I abhor the Dark Nest Trilogy! (possible DN spoilers)

After the NJO series finished, I was excited to hear that new post-war novels were going to be released. I bought the Joiner King on the first day it came out and tore through the pages. And to my thorough disappointment, the book had many irreperable flaws! Let me list some of them:

1. The Killiks (yeah, I know, they're the most important species in the trilogy). I hate how their collective minds work and how their fluid sense of truth ruins everything in the blink of an eye. The fact that the Dark Nest is always influencing the Colony to the point where it just gets ridiculously repetitive is really annoying. I mean, it feels like I am constantly reading in circles. I am always telling myself: "Haven't I heard this argument already?" Anyways, there are many more things I don't like about the Killiks that I could elaborate on.

2. Raynar Thul. During the Vong war, when Anakin led a Jedi strike team aboard the worldship on Myrkyr, Raynar didin't strike me as a strong Force user at all. To me, he seemed a bit on the kiddy-side, a bit short, and definetely not powerful. But then, Denning turns around in the DN trilogy and throws an ultrapowerful, Force maniac, and tall! Raynar at us. This change is too great for me to fathom in one gulp. Theoretically, he isn't even Raynar anymore (btw, is he in the Young Jedi Knights series?)because he is a bug... And if the villain is going to be ultrapowerful, make him seem ultrapowerful! I don't think Raynar's characters fits that criteria at all. He doesn't deserve to be powerful! Here are a few examples of villains who deserve to be powerful: Darth Vader, Palpatine, Exar Kun, Naga Sadow, Revan (so what if they're all Sith?)... and Thrawn to a certain extent (he's not really a villain). Unu Thul to me is just like that messed character Lord Nyax, seemingly very powerful, but in reality doesn't like he should be at all. Oh, and did I mention how I hate always hearing about Unu Thul's powerful Will? Quote: "And his Will pressed against his mind like a dark presence bla bla bla" That sort of sentence fragment must have been reiterated at least 100 times during that trilogy. RAYNAR SHOULDN'T BE THAT POWERFUL!!! But in any case, I didn't like his character and he held no interest for me as a villain at all therefore the whole story was just lost on me.

3. Lomi Plo. Another example of someone who is supposed to powerful, but just doesn't work in my mind like Raynar. The Dark Nest Queen who can hide herself if doubt presents itself. Fine, I guess using that she could weaken Luke and everyone else. But she never talks or does much! If you're going to write a story at least make the evil people interesting! Not some mute bug that appears and vanishes sporadically. The final confrontation between Luke, and Raynar and Lomi was so lame that I wondered why he even bothered fighting with those two jokes. There was nothing special or suspensful or anything about that "climatic" confrontation.

4. The members of the Jedi strike team (except Jacen). Is it just me, or does Mr. Denning make all those usually responsible and skilled Jedi seem like mere puppets in this book. He makes them seem so pathetically weak to Force mind powers that I wonder how these "usually responsible and skilled Jedi" ever achieved the status of Jedi Knights. Jaina, who is one of the best starfighter pilots and Jedi of the entire galaxy, succumbs to his Will like she didn't even realize it wasn't her WIll, but Raynar's. The same goes for Zekk, Lowbabcca, Tesar, Tahiri, etc. Making them seem so brainwashed is simply wrong. It's like destroying characters and making them look weak. Years and years of developing them into strong Jedi Knighs wasted in one book where they become the "enemy" in a way through one guy who has a major stubborness problem. I really don't appreciate that. I mean, at least show some serious struggling against Raynar instead of them always whining about those dumb Killiks because he wants them to. I will compare this situation to Obi-Wan usi

 

I agree with most of the things you say especially about the Killiks and Raynar Thul. I enjoyed Jacen delving into darker waters and I enjoyed Ben at least it shows that he's not a clone of his father (thank the maker). I liked Tarfang and Junn they were fun.
I never felt the Killik's were a threat to be honest and as you say the climatic last battle was anything but.

 

Agree in part with most of that.

