Lit Karen Traviss - controversy

TheNewEmpire · Apr 1, 2014

I've enjoyed reading the authors work. I just finished Imperial Commando and looked on amazon for the follow up. Nothing. Turns out that Imperial Commando 2 and an untitled Boba Fett novel that she was writing were cancelled. The former book was actually half written!

What happened? l've found a few rumours circulating on the net:

1. She fell out with fans on Starwars.com
2. Money that was due was withheld/delayed
3. She got annoyed with Lucas crapping over the EU and her work during the production of the Clone Wars kids show depite working in as much of the shows nonsense as she could...

which of these stories are true if any?
I feel its a real shame whatever the problems were couldn't be worked out because she genuinely seemed to enjoy writing on the Star Wars universe.

Cynical_Ben · Apr 1, 2014

This has been covered in-depth by patchworkz7 on numerous occasions. For simplicity's sake, I'll quote him from a different thread:

patchworkz7 said: ↑

She actually went to great lengths to say LFL wasn't at fault.

She was never employed by LFL, that just isn't how franchise fiction works. Her boss was always Del Rey (see also: Mike Stakepole, who has said he won't go back to Del Rey due to issues with an editor) and her contracts were with Del Rey.

People think she quit twice, but what she first said was that she wouldn't continue IC after IC2...which was all she was contracted through at that point. Her issues with contractual obligations (including payment) referred to issues with Del Rey since they hired her.

She announced she wouldn't continue working on IC past IC2 in order to let the fans know and planned to tie everything up so someone else could pick it up or not.

She'd already been told that it was doubtful anyone would be allowed to tell stories too far past O66 due to the possibility of the live TV show. Before the Mandalore episode was even properly written she was told continuity would be changing, and she got an editorial memo stating that Mandalore was going to be nuked, there would be no Mandalorians in armour save Death Watch, Keldabe would be a domed city, etc.

Publishing works a year ahead. IC1 would be released before the Mandalore episode of TCW aired, but IC2 was on the schedule to be published after. All she had to go on was what DR editorial told her, and at one point they had no idea if they'd have to rewrite IC2 in order to incorporate the new canon, if it would be possible to write IC2 as an Infinities to tie things off, and none of the later retcons were established, nor was it even known what the episode would contain.

This was right when Henry Gilroy left and George came onboard in a heavier capacity and began getting more heavily involved with the animated series.

So now she's looking at the possibility that she might not even get to finish the story she started in IC1 but had no way of knowing, and had already been asked if she could tell an alternate story in IC2 and come back later to fix the stuff from IC1 in future works.

During all this she's having issues with her contract (and remember that during this time DR changed what had been listed as MMPB's to HC's or TPB's, all of which fall at different places on the pay scale...I offer that as one example of a potential issue in regards to contracts and payments), so she reached a point where she said "It's not LFL's fault. I can't work if I don't know what I'm meant to be writing. I have to drop IC2 and all work at Del Rey", which means she loses money in the form of however much work she'd already put in as well as the fact that she's doing other work at DR (which brings up the issue that her anger at contractual issues were not limited to her work on SW...I think ppl forget she was doing GoW work at the same time).

She left Del Rey and her contract, which meant leaving money on the table since she hadn't been paid for work, and went to S&S, and this is when she was already writing the GEARS OF WAR novels at Del Rey, and Epic (GoW's IP owner) left Del Rey as well and took their GoW IP, which had been hitting the NYT and earning DR money, and moved it to S&S to follow KT. Several more GoW books would be written and published via S&S until the third game and final novel ended the story she wanted to tell.

While she didn't go into detail about the contractual issues then probably because she was trying to decide whether to fight it, she has since, and I know she's gone into detail about it with fans at cons. Whether this somehow mutated to "LFL wasn't paying her enough", I don't know, but LFL was never paying her in the first place because she never worked for LFL, and after she left she actually specifically said that LFL wasn't at fault.
Click to expand...

Mandalore The Uniter · Apr 2, 2014

Every time I see a new thread with KT in the title, I think...

Gorefiend · Apr 2, 2014

AdmiralWesJanson · Apr 2, 2014

Anyone else think that the title of this thread would make for an awesome documentary voiced by Morgan Freeman?

CommanderDrenn · Apr 2, 2014

Yeah, I can imagine his voice saying the title.

The Loyal Imperial · Apr 2, 2014

This will end well.

The Compeer · Apr 2, 2014

This is a better image for the thread:

HEDGESMFG · Apr 2, 2014

That... actually makes me much more sympathetic towards her, given that she was simply told "continuity would be changed" without knowing 'any' proper details.

And financial issues are just that, whatever Del Rey was trying to pull, was separate from the storyline issues... which is all I'd care about anyway.

Had she stayed, I'm sure she would've written around what we later got. It really wasn't as hard to do as everyone thought. Jason Fry did, after all.

Mia Mesharad · Apr 2, 2014

Isn't this the part where the mods merge and delete the redundant thread?

blackmyron · Apr 2, 2014

No, this is the part where some posts the animated picture of Geordi ducking under the closing bulkhead.

DigitalMessiah · Apr 2, 2014

GGrievous · Apr 2, 2014

It's Dave's fault.

DigitalMessiah · Apr 2, 2014

THANKS FILONI

Padawan Fangirl · Apr 2, 2014

DigitalMessiah said: ↑

THANKS FILONI
Click to expand...

The Clone Wars equivalent of "Thanks Obama".

Sent from my stupid little astro droid using TapaTalk 2.

Gamiel · Apr 2, 2014

DigitalMessiah said: ↑

THANKS FILONI
Click to expand...

What did he do this time?

DigitalMessiah · Apr 2, 2014

I have no idea.

LelalMekha · Apr 3, 2014

Gamiel said: ↑

DigitalMessiah said: ↑

THANKS FILONI
Click to expand...

What did he do this time?
Click to expand...

It's always a good rule of thumb to assume it's Dave's fault.

Rew · Apr 3, 2014

Karen Traviss does she contradict the EU

Jedi Ben · Apr 3, 2014

And Lo, the Cad Bane Thread was Reincarnated in New Form to Spread Terror Across Lit!

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Lit Karen Traviss - controversy

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