Lou, KY Clone Wars/Rebels/Non-Book club books and comics: the LGA EU thread

Star Wars: Aftermath got cover art!
It ins't the greatest art ever, and it doesn't hint at all about the plot-- but it is still exciting to get some news on this Ep 7 tie-in book as we take the Journey to the Force Awakens.

 

Thanks Vox. LOL!!!

 

huuummm scratches head
I think she meant Jammies

 

I have no clue.

 

<cough> .. yea, thats who I meant. Oops. Sorry my Jammies.

 

Alan Dean Foster to write the adaptation of The Force Awakens

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2015/04...tes-star-wars-the-force-awakens-novelisation/

makes me happy

 

After reading this I'm a lot less interested in Star Wars:Aftermath

http://io9.com/way-more-plot-details-for-those-new-star-wars-novels-1716775924

 

Chewie will be getting his own comic mini series too.
http://io9.com/chewbacca-is-getting-his-own-marvel-comics-miniseries-1717032443

I'm really excited by anything Phil Noto does...I just love his work.

Related I picked up the first Lando comic this week and I wasn't too thrilled (I'll continue to get it though). Lobot is in it as Lando's sidekick and he's very chatty and Lando and he bicker a lot. Just not how I had Lobot pictured in my head.

 

The comics, for the most part, have given us the better stories I have to admit. To me, though, they are rather hohum-- as I have read comics set in the time period over four times (first Marvel run, Newspaper Strips, Rebellion, and Empire, oh and Brian Woods Star Wars-- so five times). So while I really liked how Vader found out about his son in Marvel #6, I had read that story before in different comics (this current one was better than, say, Vader's Quest).

So, while I will give the comics their credit, I am a bit "canon fatigued" by them. So, when we get a new story told well by the Marvel comics team-- I get excited. Lando (both underused and overused in this universe) doesn't have enough good stories, and I thought this comic did a good job of giving us Lando the gambler and not Lando the Robot Chicken Punchline (looking at you Rebels, even if I do like hearing Billy Dee again).

Still, I agree with you Mika. Lobot is a robot; but apparently Lando and he go way back, so much he calls him "brother" a lot. Black Fleet Crisis and Tales of the Bounty Hunters both give us a take on Lobot-- and both never really resonated with me. I don't know. Lobot, in my head canon going back to kenner action figure days, was a mute walking calculator.

Was that your head canon too?

 

Okay some thoughts on Dark Disciple. This post will mainly be spoiler free and the next post will have spoilers.

Well I didn't like it. Part is my admitted bias against author Christie Golden who I thought had the weakest books in the Fate of the Jedi series but I can't give her all the blame. See this book was originally going to be 8(!) episodes of the Clone Wars cartoon and writing credit is given to 3 others---Katie Lucas, Matt Michnovetz and Dave Filoni. That's a book by committee if there ever was one. In the story the Jedi Council decides they have to take out Dooku by any means necessary to end the war, including assassination, and Quinlan Vos is the one given this mission. The council has the bright idea to send him to Asajj Ventress since she knows Dooku better than anyone and came close to killing him before. What could go wrong? Well of course Vos falls for Asajj who convinces Vos he has to dip into the dark side if he is to have any hope of killing Dooku. The parts of the book (that I guess) are Christie Golden are very awkward and forced. She introduces a Chekov's Gun ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chekhov's_gun) in the first couple of pages that's very obvious and her romantic scenes are very awkward and read like something out of a Harlequin romance "Vos opened his eyes, rich and warm and brown. He stared at her for a long moment. Then, with a sound of both desire and anguish, as if something had broken within him, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her." Another thing/theme I'm getting tired of is to become stronger you must go out and kill wild animals...we've seen this recently in Darth Plagueis, Tarkin, Lords of the Sith and now Dark Disciple. It has gotten old to me. The Jedi Council is hypocritical (which I guess mirrors the Trial of Ahsoka episodes)...they set Vos down this dark path and it's okay but when Asajj shows up on their doorstep they turn their collective noses up in the air at her. For these reasons and others to be mentioned below I really didn't like this book. The best part of the book was the Preview at the end for Star Wars: Battlefront Twilight Company by Alexander Freed. This small sample seemed very real and gritty and reminded me a little of the Republic Commando books. It had more excitement in one sample chapter than Dark Disciple had in the whole book.

 

I'm only on Chapter 20. I did, however, think of you during the kill the wild animal chapter.

I am enjoying the book, but I do think I would have enjoyed this as an animated show much much more. Ultimately, I think the Dark Horse comics did this story much better, but that one did not have Asajj in it. We know GL was a fan of the comic too, as Ventress, Vos, and Alleya Secura made it to the silver/small screen. I guess that means that the last G-Level Star Wars story we get is one that he read in a star wars comic-- that his daughter then adapted for the screen-- that then became this novel. Odd.

I don't dislike Golden though. I even picked up one of her other tie-in novels based on a recommendation I read from a review of this book. I do dislike tropes; and yes-- that was a Chekov's Gun. If you would argue that this is a novel by committee: I would argue that this is a novel by cliche.

Still better then Heir to the Jedi. (Darth Vader's Many Prosthetic Parts was young Luke's jam on his Ipod?)

