Books So... is the Darth Bane trilogy any good?

I'm getting into the KOTOR era of Star Wars and similar works and I'm starting to find Darth Bane kind of intriguing, but I think I remember a mixed reaction to the books.

Should I give them a go after finishing up Darth Plagueis?

 

No.

 

It's the better of Drew K's works stay the **** away from Revan and Annihilation though

 

Try as you might, you won't avoid the "Revan is Space Jesus" worship that Drew does. I enjoyed the first book regardless, but as they went on, I found them to get rather inconsistent. Drew kept trying to portray Bane as a super genius new age Sith Lord, but he kept making incredibly dumb decisions.

Just be ready for more of Revan being the end all super sith.

 

Yeah after TOR Revan **** kind of annoys me now

 

I didn't mind it in The Sith Lords, because the person who told you most about Revan was also a chronic liar. And he was treated more as a pivotal figure, the embodiment of power. He was not the end all Force user god. In the end Revan was just a man.

But who needs that when we can turn him into Superman and have him get his ass kicked to show just how strong Nihilus 2.0 is!

 

I still find it hilarious his son has his name backwards

I mean really

Drew K was awful at fleshing out the Sith Emperor as well granted when it was hyping him it was the most entertaining the book got, it never explained why? TOR manages to make more interesting then an entire book focusing on him in a single conversation during the boss fight by at least giving him a semblance of a motive

 

No, his son has Renav's name backwards.

Which the book does not do, as Karpyshyn warned us on his blog prior to the book's release.

 

Meh, give the first Bane book a try. The fact of the matter is that Karpyshyn is far from the best SW writer. His two best books, his first two, were already plotted for him for the most part from prior works. His prose is really really simple. His structuring is fairly good sometimes. His books aren't popular on the lit boards for several reasons. Mainly because they aren't overly literate. But the Bane books are fun.

 

I'm not talking about just Drew on this, but on how everyone post TSL decided to hero worship Revan to the point where he became a second Thrawn super tactical unstoppable god of war force genius.

It just so happens that Revan made the Thought Bomb first? Or that all of Bane's teachings come from Revan's original philosophies?

 

Why all the Drew Hate?!?!?!? I find all his books to be great. He is my second favorite author behind Stackpole. I would wholeheartedly recommend reading the bane trilogy.

 

His books subsequent to the Bane trilogy suck

 

To say the least, he's quite the polarizing figure on these boards. He's not the most polarizing (read: Karen Traviss), but he does have plenty of people on both sides of the fence that are vehement about their feelings.

 

Or, don't.

 

Yes. The novels aren't the most technical by any sense. Drew will never win an award for his prose, but they are enjoyable. And there's something nice about his simplistic writing style in a way. At least you can say it is his own style and he recognizes that and runs with it. Better that than he try to imitate Zahn and have everything be a fantastic failure. I enjoyed all three of his novels, and have found that I can read them over and enjoy them just as much.

 

Should I have used the "ie." instead?

 

I also can’t really stand his books, though that really might be more do to them being set in my least favorite era and usually having Jedi, Sith, Jedi and a few more Sith as characters. I did kind of enjoy the first Bane book, well at least up to the point where Bane starts his Sith training, as after that it just became a chore to read.

 

Nah, just one: they're bad.

 

The first one was the best. The next two weren't as good. They were good but POD was the best by far.

 

I can't believe you guys... Have you even read every EU novel like I have? There is alot of worse stuff out there... Planet of Twilight anyone?

 

Read the comic Jedi vs Sith instead. Then choose if you want to read the Bane trilogy to supplement it. They're not awful, if you go into them expecting nothing more than the literary equivalent of a popcorn movie. Much more pleasant than a Michael Bay movie, I will say that much.

Meh, I think accusations of Revan worship are overstated. There are two important details to keep in mind.

1. Revan is only mentioned in Path of Destruction. The latter two are completely Revan free.

2. At the time of POD's release, Revan had not been mentioned in any source outside of KOTOR and the KOTOR comics. In this way, it could just simply be seen as connecting the stories, something I like to see often in Star Wars. Freedon Nadd and other Sith Lords Bane later learns from had been mentioned extensively; at that point, Revan only existed inside his own game. I'm also willing to grant a little leeway in an author referencing his own creation.

There are many, many reasons to criticize the Darth Bane trilogy. Revan worship is not one of them.

 

This is the correct response. If you're interested in Bane, read Jedi vs. Sith, which depicts an awesome, badass Bane. Avoid the Bane books, which rewrite him so that the character doesn't make much sense, and turn him into the most generic, bland, and uninteresting Sith Lord ever to live.

 

I've only read Path of Destruction and Rule of Two so far, but I can't say I'm impressed. I can't exactly put my finger on it but these books left me very unsatisfied after I was done with them. Probably one of the reason was that the writing wasn't very good at all. From the few authors I've read so far, I think the author's style is the most comparable to that of Jude Watson's (who's books I also don't really like most of the time) in the sense that everything is described in a very simplistic and abrupt manner. For example, I found Kevin J. Anderson's account of what happend on Dxun to be way more interesting that how it was described in Rule of Two.

Bane and Zannah are not very likeable or interesting characters either. Perhaps they would have been if they were magnificent bastards like Plagueis or Palpatine, but the only reason they get away with what they do is because the Jedi act like idiots.