Author Analysis: Ann C. Crispin

Welcome to the newest Author Analysis. Feel free to discuss Ann C. Crispin as an author. What are her strengths and weaknesses? What is unique about her? As always, no bashing or gushing is allowed.

Previous Author Analyses:
K. W. Jeter
Sean Stewart
Haden Blackman
Greg Keyes
Michael Stackpole
Kevin J. Anderson
Matthew Stover
Michael Reaves
Aaron Allston

Go at it!

 

My initial reaction is split. On one hand, the Han Solo trilogy is both exciting and entertaining, as well as managing to tie in a good portion of his history without impinging on other sources. On the other, I have issues with the character of Bria Tharen, who despite a rather full character arc, feels a little too involved in the universe for a band new character.

 

Yeah, you want the original rabid fan base against a continuty nightmare and you have Bria Tharen.

It wasn't any prettier then either, I might add.

 

Oh, Dp4m, pull up the old armchair and tell all us youngsters about it. If you don't mind

 

Well, at least Bria Tharen is dead. Are the continuity issues to do with the Toprawan incident involving the Alliance?

I have agree that among a lot of the trilogies, the Han Solo Trilogy was a good piece of original work, which is a rarity in the EU. For once we are given a down to earth portrait of how Han Solo is as a person and not some death-defying hero, despite the fact he does escape death a few times in the trilogy but he had help and certainly couldn't do it alone.

 

Except that the portrait of Han Solo we are given contradicts just about every previous source material on the matter (including Lucas' own work) we have on Han Solo with the exception of the Han Solo Adventures (which take place in-between the HST novels, I believe).

This is where the problem originates, in addition to Bria Tharen's involvement with the Rebellion now being nearly impossible, given what we now know the time-frame to be. It suffers from the same problem as Tim Zahn being apparently instructed by LFL to "stay away from Clone Wars dates" and doing it anyways and causing us to have date issues now.

 

How so?

 

Han's childhood with Bey.
Han's romantic engagements before Leia.
Han's memories of the Clone Wars are suspect given his wherabouts during the Clone Wars (with Shrike).
The Clone Wars timing is now messed up.
Bria's involvement with the Rebellion is now impossible (from a certain point of view).

The list goes on and on, but basically suffers from all pre-AOTC EU which specifically attempts to pin down anything time-wise pre-Rebellion or Clone Wars.

 

It's not the author, but the editors who (supposedly) edit the manuscript. If clone war dates were prohibited, it's their job and really, final say.

 

While you guys discuss the exciting timeline elements of the novels, I'm going to say that in any event this is easily one of my favorite story arcs in the entire EU. I admit I derive a great deal of enjoyment reading about the SW underworld, so to me this is my bread and butter as far as SW literature goes. Not only that, we get tie-ins to Dark Empire, the Han Solo Adventures, Shadows of the Empire, the Corellian Trilogy, Tales of the Bounty Hunters, and probably others I missed. It's an added bonus that these tie-ins are done well. Over the course of the three books we are treated to one adventure after another involving half the SW rogues gallery. Now I admit the trilogy doesn't have much of an overall plotline beyond Han's love for Bria and generally just following Han around. But that's a good thing. There are no galaxy shaking events to be had here, instead we see character development and the storylines of various characters being fleshed out.

People say that it's boggling that Han found out the love of his life was dead just before he met Luke and Obi-Wan, however I don't think that's entirely true. Han Solo isn't one to break down and go into shock, especially if this concerns someone who betrayed his trust as Bria did. I mean, he was hurt deeply but he dealt with it in typical Han Solo fashion: jaded cynicism.

 

I thought Ann did a great job with Han, especially as a youngling and i think she did very well to create a character in Bria that i actually thought han should haven ended up with more than Leia. (just my opinion)

I feel terribly sorry for her that a lot of the story is now contradictory and wish she could re-write it to suit what we now know of the past. I certainly prefer the back story of Han to one of the suggested ones i heard, where he grew up on Kassyyk. My only quibble was the lack of time spent when han was in the navy, which at the time made me think they would do a comic set in this period.

Her style is easy to follow and not overly lexically challenging, which makes it idea vacation reading, sitting in the sun imagining you're Han solo. My favorite part of the book is how easy it is to imagine the chacters and what they are waering, something i struggle with in some other star wars novels, which helps to make her books my favourite series in the EU.

 

What I like most about her work is that she was able to take pretty much every reference to Han Solo's past, work it in, and explain it without it feeling like a collection of references put together for the sake of having the references. She writes Han and the assorted characters well and gives him a deep backstory. While not a magnificent prose writer, she doesn't have any serious weaknesses as a writer and has produced a solid trilogy.

 

How exactly is Bria's involvement in the Rebellion impossible?

 

Unless you believe that Mon Mothma and others waited the approximately 7 - 9 years after the events of Revenge of the Sith required to sustain Bria's background that she was intrumental in the formation of the earliest cells of the Rebel Alliance then it simply no longer works.

