Bantam and Del Rey: A comparison

Ladies and Gentelemen, welcome.

The main purpose of this thread is to compare and contrast the existing and preexisting contracts of the Star Wars Expanded Universe. What parts do you like, what don't you, what could they have done better? What are the chances that Del Rey will continue throughout other contracts, or that it will be given to others?

Discussions, not arguments, please.

Personally, I much prefer the Del Rey line. Bantam did have its charms(see below), but at the end of the day it seemed much too sameish. Warlord/Weapon of the week can't last forever. And also that they were effectively trapped in the post-RotJ era because of the Prequels not yet being released. Del Rey seems to take an active effort to have some fringe characters and factions covered(Darth Maul, Medstar, Republic Commando, Darth Bane, Coruscant Nights, Crosscurrent) and seem to want to change things up in the post RotJ era.

It should however be noted that in the Bantam era we got the Thrawn Trilogy, the X-Wing novels(which continue to outshine most others, the Jedi Academy Trilogy(which was my entry into Star Wars EU, and I still enjoy today), and I, Jedi.
And depending on who you ask the YJK. *cough RK cough*

So, discuss. Which is your favorite, what do you like, what do you not want, what could the respective companies have done better with.

 

Well, for starters, comparing Bantam's entire run to Del Rey's entire run is kinda pointless. I know this is what pretty much everyone does, but it's nonsensical: the current Del Rey run has about as much in common with the books published under Del Rey's first contract as it does with those published under Bantam-- less, even, I'd argue. Bantam's run wasn't entirely homogeneous, either; it went through at least three contracts and while it didn't change as dramatically over its run as Del Rey has, early Bantam's still distinctly different from late Bantam.

Treating Bantam and Del Rey as though they're separate entities is kind of silly, anyway, since the people in charge have been roughly the same since the beginning - it's LucasBooks that has the final say on everything, and there haven't been any major shakeups that I'm aware of since the modern publishing program started.

(And yeah, Hav - it's coming along. I swear. )

 

Del Rey gave us the long multi-author series, which have been a mixed blessing.

 

There is no comparison. It's all fake, they all carry the star wars name brand, you have all the big three heroeos or the prequels. No difference, just longer arcs

 

So... like, did you come here to flamebait or something?

I haven't read a lot of Bantam, but I'm liking Del Ray much better so far.

 

NOW.

 

It basically means that you can't avoid the lousy authors if you want to read the whole thing.

Bantam gave us Zahn, Allston, and Stackpole (Yay!) and Hambly and Anderson (Boo!)
Del Rey gave us Stover (Yay!) and Denning (Boo!)

Except that to understand Allston's stuff, and reach the conclusion, I have to wade through Denning's. Which means the Jedi are no longer defenders of civilization; they're a cult of Luke Skywalker (who is now omnipotent but nowhere near omniscient and is even better than Palpatine at politicla maneuvering) instead.

 

Del Rey all the way - I've been saying that since 1999. It's like comparing CSI to BSG. Sure, CSI has some good episodes but they're pretty much all stand-alone and can be watched in any order. BSG, on the other hand, has a long story arc that works on multiple levels. I'll always take that over monster-of-the-week type stuff.

 

Bantam may not have been great some of the time, but that meant that it was great some of the time. And even now, I can look at some books others find distain for, and see things in them I enjoy. Del Rey...well, their standalone novels are sometimes good, and their Clone Wars stuff was interesting, but when it comes to the NJO and beyond, it hit one real major point early on, and afterward pretty much plummeted faster than a skydiver with an anvil parachute.

Case in point: LOTF had its good point, but the overall depth of its suck factor wasn't really apparent until Invincible. To me, that point was more or less reached by the end of Omen, just two books into FOTJ, and honestly for the first time made me question my passion for Star Wars lit.

When the latest crop of novels can do that, you know something's wrong.

