Lit The Dark Nest Trilogy

To me what is most poignant about Dark Nest is that they released the entire series in five months.

 

Can I ask what you think this means? That they pushed it out the door to fill time or they rushed it?

 

NJO was "pushed out" likewise. 19 volumes in four years is no different speed.

 

Anderson's JAT was released in only seven months during 1994. I remember being astonished by such a rapid release schedule, after the Thrawn Trilogy's leisurely one book per year cadence, and wondering how someone could actually write novels that fast.

 

The likely answer: They weren't written that fast.

 

Maybe not that fast, no, but if anyone could have done so, it's KJA - he's an absolutely lightning-fast writer. Given his output, it wouldn't surprise me much if Troy Denning could operate at a similar pace.

 

There's no Santa Claus too.

Generally, where publishing is concerned stuff gets written far before we hear about it. So I suspect in both cases there was a good amount of production time planned.

The old rule that you can have it good or fast but not both is generally true, unless you're Dan Abnett. I've no idea how that guy does it.

 

Ghostwriters?

 

No, I think that's entirely unwarranted.

Abnett is just that fast and that good.

 

Well, after a VERY long time where I at best had skimmed The Unseen Queen and the Swarm War, I am now reading the latter two books, which I had largely skipped leading up to Betrayal.
The Killicks are definitely still creepy, and fairly annoying. The Squibs get unexpectedly ruthless. Corran had stuff to do - Kyle (sigh) mostly didn't. Jaina and Zekk come close to being insufferable, but they are in a cult mindset by this stage. Poor Jagged gets the heavy end of the authorial stick dumped on him, and the entire GA runs around just a little bit headless, a lot of the time. Was it around this time Cal Omas got derailed as a character too, I wonder?
Still, it was believable seeing the YJK become fragmented over the Raynar situation, and the Joiners, whilst Jacen seemed to hamerrhoage self awareness each chapter, including over his grandfather. Seems he skipped a fair few lessons on the perils of premature handling of visions - and yes, probably on fearing the Dark Side. Vergere taught so much on moving past the fear of it, but it can often be far more subtle than a wrinkled old despot urging one to strike a man down. The greed for quick solutions, to paraphrase Traviss, here.
Space battles were okay, if a bit vanilla. I'm close to finishing book three - but the best one may have been the Unseen Queen climax, with Luke in a spacesuit on the Nest Ship. I'll have to see how the repeat battle plays out. Meantime, Stealth-Xs do everything, and there's hardly an A-Wing or E-Wing in sight. Shadow bombs away, I guess!
Certainly the first book didn't grab me too well, nearly twenty years ago, but still, it's 'new' Star Wars Legends, so I'll make the most of it.
And seeing Jacen finally confront Ta'a Chume was pretty satisfying...

 

And so I think it is with most works. The contracts are signed long time before, because if something happens, you still have a time buffer or other works to fill the gap, if DNT wasn't finished as the trilogy entirely, before TJK was ever released.

Some authors really live in retreat from the world to write their books. And what do you think are all the dedications for, most authors do write before the reader gets to see the plain text? These are the people to get the daily stuff done, the author doesn't have time for, while writing his or her œuvres. I often read that people in prison find much time to write some interesting and enlightning books. Sometimes I wish for such a situation too, lest anybody will come and distract me from writing some more pages than usually, uninterrupted by the dainties of daily duties.

I found it a bit difficult to catch the Sqib's pre-story, because I haven't read the book they originally came from, but I found it o.k. how Denning did introduce them.

Actually I felt sorry for the Killiks because they were but cannon fodder throughout the whole trilogy. No memorable character of them and Wolof, the communication officer for Jaina in TSW was the only person you can feel for at least a bit, but even here, that role is switched from one insect to the other - just like James Bond gets a new actor every couple of years - well, just imagine to press Sean Connery until Daniel Craig into one volume of a trilogy - no, just into some chapters of it. At least Lomi Plo and Welk should have made up for that shortage of charisma, but this chance was missed by Denning clearly - and this time, he has no excuse like those characters to be used and explored later. They were his creations and he could set a mark with them in the Star Wars Universe, but nope.

Actually I wonder why Tenel Ka didn't do anything about her jerky grandma, while Jacen has to come to save the damsel of distress. I mean, she has her retinue. Placing Droekle at the cradle while watching out for her Grandma could not be unfeasable. But it was almost the same as when her mom died. Or did I miss something and the Killiks there did just came, because Jacen had arrived?

 

Thrill-power.

 

Tharg approves.

 

Stephen King can, allegedly, go from forming a premise to turning in a manuscript in something like 90 days depending on word count - and his word counts are not exactly anemic. Crazy fast turnarounds are possible if you're highly disciplined, have the time (i.e. writing is your career), and good. (Or fueled by cocaine, as King tended to be during his most fecund period in the 80s, but that's a whole different conversation.)

 

When he was well, I think Pratchett got 2-3 books a year out.

Some can do it but I still think we're talking a relatively small group of people.

Of course, I'm saying that having been burnt many times by SF / fantasy authors either taking forever to finish or not finish their series!

 

Do a lot of book series get cancelled just like tv shows do?

 

No. It doesn't work like that - the author just either takes forever or never puts the next book out e.g. see George R R Martin.

I suppose a publisher could lose patience with an author enough to sever the contract. But if the audience has bought 2 of 3 books, it's a safe bet they will still buy the last one, even if it takes ages.

 

GRRM’s A Game of Thrones came out what? Almost 30 years ago and only 4 books of his main series to show for it?

 

Five, with a pot-of-gold-at-the-end-of-the-rainbow sixth due someday.

And that's not the end, ASoFaI was to be seven books.

 

Yeah I don't see it being finished by GRRM, maybe Abnett could do it (and three other books natch).

Also how fast/good must the editors of these fast authors be to keep up.

 

Seems about right for Stackpole, too. At best speed, he estimates it takes him 200 hours to write a book, which would be five 40-hour workweeks, though he tends to spread the work out over a couple of months,

 

So in 2014, I announced in a thread here my intentions to read through the EU, right about the time Lucasfilm classified it as Legends.

People told me to STOP as soon as I finished The New Jedi Order, claiming everything after it sucked. Well, I've already been spoiled about certain characters' fates afterwards, and yeah, that seems like it sucks.

My attempts over the past 9 years have been rather pathetic, and I've never made it quite to the Hand of Thrawn Duology. But given my abhorrence of the Sequel Trilogy, I decided to skip forward to the Dark Nest trilogy, as it's supposed to take place around the same time, and see how it fairs as an alternate Sequel Trilogy.

Whether it sucks or not I can't infer, because I have no idea what's going on. And no, that's not because I haven't read a lot of the other material. A lot of that, I'm well able to catch up on, but this story is terribly confusing! It's like reading a Grant Morrison comic! And I'm still only on book 1!

Without going into details yet, does anyone else find this trilogy overly confusing? And does it suck?