Lit Books LOTF - First Time Read Thread - No spoilers post-Invincible

Not that I remember. I don't remember them ever being mentioned again.

Hmmmm....so, to beat the dead horse....that is why you should read Swarm War first!

 

I really liked Raynars arc in FotJ. Right up until Apocalypse. Everything undone for the sake of an exposition dump. A not even particularly relevant exposition dump.

 

You know it’s weird LOTF is the only time there is a major (shown) conflict in SW without any real ground battles.

 

Heck, so much of this happens off-screen, it's hard to keep track of what is actually going on. It also makes it harder to appreciate the scale of the war. If I have to rely on the Wook to get a sense of the battlespace, then the authors didn't do their job properly.

 

I disagree on Raynar's arc, but aside from that, the exposition was awful. Even worse when it was repeated in detail later on.

Well, the whole Confederation war was kind of a bad joke by the end. Or rather, became one of the author's pet plots rather than an overarching plot, as it should have been. Its why only a few books later on even remembered the Confederation exists.

There's a lot of good material to be mined there (the relationship between the GA and systems, the limits and obligations, etc.) but aside from Allston, none of the authors from LotF (and later FotJ) cared about the background and details that much. Another galactic war was just an excuse for more Jedi action and angst. Well that and LotF was ripping off the prequels, so it turned out out even worse than before.

 

While Star Wars is indeed called “Star” Wars not ground wars, ground combat has always been apart of the franchise. Even FOTJ has ground action, and I think DNT has a major ground battle(though it may not be shown in text).

It’s just always been odd to me that LOTF has no real ground or planet side battles to speak of, beyond I think(IIRC) some hutt occupation of some planet off screen.

It makes the series notable if nothing else.

 

Yeah for the event that kicked off the books it really gets ignored by the end.

 

You know-aesthetic wise, it could have been really interesting to see SGCW ground battles.

Galactic Alliance soldiers fighting Corellians. Humans vs. humans. With generally similar weapons and equipment.

That’s not something seen often in SW.

 

I would have liked to see the Hutt ground forces, that would have been cool.

 

Probably their slave soldiers, and maybe Xim’s old war droids(or what was left of them).

Bothans too.

 

This is why this whole series makes no sense....obviously the people who survived didn't seem to think it too big a deal. So why should I? There is no action taken on the folks who started the whole thing in the first place, and no lingering hard feelings against those people. If this war was as big a deal as we are being told, this wouldn't be possible. In universe, there was a long memory of the atrocities done by the Empire, and there is a long memory of what the Nazis and Imperial Japanese did here.

 

Well for the Nazis yes. Japan seems to be pretty much able to keep a lot of their actions under the radar. If anything their war with the Americans is discussed. Their war in China and the actrocities comitted there that actually supersede the Russo German War in therms of sheer destruction are often ignored... Like the guy who basically run the Japanese slave system in Manchuria did become Prime Minister after the war:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobusuke_Kishi

And yes he had to resign later but not because of his actions in Manchuria but because many where upset he was moving Japan too close to the US at the time.

So yes this does happen in real life.

 

I mean it depends on who you are, I hear about people who refused to buy a Japanese car due to the war.

Also both Japan, Germany and Italy all had the advantage of their being another threat, something the post 2ndGCW lacks.

 

I know I've talked about this a lot, but there was so much lost potential for intra confederate politics, scheming, and the like. You have the Fondorians, Hutts, Corellians, Bothans, and others all in a loose confederation. Luceno would have struck gold with this-jockeying, maneuvering, manipulation, and secret deals to betray their allies if the GA lost. While Turr Phennir tries to somehow pull out a win, and is constantly juggling multiple factions, while facing down Jacen Solo and the full power of the galactic alliance.

(Also I think Phennir is a super cool and interesting character and he deserved loads more page time).

 

Yes I think the interplay between the confed factions and also how they all tried to use their strengths to get the most for themselves.

Eh I mean he is just another ex-imp, is he really that different from the others we have?

 

The interesting thing about Phennir is why he is backing the confederation, a faction that at least in theory would be opposed to both imperial rule and imperial ideas of galactic governance.

Is it just Corellian nationalism or something else?

 

You are correct, Japan's atrocities in China have flown under the radar a bit, especially in the West, but they're still talked about in a lot of circles. @AusStig is correct, there are lots of folks in America and other places who won't touch a Honda or Toyota with a 40-foot pole, so we can say that there was a lot of animosity that still remains 70 years later.

Like I mentioned before, throw out the Sith angle, and this series immediately gets better. I just downloaded book 4 from my local library, so I'm gonna try to tackle it and leave some 're-read' reviews.

