Books CRUCIBLE by Troy Denning: The Official Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)

It features my own characters as well and incorporates one or two from LOTF I did like. But Daala won't feature or the Mandalorians.

 

As others have said, while we have many complaints here, it probably only comes down to a vocal minority that dislikes this direction. And Denning isn't a horrible author, I just dislike his style and the direction the post-NJO novels are going. Personally I blame Del Rey and Lucasfilm a little too for having no taste. I've disliked Del Rey since they started as their idea of drama is killing characters and government incompetence to slow down the heroes. Denning has written quite a few of the novels that have had character deaths, but its not like he's overriding editors or whoever plans this and LotF and FotJ were both group failures, er, efforts (one reason I didn't care about Mercy Kill that much, lost interest in Allston by now). Also after TCW its clear Lucasfilm doesn't quite recognize what constitutes a good story either, or bothers to respect canon either, so there's not much hope for good overall stories. TFU didn't help either and TFUII showed they don't care (ending on a cliffhanger). And that's not even going into TCW.

So unless you're talking about Dark Horse, I don't really expect a good or even decent Star Wars story that much anymore, unless its an established great author (Stover, Zahn, Luceno, JJM, etc.). I'd still rank Crucible above Invincible, Revelation or Apocalypse, but that's not saying much.

 

Thank heavens about Daala! No Mando's? Oh well. Lekauf and Shevu? Please? They rock! Just have Jacen deciding to fall be better than just listening to Lumiya. Facepalm galore that whole section.

 

That doesn't follow at all

Then just ignore that stuff. And don't post about it all the time if it just makes you sad.

I have no issue with them making silly cartoons for the kiddies, but it would be nice if they kept them in their own continuity so it doesn't mess with the actual good (adult) material.

 

Or maybe quality of the material is subjective?

crazy I know

btw I'm part of the aforementioned segment. Denning ftw!

 

45 ABY is still way too early in the timeline to set up Legacy simply for the sake of setting up Legacy. The Sith-Imperial War is still more than eighty years away --- The Phantom Menace is closer in the timeline to Crucible than is the first issue of Legacy. Any attempts by Del Rey to already start setting up Legacy are due to a severe lack of creativity and an unnecessary willingness to let their story be told for them.

 

Mara Jade and to a lesser degree Thrawn are both well known and popular enough I can see them being integrated into the Sequel trilogy in some form.

 

YES WE ALL KNOW BY NOW. CONGRATULATIONS.

 

Also I think Troy Denning writes good books

 

well i read the book over the last few days and have to say i thought it was one of the best written star wars OT books for a while.
the characters actually ahd character and things happened at a decent pace , rather then split over an aching 9 book arc.
interesting plotline although the mortis like monolith was a bit trippy but compared to the abeloth rubbish it was good.

the bad?

as mentioned in earlier posts its meant to be a "passing of the torch" and didnt feel like it, i fact it felt more like the beginning of something, vestra was good but mirta and the nanoprobes needs sorting and soon - surely a massive number of mandos died ?given that clones seem to have populated like half of mandalore? lol


seriously the nanoprobes were and remain a terrible terrible idea, also lukes wound seems to be going nowhere and was is another dead end



better than the last fotj and in fact lotf

oh one other good thing= versta doesnt have a ridiculous fight wth luke but actually understands that she will probably get her backide kicked and uses a plan!!!

 

I think there are several reasons why Denning is so influential in the EU. I think, however, the main reason is that he delivers a lot of words in a short amount of time. We all know that time is money, especially when you're trying to deliver a product to a rabid fanbase.

Take Stover for example. He is a slow writer, and as far as we know, hasn't written any SW since LSatSoM. His books are obviously good, they sell well, and are rated very highly...so why isn't he the King of the EU? Because he writes slow. I believe he has mentioned that his late delivery of Mindor probably hurt his chances of writing EU anymore.

 

I've read that fanfic!


It's also good to know that since I don't like Denning, I'm not a real "fan," even though I write for a fansite and host a weekly podcast.