Raynar was the biggest sticking point with me...and as powerful as they DID make him, the solution seemed WAY too easy to me.

I like the concept of Allana, but it happened way too fast.

I think no one knows what to do with Ben Skywalker, which is why he was the way he was.

I'm mainly just sick of bugs, relative "truths" and the concept of Jedi "purpose".

Get back to Star Wars.

 

Dark Nest wasn't all that bad, although it could have been a lot better.

You need to remember that it is basicaly a bridge between NJO and LOTF. Ben was the way he was because, apart from it seeming like quite a logical reaction to the atrocities of the Yuuzhan Vong war, his aversion to using the Force served as a reason to make him Jacen's apprentice and that obviously will be an important point in LOTF - Allana was introduced the way she was for the same reason.

The Killiks and their hive mind and Dark nest are a clear allusion to the nature of the Force. Everything is connected and there is a light side and a dark side. In a similar way to Jacen's refusal to believe in the Darkside of the Force, Raynar's refusal to believe in the dark nest leads to him being corupted and ultimately controled by it.

Dark nest and the Killik situation are ultimately about reasserting what the Force - and in essence Star Wars - is all about.

 

1. The Killiks: Well, if you're annoyed by the Killiks, think about how the main characters feel about their logic. It's meant to be extremely frustrating. I actually had to laugh out the one time where the answer wasn't "Lomi and Welk died in the crash".

2. Raynar Thul: Denning wrote SbS and, therefore, Raynar Thul, too. I agree, that the explanation for his uber-potential is somewhat cheesy (drawing upon the force energy of the entire colony and stuff), but in the end I was glad to have him back in the GFFA.

3. Lomi Plo: I think, she can't technically speak anymore without a jaw. The fact that we don't have any scenes where she is explaining her delusions of grandeur is actually a nice contrast to the darksider of the week. She wasn't only invisible but unseen in every way.

4. The members of the Jedi strike team: I have to agree. Still, we see that Jedi aren't gods. It's nice to see Jedi have weaknesses, too.

5. Ben Skywalker: Ben didn't want to use the force, so what? It makes him more of a character IMHO. Would you rather have him as deus ex machina at the age of eight, like the Solo brats before him?

6. Allana: That kind of stuff happens after a night of passion. It's nice to see that not every couple in SW had to be married to become parents. Nice criticism by Denning through Ben in TUQ, too.

7. Troy Denning: Zahn did that, too. Though, the Squibs really are annoying. But again, this is how Denning meant them to be, I think.

Edit: jaw =/= jar

 

Jaina...

 

I think it is one of my least-liked series as well. By book 3 I wanted to take a can of Raid to the Killiks.

 

The problem with Denning is that after SBS he started to believe that he actually is a good writer. Dark Nest Trilogy is one of the worst things I've ever read in my life... it has nothing to do with the Star Wars universe we usually find in UE. So many wacky-stupid-kiddy-unrealistic-lazy-sci-fi themes that made me wanna puke several times.

 

I suppose the thing about Ben not wanting to use the force isn't too bad. What really annoyed me was that he became a Joiner... He just came into the Star wars universe for crying out loud! Don't let him be brainwashed right away, please!

I realize that Timothy Zahn writes about his additions to SW (Thrawn, Outbound Flight, Lorana, Chiss, etc.), but it was a bit more enjoyable and subtle... His actually worked well within his stories, but for Troy Denning it feels the story goes out the way to include his additions to the SW universe IMO.

I feel they should have developed eight year old Ben before he becomes an uncle....... Isn't that strange? He becomes an uncle in the second book he appears in as a character!

 

No, because it's got more in common with the pulp-sci-fi feel of earlier material. And that's a good thing.

 

I liked DN. Especially the two first books - TSW felt a more than a little abridged and ended rather abruptly. There were of course problems - I would have liked to see more of Jacen, Tenel Ka and Allana and more about the impact of the holos of Anakin&Padme to the whole family etc, but the Killiks were not a problem to me - they felt more SW than the YV. Raynar was a disappointment because I really wanted him to be a certain other person, but in the end he was handled rather well and I saw no problem with his powers. After SbS I had a rather dim view of Denning, but DN was so much fun, felt so much "real" SW - especially Han&Leia - that it made (with Tatooine Ghost that I read at the same time) Denning one of my favourite SW writers.