Unless she was really that much of a drug addict to believe it, I suppose.

 

RotS- Mon Mothma, Bel Iblis, Bail Organa, Fang Zhar, and others all decide that the Petition of 2000 didn't work, and that a resistance needs to be formed. They decide to stay low, and so set up the foundations on their own worlds, keeping low.
Atrivis- Mantooine and Fest begin to coordinate their resistance after a disasterous strike on Mantooine that Fest knew was coming.
Corellian Treaty- Mon Mothma, Bail, and Bel Iblis decide that the time is right to openly merge their resistance groups, and have Mothma make a Declaration of Rebellion.

Bria could have influenced the merging of the groups rather than the creation.

 

I thought that the Alliance timeline pre-dated Crispin's involvement. Didn't the Rebel Alliance Sourcebook establish the Rebel Alliance proper as pretty new, with the Declaration of Rebellion and the Corellian Treaty being newly written?

Regardless, a distinction can be made between the Rebel Alliance proper and prior resistance movements.

 

Baiting comments against other users isn't allowed.

I can't comment much beyond that, since I have yet to read a Crispin book. Her juvenile prose keeps turning me off.

 

Peerhaps so . . . or just so, as Syrio Forell used to tell tomboy Arya . . . but Paradise Snare was a decent enough book. And the New Rebellion cast cameos were quite fun to see. i wondered about the Spince future betrayal---I had only rudi-rudimentary info of Dark Empire, that I would buy some ten years later. The fast pace nature and brevity of later books made things lighter, but it was the first time readers actually saw the card names of sabacc in full, and for that alone Rebel Dawn is worth it. It ended with a powerfully emotionally note, first Solo's broken heart, then Tharen's literal broken to blaster fire heart.

Erikson could show you what a real broken heart is, after 900 pages of hoping for the heroes, but ah well. Less fan tears, right?

 

That was the case, yes. She was a representative of Bel Iblis's Corellian Rebellion at the meeting that merged the groups and drew up the Corellian Treaty, pushing the Rebellion into the open as a large, unified group. No real conflicts.

 

I liked how she opened the wookie and Hutt culture in SW for the first time. Sure, she didn't create them, but has anybody else written as in depthly about them? Not to my knowledge. So that's a plus.

I think her writing, like K.J Anderson's, is straight-forward but rather simplistic. In other words, it isn't rich in vocab and/or description. The language doesn't challenge you, which I always look for in a book.

 

Yeah, her writing style isn't excellent, certainly not at Stover or Luceno levels.

Still, The Paradise Snare was one of only 3 Star Wars novels where I cried at the end. Very powerful stuff...

 

My opinion about her work is mixed. The writing itself and the plots are good craftmanship, but nothing extraordinary. Certainly better than in a significant part of the Bantam novels. I would not compare her to Anderson, to whom she is clearly superior. And then there are the continuity problems, but they are mostly caused by later developments, and nothing that she could be blamed off. The many connections to EU are nice, but I shudder to think what could happen to them because of the TV series...

The positive aspects are the portrayal of characters. I like Han in these books, there really is some development in his character, so that the young Han of the first novel isn´t the Han of ANH, but the Han of the last book mostly feels like the person we will meet in the Mos Eisley cantina. Chewbacca is better than in most of SW novels, which sadly doesn´t mean that much, but still, he feels like Chewbacca of the movies. What comes to Bria Tharen, she is ok. I understand the need for a character like her and maybe she is a little bit too good to be true, but I don´t feel that the author have made her better than Leia or something like that. The only major problem I have with her is that her activities should have not necessarily have to be tied to the happenings in ANH - same can be said about Kyle Katarn´s story, though.

 

I agree. Very good characterizations, decent writing, interesting plots. Several positives, some neutrals, and few negatives. Crispin isn't a standout, but she made my top 16 Star Wars authors (out of 32).

 

I've been a Crispin fan since her V:The Series and Star Trek novels. And I really enjoyed Paradise Snare and Hutt Gambit (the best of the three, IMHO)....


But I wish she had ended Rebel Dawn where the Brian Daley books picked up. The Ylesia operation and betrayal would have left a bad enough taste in Han's mouth to keep him from doing ANY Rebel jobs--even transporting a hermit & a farmboy. And the incident putting Han on Jabba's bad side seemed like it was stuck in as an afterthought--too little development for that important a plot point.

OTOH, she's done the best job (pre-AOTC) developing the characters of Lando Calrissian and Boba Fett. And she transformed Jabba the Hutt from a slimy puppet to a character who could be FEARED as a crime boss...

 

The way I read it, the part in the HST was creating the larger Rebellion, instead of lots of little Rebellions.





I really liked the HST. I'd probably put it in the top 3 multi-book stories in Star Wars (Allston's Wraith trilogy being in there too, dunno about the third ). I had no problem with Bria because I never envisioned Han as some guy who had never had a relationship.

Have you ever known someone and thought they were great, then been apart and you thought they were great, then met with them later and realised they weren't so great? That's the Bria story.