 

This is the most frustrating part of fandom, IMO. Why on earth do folks think there's one definition of a "fan"? Just because I like SW doesn't mean I blindly like everything with the SW tag on it.

 

Or you could utilize the board's convenient Ignore User feature instead of complaining about dissenting opinions and trying to silence them.

 

It was more a commentary than a complaint...

 

is there supposed to be any connection between the monoliths and the Thor Yor things from Dawn of the Jedi? Or am i reading something into it that isnt there?

The descriptions just seemed a bit similar to me i guess

 

Cade only says of Mara "you're Luke Skywalker's wife", nothing about being related to her.

 

Mara Jade is going to get Jaster Mereeled.

 

I just finished Crucible and I am torn. I liked the story, especially Han's part. But why, why why does Denning have to beat up Han, Luke and Leia so much? He loves to torture his main characters way too much. Also, I didn't even recognize Vestara's character. She was not even close to the same person from Apocalypse. And finally, the Monolith Force stuff made no sense at all. Denning purposely keeps the mystical Force as cloudy as the Thames river. I needed more clear depictions of what the heck was happening in the monolith. Sheesh!

 

Leia continues to get a pass with the darkside. Luke never gets a pass, but Leia ALWAYS does.

 

To be fair, if you were some kind of ugly, funny lookin' dude with stupid looking hair like most of the Skywalkers and someone said you were related to this VVVV would you believe them?



There's some real genetic injustice going on with Ben, seriously.

 

(my emphasis)

Nice - including yourself in that? I tend to operate on a basis that most authors can really only do 1 book a year for the output to be good. The solution to getting more product out? Use different authors!

And actually, I'd suspect, in any competition ran here, Stover probably would win the King of the EU crown!

Moving on:

1. Where do people get the idea that Lit is representative of the bulk of SW fandom? We're not, we're a small, passionate slice and there's no way to really know what that greater whole is doing.

2. Denning's work sells, therefore he gets further work. To quote the meerkat:


3. IF the amount of fans, be they Wars, Trek, Marvel, DC etc actually put their money where their mouth is then yeah sales likely would collapse. Only a small fraction actually do!

4. It's funny seeing people demand fans act more like consumers, as that would really drop sales. Fans look for reasons to like the latest book, they look for ways to make it work - you only have to look at the litany of fan continuity fixes over the years for just about anything and everything. Why do people keep reading despite not caring for the direction? a) Because they are a fan and b) They want to think it'll get better, that there'll be some brilliant plot twist or development that re-casts all that came before into a better light and raises it up. It isn't unprecedented either - see TUF!

5. If 4 is true, how has the DN-LOTF-FOTJ-C mammoth mega-epic become so tainted? Likely answer is a whole load of plot twists that simply were not bought by the audience! To wit:

Fall of Jacen Solo to the dark side + killing of Mara Jade + killing of Jacen Solo by his sister + Daala as Chief of State + badly executed Force God enemy = SW fan rebellion! (And this is likely a far from comprehensive equation.)

As to why the book is getting the amount of flak it is, nothing I've read has given me cause to re-consider my earlier 3-point diagnosis:

 

If we weren't all commenting on stuff, there'd be no forum!

 

It looks like however quickly he might write, Denning just plain ran out of time with Invincible. How else can one explain that the only meaningful resolution for that book (and thus the whole Legacy of the Force series) was an off-screen deus ex machina?

I dearly hope that's not the case. If Del Rey can forgive Denning turning in a woefully incomplete book like Invincible, they can and certainly should forgive Stover for turning in a manuscript late. If not... then I'll keep on hoping Del Rey will finally lose a license they've mostly mismanaged since the end of the NJO.

 

The thing is though, outside of the late post-ROTJ era, DR has delivered some very good books indeed - there's the Luceno and Reaves + collaborators mini-verses, there's JJM's books, the Crosscurrent / Riptide duo, X-Wing: Mercy Kill, the Clone Wars material, plus Zahn's stuff and more recently DOTJ and the upcoming Kenobi.

I can well understand how the late post-ROTJ product eclipses all the above from view, but it wouldn't make for a fair assessment to do so.