 

Yeah, novel by cliché is a good way to put it. What about when Asajj gets dressed up a la "Pretty Woman" and Vos sees her and is rendered speechless. Cliche city.
****Spoilers Follow****
***Spoilers****
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Spoiler

So yeah, they kill off Asajj. Okay she wasn't my favorite Clone Wars character but she wasn't my least favorite either. In fact I think the character was getting more interesting after she was no longer a Dooku crony and went off on her own. Okay, in Dark Disciple we know Dooku is alive in Ep 3 so we know they won't be successful in the assassination, we presume Vos is in good standing with the council because he gets name dropped in Ep3. The only person whose fate was in the air was Asajj's and they kill her. Sure maybe her death redeemed Vos and herself but still...ugh. We're what? four books into the NewU and this is the third book where a female lead dies for the male hero? Maybe I'm just overly sensitive. I guess we could still have Asajj stories set earlier in the timeline like we still got Chewie in books after he died.

Sigh, I'm still waiting for that NewU book that knocks it out of the park for me.

 

Book-a-Million on Breckinridge has Star Wars Aftermath on the shelves if you can't wait for Friday. The plot doesn't sound that good to me so I passed on it.

 

Thanks man! As someone who cannot wait, I will let you know what I think of the book. Not too excited by it after reading the preview chapter either (all present tense, really?), but it is a book with the words star and wars on it.

Jammies

 

Stang. I went on my lunch hour, and couldn't find it. I did see that they had Star Wars Crucible in the "new in sci fi" section.

 

Sorry I wasn't more specific...it was in their big Star Wars section at the front of the store. They have Star Wars toys, games, action figures, knick knacks, comics, trade paperbacks and books all in it's own dedicated area. They even had the new Star Wars Little Golden Books...very cute! The whole front center of the store is geek central. Comics, trades, manga, Funko Pop toys all front and center, prime real estate, makes me happy.

I've been trying not to get hooked into the Force Friday hype. I don't need more SW swag but I'm really having problems resisting.

 

No worries; I looked their too! Thumbed through the Rebels book written by Pablo with illustrations by Killian Plunkett. Looked at the Legos. But, no Aftermath. Maybe the manager put them away? I also looked to see if they had the super secrete episode seven x-wing miniatures-- but they did not. I think that may start off as a target excuslive. Or, it may not exist and it is all rumor. Regardless: word on the x-wing street is that a new core set with ep 7 x-wings and first order TIES goes on sale friday at target.

 

Really? Dang. Guess I'm getting up early on the off chance it may be true.
I plan to do most of my browsing/shopping online at midnight tonight.

 

Really really.

http://www.xwingminiaturesgame.com/

 

Nice article on some of the upcoming books. I'm really excited about the TFA Visual Dictionary.

http://io9.com/this-decembers-new-star-wars-books-include-some-galacti-1733111160

 

Some good Dengar action in this week's Star Wars comic. Made me happy.

 

The Battlefront novel is out now, did you pick it up Boss?
(I'm still reading throught the journey to the force awakens. Lost Stars gets a big thumbs up, still working through Aftermath...)
Jammies

 

Yeah, picked up the Battlefront novel but haven't started it yet. I just finished the Dark Nest Trilogy this week and I need a palate cleanser before I pick it up. Not in a bad way, I enjoyed the series, just need something non-SW.

I'm not hearing good things about Aftermath so I'm waiting to see your review if I should pick it up. I didn't know it's part of a trilogy as well until recently.

 

I did like Aftermath: but I went into it knowing it was not going to be the "Nu Heir to the Empire," that it would not continue the story of the Big Three post ROTJ, and that it was written in the third person limited present tense (most Star Wars prose, well most prose, is written in third person omniscient past tense). Still, at times it did seem to drag a bit-- not the content just the writing. My advise for anyone who wants to read this to see what the post ROTJ galaxy looks like is to thumb threw the book and put a yellow sticky on all of the "Interlude" chapters. These chapters do not follow the main story, but are just little short stories about life in the galaxy after the battle of Endor. Read ALL of those first! This will get you used to the style in which the book is written and also give you some cool (to me) glimpses into the lives of the people we actually do care about-- Han, Mon Mothma, Chewie, Wedge, as well as the "Sheriff of Tatooine" and his new (to him?) armor and the tactical genius at the heart of the new Imperial navy who loves art (I know, but I am not getting my hopes up it is HIM either).

It seems to me that a lot of the disappointment with Aftermath was the prose and the lack of the big three. However, folks who were fine with the prose style and who did not expect to read about Luke Han and the Princess seemed to really dig the book like I did. Mister Bones is my new favorite EU droid and Slone is my new favorite EU Imperial.

Of the NU Canon books, I would still recommend one read A New Dawn and Lost Stars first. Dawn introduces Slone, who seems to be a cross-media charictor, as she starts her career in the fleet. Lost Stars is just good, and while it offers little surprises to the reader (it is very literally Romeo and Julliette in space, and the cover art and the first few chapters telegraph the book's end: and that is so not a spoiler at all) it was just so hard to put down and it too gives one a scence of the post ROTJ / pre-TFA universe.

So. I don't know what kind of review that was, but it sum: Aftermath is a good book provided you do not expect much of it and read two other books first.

 

Half way through Twilight Company and having a difficult time putting it down. Really like it. Best of all the Nu-U books I've read. Hope they stick the landing.