Lit Reading NJO...Again

Yes, that is right. It was sold as a meld mission, but I am pretty sure other Jedi could do it, no?

 

I never read all of NJO, so I'm going to knock that out as well as re-reading the ones I read years ago.

This is going to be fun!

 

If nothing else - I guess we have to call a plot hole on this one - or rather "plot simplification". And I can overlook most all plot holes that do not compromise the enjoyment, depth and character story of a novel.


Regarding the Hapans Darth Invictus SiouxFan

Remember that the Hapan society was based off of a culture that was originally transient - a culture of pirates etc. The resulting Hapes civilization that we see in the NJO is one that results from the odd merging of piracy and the sense of dynasty (all the aristocratic elements etc.) that came from the Dathomiri. This society therefore was bound to appear militant and unstable.

 

Didn't the Essential Guide to Warfare try to address this? I kind of remember it being covered, but not how.

 

I took it to mean, don't put 100% faith into visions.

 

Visions in Star Wars are often accurate. They aren't always understood at the time they are received or they might not necessarily always come true(Cognus had visions of Bane defeating Zannah) but they are an important if sometimes cloudy source of information.

 

18 years since Vector Prime came out.

 

Woah. That makes me feel weird. When I say i "grew up" with the Solos and young Knights, I forget jus how true that is.

 

I know what you mean. I first saw Star Wars with the special editions and moved straight on to the YJK books after seeing the films. They were my entry into the EU and I grew up with them.

I really need to re-read NJO. I keep meaning to but never get the time. To me it was the true end to the EU. The Unifying Force was the perfect end point, I just wish I'd known that at the time, would have saved a lot of heart ache.

 

I’m 80 pages into Dark Journey at the moment, and maybe I’ll eat my words later on, but I’m quite enjoying it so far.

 

18 years? Yikes. I will have to admit that I bought all of these books AS they came out, so my take on this series is probably different than many of us here.

 

"What are we going to tell Chewie's family?" Han asked.

"The truth," Leia said. "That he died a hero."

"I never thought -" Han began quietly, his voice breaking apart.

Leia looked at him gently, allowed him the moment to compose himself.

"I had built this bubble around us," Han tried to explain. "Around all of us - you, me, Chewie, the kids, Luke, Mara, even Lando. Heck, even the stupid droids. We were all in it, you know? In it and safe, a cozy family."

"Invulnerable?" the ever perceptive Leia asked.

Han nodded. "Nothing could hurt us - could really hurt us," he went on, and then his voice broke up and he just shook his head and blinked away the tears - and when that didn't work, he wiped them away - and stared out at wobbling Sernpidal. He knew that Leia understood, that he didn't have to say more. And even though it made no sense, she didn't disagree. This should have, logically, happened a long, long time ago, after all. And if not to Chewie, then certainly to one of the others, Han, perhaps, most of all. They had been living on the very edge of disaster for so very long, fighting battles, literally, for decades, running from bounty hunters and assassins. Even the first time Han and Leia had met, on the Death Star, of all places, and in the gallows of the place to boot! So many times, it seemed, one or more of them should have died.

And yet, in a strange way, that close flirting with death had only made Han think them all the more invulnerable. They could dodge any blaster, or piggyback on the side of an asteroid, or climb out a garbage chute, or ...

But not anymore. Not now. The bubble of security was gone, so suddenly, blown apart by a diving moon.

"Even Mara," Han said, and Leia turned back to regard him, though he continued to stare straight ahead. "Her disease couldn't kill her," he went on. "I knew it wouldn't. Even with the reports of those other people dying, she'd live, because the others weren't in my bubble and she was. Mara was, and so she'd win out."

"She will," Leia insisted.

But Han wasn't so sure of that anymore, not by a long shot. Suddenly he got the dread feeling that Mara was indeed terminal, and the realization that those others in his bubble, most notably his kids, weren't exactly safe, either. With their efforts against the aliens, Jaina, Jacen, and Anakin had proven themselves worthy of the title Jedi Knight now, beyond anyone's questioning. They had moved beyond Han's control, and with or without that control, Han knew that they weren't safe anymore.

The bubble was gone.

The alien threat had been all but eradicated, so it seemed.

But to Han Solo, the galaxy suddenly seemed a more dangerous place by far.

 

Still an incredible ending to the beginning. All these years later, still gives me the chills.

 

One of the most moving passages in SW imo.

 

Oh, you're not the only one.

 

Bought the paperback version of VP (No Legends banner either) again because my original copy had pages coming out it.
Got it off of Amazon and it came today.
Read some of the highlights.

 

I honestly think Chewie's death was actually well written and heroic.

 

I feel so bad that Salvatore had received death threats for that.

 

How many times have you read it for it to fall apart?

 

A couple of times only. The first 18 pages were all together but they came out. My Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince hardback also has sections of pages coming undone. Unlike some of the earlier hardbacks, which, are still in good condition.

 

If I have spare cash, I tend to buy the novels I re-read in paperback (second hand usually) so that the hardback doesn't get badly damaged.
I remember doing this for books like Vision of the Future. Of course, not all SW books had the hardback release. That was when I used to read Star Wars on more of a spree - but I've eased back a lot since then.

That said, I've wrecked the dust jackets to most of my NJO hardbacks - I always remove them now before reading. Not that I re-read that much, to be honest.

 

My first copy of the OT novelizations fell apart, and I didn't even read it more than a few times. The RotS novelization, and to a lesser extent TPM and AotC, are definitely well worn. Most of my other Star Wars books are relatively new, otherwise my Zahn, Stackpole, Allston, Stover, and Luceno books, which I don't even have all of the ones I want, would probably be well worn too. My Harry Potter books, especially the first 4, are also well worn, since I have read them far more in comparison to the rest of the series.

 

Yeah, I agree. I never understood why so many VP/NJO haters really jumped on "Chewie got killed by a moon" as a particular sticking point - I guess I don't see this as much now, but especially early on, it seemed like the moon aspect was particularly what angered people. But really, what would they have preferred as an alternative? Chewie saves Han's kid, and then gets killed by something that is truly literally cosmic in scope.

Jump forward 16 years, and Han gets killed by walking up to his mass-murdering son and gives him permission to get stabbed. I go with Chewie's death, personally.

Well, according to his own website, "I haven't received any of the death threats personally, but they've been made, so I've been told." So he himself never received any death threats, and doesn't seem like he even saw any of them second-hand. Which always makes me a bit suspicious towards the whole "he got death threats for killing Chewie!" I would be surprised if this was just some urban legend that got picked up and run with to show just how insular and petty and narrow-minded those Star Wars fans are.

There's probably no way to tell at this stage, but I would be curious to see where the whole "Salvatore death threat" narrative came from back in 1999. Was this something that first got mentioned by someone at Del Rey or Lucasbooks? Was it pushed by movie purists who latched onto it, or by other sci-fi genre fans jumping onto a new way to bash Star Wars in the immediate post-TPM era? I think that kind of analysis as to how and by whom the story got pushed would be illuminating.

 

Looking on Amazon for the Audio versions of the NJO books. All of them except for TUF are like 3 hours each. TUF says that it is 6 hours.
Is that enough to cover the whole book satisfactorily?

 

A 500+ page book in hardback? No.