 

The post Endor Del Rey has the problem of being more homogeneous, imho. Most of the story is told in long arcs, with a similar background tone. Post NJO most of the main story line's books are coming out of two authors (Allston and Denning). Compare that with a Bantam that brought us X-Wing, a series completely unfocused on the Big 3. (Del Rey does have traitor, but I can't think of any others where the big 3 make mere cameos). After that 9 book series, there was also I, Jedi-- a totally fresh take on the SW universe, from a completely fresh perspective. The KJA JA trilogy and I, Jedi, are, I believe the only sets of books that overlap so wonderfully, yet are so different in style and substance. Sure, a number of the Bantam trilogies were "warlord of the week", but there were also a few that stood out. The hand of Thrawn Duology was more political thriller than it was warlord of the week.

The other serious complaint I have with Del Rey (which again, is more the direction of the novels than the publisher), is that there doesn't seem to be a long range vision for developing characters. Bantam was perhaps flawed with it's main character shields, but if you wanted drama where anyone could die, you could pick up a series like the x-wing series. Characters were developed because authors knew they'd have to use them again.

We saw the development of several minor characters over the arc:
Pellaeon goes from die-hard imperialist to a imperial reformer.
Mara Jade goes from a bitter, lonely woman to falling in love and marrying Luke.
Coran and Mirax horn's story continues in novels not written by Stackpole.

From the NJO on however, the obsession with hyper-realism has lead to several major character deaths... There's nothing wrong with killing a major character, but you have to be careful how you weed out the cast. There wasn't significant grooming to replace the characters knocked off. When is Fey'lya's successor first mentioned? What's the buildup for the leader of the galactic alliance's navy (all 3 of them). Is there even any continuity in the story of who's running the Empire?

LotF highlights the problems with the current Era. Plot lines aren't properly developed, and the large "tie in" series, doesn't tie in. It might as well be three trilogies divided up time wise. Characters are killed for shock value, not for really moving the story forward.

The other major critique I have is that the story keeps doubling back. At the end of Bantam Luke has the revelation that you can have either forsight or power through the force-- that strength clouds the picture of the future. This lesson which served as a rather clever way to keep Lukie-pie from saving the day every time is completely ignored. Not only that, but it seems every sixth book the big 3 learn the same lessons all over again. Even minor characters seem to have life amnesia. Mara, who is able to entrust Ben on missions where he could potentially die, who was willing to leave him during the Vong war for a greater purpose, is suddenly the over protective mother hen.

Bantam wasn't perfect, but overall I liked that we seemed to get more variety post Endor from the wide variety of authors and types of stories. Del Rey finally seems to be moving in this direction thankfully, even if are just finishing the absurdly long swarm-jacen-force-amensia arc.

 

Besides the Thrawn Trilogy, I loved the Han Solo Trilogy (Snare,Gambit...) they were so clever and original. In the DR days it seemes alot of their novels are recycled plots that have been done all ready (falling to the dark side to save people, having kids with foribidden lovers, betraying teacher). I also really don't care for how dark and gloomy the series have gotten or the Major Character Death halfway into it. Most of the work the Rebellion did is gone after LOTF. I'm not saying all of the Batnam series was perfect either (Hambly, McAllen) but at least it was enjoyable to read and when it ended, it ended.

 

I prefer Bantam more, mainly because it had a more adventurous feel to it. You had the X Wing series, Galaxy of Fear ( Well, not specifically Bantam), Young Jedi Knights, Junior Jedi Knights, etc...

 

Heres what it comes down to for me: bantam ended their run by building up the next generation of jedi stars. Going into the njo these characters, especially the solo kids, had ALOT of potentiol. So much so that they eventually could have sold books on their own after the big three pased on. Since then they have all been either slaughtered or had their characters decimated and/or ignored.

I will always associate Del Ray with ripping all this away and thus, even though some books have been great during this run, i will always favor bantam and wonder what fantastic next gen adventures we could have had if their contract had continued.

 

Bantam released some bad books but kept the Star Wars IP mostly fun and high adventure.

Del Rey released some good books and dragged the Star Wars IP into Warhammer 40k territory.

Yeah, Bantam wins by several parsecs.

 

ummm We got NJO with Del Ray........I love the yuuzhan vong