen One star 6

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    Feb 17, 2004
    I'm not really interested in derailing the topic into another Vergere debate, especially if we're ostensibly talking about Stover as an author. He didn't write Vergere to be a Sith, and if people are going to misrepresent what happened in his book with her, or even in the whole of the NJO story, it's not really pertinent to the topic at hand. Jacen made his own choices in Traitor, and she had absolutely no influence on what Jacen chose to do in that book. The whole point of the book was that she was trying to make Jacen be himself, not what she wanted him to be, not what Luke wanted him to be, but who he was. Jacen's choices in the well of the world brain weren't influenced by Vergere one iota -- we don't even see her interact with Jacen in the third act until after he has a moment of communion with the world brain.
     
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  11. jacktherack

    jacktherack Jedi Master star 4

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    Mar 19, 2008
    planet of twilight and children of the jedi hold the destinction as the only star wars books so bad that i litarally couldn't force myself to read them. the other really horrible one was the approaching storm.
     
  12. DigitalMessiah

    DigitalMessiah Chosen One star 6

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    Feb 17, 2004
    So you dislike books which are heavy on prose that don't advance the plot. Not really a fan of those three either. Have you tried reading Lord of the Rings?
     
  13. Robimus

    Robimus Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Jul 6, 2007

    "Looking at Vergere, he could feel it happening once more; the bone hook slicing in below his ribs, curving up to puncture his diaphragm. Its point had nicked his lung, then scratched against the inside of his sternum: an icy shuddering nonpain that punched a hole through his strength......

    Vergere had withdrawn the hook slowly; it skidded through clamped muscle.........

    The slave seed had sprouted in seconds, filaments wriggling like screw worms into his celiac plexus. It said hello by secreting algesis enzymes, triggering a starflare in his chest that slapped him off his feet like a blow from a club. He lay on the knotted hump of vein flesh, curled around in pain....

    Whenever Jacen wasn't doing what the dhuryams wanted, the slave seed set his nerves on fire. The only way to escape the pain was to discover what the dhuryam's desire: he'd try one thing after another until he found an activity that did not hurt."

    I've skipped over some of the less relevant text, but it is right on pages 56 & 57. So, respectfully, I have to disagree with Matt's take. Probably what is in question is the definition of torture more than anything else, but for me that will do. Vergere sticks a hook into his body that scrapes past his internal organs that plants a behavior control devise that forces him to "curl around in pain" and "set his nerves on fire".

    And of course that isn't the only instance, but I guess the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.

    Nope, pretty sure it is the same book. What is on pages 56 & 57 in your copy?
     
  14. DigitalMessiah

    DigitalMessiah Chosen One star 6

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    Feb 17, 2004
    Vergere mopped tears from her face with the crusted bandage, then applied that bandage once more to Jacen's wound.
    His pain vanished.
    pg. 60

    She sounds really interested in causing him pain. That is the point of torture, yes? I guess that Jacen tortures Ganner in this book too, right? He also leads Ganner willingly to his death. Jacen is evil.

    But then... "...those are only words. They are half truths. Less. They are lies. The truth is always greater than the words we use to describe it."

    Certainly one of the premises of the novel lends the novel to being distorted, generally dishonestly so. It's really fun to see how people twist things around.
     
  15. Robimus

    Robimus Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Jul 6, 2007
    I'm not seeing how returning to help him days later changes her initial actions.

    I'm fine with her using the methods she used to make Jacen Solo a better Jedi, a better person even(if that is the idea behind Traitor) - but it doesn't change how she went about the process.
     
  16. DigitalMessiah

    DigitalMessiah Chosen One star 6

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    Feb 17, 2004
    If we're discussing if it's torture, certainly it matters. Torture suggests that she's deliberately causing pain, either for the purpose of causing pain itself as a matter of punishment or for the purpose of extracting information.

    If Vergere didn't implant the slave seed into Jacen, would no one have done so? Or would a Yuuzhan Vong warrior implanted the slave seed, with much less care for Jacen's well being in doing so?

    Of course, in fantasyland in which we pretend that if Vergere didn't do it, no one would do it, obviously it was a bad choice for her to do. But I sorta suspect that's not the case.
     
  17. purplerain

    purplerain Jedi Knight star 4

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    Sep 14, 2013
    As bad as KJA is, Denning is worse.
     
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  18. fistofan1

    fistofan1 Jedi Master star 4

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    Dec 8, 2009
    In the case of the Jedi Academy Trilogy, KJA was a great idea person but was pretty lousy in the execution department. His style was really juvenile, but he redeemed himself by creating characters and ideas that were good enough to affect the entirety of the EU. Darksaber was a terrible book overall, with even worse writing and no good ideas to redeem it. Quite possibly the worst book in the post-ROTJ EU
     
  19. jacktherack

    jacktherack Jedi Master star 4

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    Mar 19, 2008
    There will be no discussion of Legacy of the force in this topic. Thank you very much.
     
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