 

I like DN. By the time I finished TUF, the NJO wasn't even remotely close to the feel of the original Star Wars. Then came DN and saved the EU from certain demise. Denning saved the EU from it's downward spiral. DN felt like the original Star wars and had a really good plot.

 

*Waits for Ex*

Though we may disagree on some other things, I think we have very similar opinions about Dark Nest.

 

I have to say I prefered the NJO to DN by a long way. The YV were a far superior threat than the Killiks.

 

The Characters in the NJO didn't even remind me of Star Wars. Honestly, if the NJO titles didn't say "star wars" in it, I wouldn't recognize it as star wars.

 

jedimyrmidon
What really annoyed me was that he became a Joiner... He just came into the Star wars universe for crying out loud! Don't let him be brainwashed right away, please!

I agree. I didn't like that either. Fortunately, his characterization is MUCH better in Betrayal. In fact, I think Ben Skywalker is the biggest and best surprise of Betrayal. I hope future authors write him as well as Allston did.


I feel they should have developed eight year old Ben before he becomes an uncle....... Isn't that strange? He becomes an uncle in the second book he appears in as a character!

Actually, he becomes a second cousin. Ben and Jacen are first cousins, so Jacen's daughter would be Ben's second cousin.

 

If that's how you felt, then Denning acheived exactly the characterisation he was going for. If you didn't catch the fact that the characters had the same reaction you did, and that the authorial intent was to make them frustrating and difficult to deal with, that their fluid sense of reality was foiling the characters on numerous occassions, then I suggest reading a little more carefully.

I'm not sure why Raynar shouldn't be that powerful. But again, it's meant to be surprising, and there are explanations for his increase in power.

I'm with you halfway. I don't mind that she's powerful, but I mind that she wasn't developed.

 

I got kind of annoyed with the series too, I'm especially getting annoyed with Jacen's behavior,

but ... that's how I'm supposed to feel I guess.

I realized that especially after reading "Betrayal"

 

Well, Jacen doesn't like bugs, we've known that since Traitor:

"You can't make me say I was wrong to do it. I wasn't wrong. He's a sentient being. Those were insects."

 

3. Lomi Plo. Another example of someone who is supposed to powerful, but just doesn't work in my mind like Raynar. The Dark Nest Queen who can hide herself if doubt presents itself. Fine, I guess using that she could weaken Luke and everyone else. But she never talks or does much! If you're going to write a story at least make the evil people interesting! Not some mute bug that appears and vanishes sporadically. The final confrontation between Luke, and Raynar and Lomi was so lame that I wondered why he even bothered fighting with those two jokes. There was nothing special or suspensful or anything about that "climatic" confrontation.

Q: What is one of the reasons that Jaws worked as a film.

A: You didn't see the shark.

 

I don't think Raynar's characters fits that criteria at all. He doesn't deserve to be powerful! Here are a few examples of villains who deserve to be powerful: Darth Vader, Palpatine, Exar Kun, Naga Sadow, Revan (so what if they're all Sith?)... and Thrawn to a certain extent (he's not really a villain)

Maybe you should read more carefully...

Raynar is not supposed to be the real bad guy. Lomi Plo is the real villian.

 

One of the things I did enjoy is, as has been mentioned, how you never really saw the "bad guy", not only because it's more of a "bad collective" than a specific "bad guy", but because they were always acting through someone else.

I sort of liked the Killiks in the sense that they were a relatively original Alien species, in that they were so Alien. I liked that.

 

I didn't like Dark Nest because it reversed all the real changes of the NJO series.

 

Um....how, exactly? Nothing really changed, people were just trying to avoid another war while still healing from the first.

 

The whole RotS tie-in was terrible.