Lit Red Harvest or Deathtroopers. Which should I read first?

Just wondering which one I should read first? Red harvest or Deathtroopers and then read the 2nd book last.

 

Death Troopers, it never pretends to be anything other than zombies in SW - oh, it really emphasises how big a Star Destroyer is!

Red Harvest I've heard an awful lot of bad things about and not in a good way!

 

Neither.

 

If you're going to read them, do so on an empty stomach. Nearly lost my dinner reading Deathtrooper. Not because of the quality of the literature.

 

Denning is more graphic than Death Troopers was. Even Plageuis had some passages that were more "gruesome" than Death Troopers.

I find it funny that anyone on the boards here acts like Death Troopers and Red Harvest is so over the top, and that it's "horror extremis" when its passing horror to begin with, let alone even above elementary level writing. CIS and NCIS is Law and Order SVU are probably more graphic than Death Troopers.

If anything is nauseating about these books it IS the quality of the literature.

 

I enjoyed "Red Harvest" more. DT has a Han & Chewie cameo which made me dislike it quite a bit.

 

Thing is, if something classes itself as SW horror, I give it more leeway because it's already warned yeh of what it's about. I find Star By Star far more objectionable because it doesn't declare that at the start and then quickly has acid-spitting voxyn running around!

 

How can a Han and Chewie cameo ever be a bad thing?

 

I'm about halfway through Red Harvest now. It's.....okay, but I definitely prefer Death Troopers

 

How do you mean exactly, if you don't mind my asking? As far as horror goes, I thought Death Troopers did alright, and in all honesty, I'd much rather have it to read than a lot of the NJO/Legacy stuff.

 

Thought it was fairly clear really - Deathtroopers says it's horror from the off, while a book like Star By Star doesn't, it claims to be your standard SW book then in the first few pages we have Aliens turn up!

 

Death Troopers and Red Harvest may not be perfect, but if you ask me, they're no worse than a lot of SW fiction.

 

I preferred Red Harvest myself, although I don't really know whether it "spoils" Deathtroopers or not... can't remember DT enough to say.

I assume you could read them either way around though, as it's not like there being zombies is a spoiler, and none of the Red Harvest backstory was in DT as far as I recall.

 

Totally "not" "this". (/exit cool kid lingo)

SW fiction isn't high prose or anything, but Schreiber is so far down below the list of even SW fiction its unbelievable. Just the prose/writing style/plotting is horrible. Not even taking into account the plots, or how little regard (disregard) he has for the SW universe and the way he treats it in Red Harvest by purposefully pushing in real-world connections and borrowing so heavily from Taken that it's beyond ridiculous.

 

Real-world connections? What real-world connections would these be?

 

Read the Jedi Prince stories, then you'll see SW fiction at it's absolute nadir!

 

Jedi Prince is abysmal. But yet; it has redeeming qualities - look at how people talk of it here on the boards. You can't even do the same at least with RH/DT. And bringing up the absolute drudge of SW fiction isn't a terrific way to elaborate on the strengths of RH/DT. Their still horrible. Just because their not THEE worst, doesn't mean their NEXT to THEE worst, or at least bottom five. In all honesty every aspect of RH/DT is just bad. Bad characters, bad pacing, bad writing, bad prose, bad vocabulary/word usage, bad in-universe fiction, bad plotting, bad overarching plot, doesn't live up to what it's supposed to be - "horror" (I wasn't even once grossed out, scared, dismayed, horrified, disgusted, etc.) and in RH for instance where its Sith characters it falls into that "dark lite" mode because it doesn't want to branch too far from SW's mainstream and/or doesn't want to go too adult. I can't even think of a singular way the novels work, on any level, in any category of writing that you could possibly argue that these aren't the-next-to-drudge of SW fiction (with Jedi Prince being the worst, even Crystal Star and Jedi Trial are better than this) and at least even Jedi Prince has redeeming comedic value where this has none and doesn't even have that.

 

Zombies, obviously.

 

Death Troopers is hardly the first SW book to do that. Zombies have appeared guarding Sith tombs on Korriban in some books, and Galaxy of Fear: City of the Dead had zombies.

 

Well arent Red Harvest and Deathtroopes both a series together where Red Harvest is the prequel which takes 1000s of years ago where it deals with the zombie sith and that flower? then Death troopers while it technically started it all, its like the 2nd book of the series or whatever?

 

Well, maybe you can't find anything enjoyable in them - and that's fine, you're entitled to your opinion - I doubt the same applies to everyone else who read them. I'm sure there are others who can just as easily find plenty to like, even admitting that they're far from the best SW fiction ever produced.

 

Well I've not finished Red Harvest yet (to be honest, I'm not really enjoying it as much as Death Troopers - don't hate it though....), I really don't think you need to read it before Death Troopers. You could probably skip Red Harvest entirely, for that matter.

 

The real-world connections is some of the names Schreiber uses. The complete line taken from Taken, the Ostragoths or Ostrogoths or whatever, etc. He flooded RH with real-world names or near-names and horrible phrases from (at the time current) pop culture.

 

A lot of SW writers do that though. Just go on Wookieepedia and type in "List of references to Earth."

 

*Sigh*

That doesn't excuse it, and most aren't on a per-page basis like RH is nor are they as direct and overt as the Taken "scene" in RH.