 

Phennir's homeworld of Valahari was never identified until long after this series ended so perhaps Phennir was Corellian or Commenorian pre-retcon.

 

You are a glutton for punishment.

 

Yeah there a bunch of reasons that won't get into, but I think China being an enemy helped people forget.

Oh I like Exile, it is the best Ben story I find.

 

I probably won’t be reading that one. I’ll write what I think about the books when they arrive, which will probably take a while considering lockdown and everything.

 

Yeah I am still waiting for the epic collection of Dark Empire.

 

Obviously! Also, I conned @Darksabre4237 and OrigamiFish into attempting a re-write of a 'LotF-minus-the-whole-'Sith'-thing' with me, so I feel like I need to have a better idea of what is and isn't in the series. THAT idea came to me when I said that '....this series would be instantly better if we remove the Sith' back in November; and now I figure that if I'm in for a penny.....

Book 4:
We start in Jacen's quarters in the Anakin Solo near Corellia. I know that the Solo was named last book, but it still rankles... as it is probably supposed to. Say what you will about this series, and I've said a lot, but one thing it is NOT is subtle. The authors all make it very clear that we are not supposed to feel any thing but disdain for Jacen Solo, and they tick every box to get us there. The problem, of course, is while I have no idea what the naming convention is for the GA Navy, I also know that they wouldn't allow a relatively new civil servant to name a new capital ship after his brother. Imagine if the Chancellor of the Exchequer told the Royal Navy that he wanted their new carrier named for his deceased sister? He'd be laughed out of the office.

Jacen has a dream where his mother confronts him. "I'm prepared for any tactic, any ploy you're likely to use." --- "Likely to use. Don't you know that the whole book of tactics changes when the attacker has chosen not to survive the fight?"

Leia's response here is a chilling reminder of how the 'book' on dealing with hijackers changed after 9/11. Anyway, Leia uses her 'sabre to blow out one of the windows in his cabin, tackles him before he can grab anything, and the two get sucked out into space...kinda forecasting the scene in The Last Jedi. Dream sequences can be an effective story-telling tool....but I don't really see the point of this one. Usually, they're accompanied by some sort of character course-change, or a way to bring us up-to-date about the past, or show a possible future...this scene does none of those.

There is a scene where Jacen (we presume) has contracted a smuggler to sell-out her comrades and allow a small fleet of vessels to be captured by the GA. Again, the scene doesn't do a lot to move the story anywhere, so seems really random. Also, the GAG has only been in existence for a couple of months....when did Jacen have time to make contacts in the smuggling world? It reads like this whole section was built around a line the smuggler chief says to Jacen as she's leaving the Solo: "What's it like to have once been a hero?"

While it is an interesting line, it again the author is leading us by the nose. First off: Jacen just helped stave off the Corellian coup attempt against the Queen Mother, so we could argue that he still is a hero...at least to the Hapan royalists. Second: she would have no knowledge of anything he'd done in the first three books. I'm still not sure anyone knows about Nelani yet, and it is unlikely that Mirta's death during interrogation would have been widely reported.

I'll end this review section the same way I ended by book 3 review: Kyp meets Luke and Mara after their return from Hapes. What's the first thing they talk about? Ben's skewering of Zekk with his 'sabre aboard the Falcon. Not the fact that one of their friends barely escaped a coup attempt, not the fact that Corellia invaded another system, not even the fact it did look like Han and Leia had been behind the coup....but instead we focus on Kyp doing an investigation into a minor lightsabre incident. Good to know that the Grandmaster is keeping things in perspective.

Why is Kyp meeting them on the platform? Because Omas and Niathal want them to grant the title of 'Master' to Jacen. Ignoring for now the argument of whether he, Jaina, Zekk, and Tahiri have earned the title or not (I think they have) -- would it kill us to come up with a new storyline? We've already seen this movie.

 

Isn’t Mirta alive till the end of the series? Did you mean someone else?

I agree, it was sort of dishonouring Anakins legacy.

I have a question. Why did it take so long for everyone to figure out it was Jacen behind Maras death?

 

Oh yep! Meant her mother Ailyn Vel. Apologies! Unfortunately, it won't let me edit.

And insults the sacrifices that billions of other people, including millions in the various armed forced, made during the war. It is designed only to make everyone IU and out mad....which is probably the point.

More to the point about Mara: why do we have an in-depth investigation of her death? No one seems to care who bumped off Saxan, and she was a chief-of-state. Mara, while important to the Jedi, meant very little to larger galaxy. Was Mara more important than Nelani? Or are the Jedi like Animal Farm?