A&A The Official Matthew Woodring Stover Discussion Thread

My career contains a significant dearth of cool, though there are a few highlights; i.e., spending a couple hours at Skywalker Ranch talking Jedi with George Lucas was pretty cool.

Cooler than that was going out to dinner, after my very first RotS Tour From Hell event, with the Raleigh-Durham-area 501, and discovering that there are doctors and lawyers and honest-to-crap JET flippin' PILOTS within the galaxy's coolest fan club.

Cooler than that was hanging out with one of my youthful SFF idols, Stephen R. Donaldson, and discovering that I actually like the guy even more than I like his books -- which is a considerable amount.

Though overall, probably the single coolest thing in my career isn't even in my career; it was watching a one-time forum-rat (and fan) that I spent many hours e-hanging with back in the days when nobody (not even him) anticipated just how Big a Deal he would someday become turn into the international SFF phenomenon now known to the world as Scott Lynch.

That was (and is) exceedingly cool, as is having advised an unpublished, aspiring fantasy author just a bit on a combat style that could plausibly be used by a fat man who has really fast hands and favors hatchets, and discovering (to my delight) that the fat man and hatchets in question turned out to be Jean Tannen and the Wicked Sisters. [DISCLAIMER: I really mean just a bit -- the details of Jean's style are wholly the creation of young Mr. Lynch's endlessly fertile imagination. The most that can be said for my contribution is that I might have nudged him in the right direction.]

Again: not really part of my career, but cool. Really cool.

 

Matt, recently read Shadows of Mindor. Another great read, and thanks for continuing my faith in the EU particularly with what's been happening at the latter end of the time line.

What I particuarly liked was how you explored the idea of heroes, touched on in the intro to the ROTS novel. Is this a sort of reflection on how we make heroes out of important historical figures? I know this is the case particularly at your end of the globe with what American history I have studied, Washington, Lincoln et al. It kind of is hard to see a man behind the marble, and sometimes we just don't want to see that.

And it WAS funny to see them calling Luke "Emperor" and when he was forced to act "Emperor-like".

 

Dear Mr. Stover,

I'm a big fan of your Star Wars work, I've read all of your novels. Shatterpoint is my favourite and one of the best books I ever read. If I may I would like to ask you a couple of questions (one of the is from a friend whom I made read the books and he enjoyed them very much despite not being a Star Wars fan at all):

1) I'm not sure if you will answer this, but when I read Traitor and Shatterpoint essentially back to back, it occurred to me that many of the questions faced by Mace and Jacen were very similar - especially the questions Vergere asked of Jacen, the hard questions he couldn't answer. Contrary to Jacen Mace realized they were the 'wrong' questions. So, I'd like to know if this was intentional and intended as some kind of commentary on the very different personal backgrounds of both men...

2) A very simple one: How old is Nick Rostu in Shatterpoint?^^

3) Is the scene in Shatterpoint where Mace gets arrested by Geptun's men and then interrogated intended as a homage to a somewhat similar scene in Lando Calrissian and the Mindharp of Sharu? Lando also gets arrested on bogus charges and pressed into service by a corrupt official working for someone named Gepta...

4) My friend would like to know whether - when you were working on Shatterpoint - you had any contact with Samuel L. Jackson about his idea of the character of Mace?

Well, so much for my idle curiosity. If you ever write any more Star Wars books, I would be very happy and look forward to reading them.

 

I second Katana_Geldar's post about your style with heroes. I've read all your SW novels and just finished reading Heroes Die. In all these works, there seems to be a moment of, well, transcendent heroism, where the protagonist stands up and declares just how he's going to win this conflict.

It's evident with Luke Skywalker's line, "Everything you can tell me in five minutes or less, because that's about all the time we have to win this fight," and in Mace Windu's line in Shatterpoint about how he's going to end the Summertime War and beat the Separatists all in one night. I had to do a little digging around in the ROTS novel, but I feel like it's there in your description of Anakin landing half a burning cruiser as "Anakin Skywalker's masterpiece," and that "Between his will and the will of the Force, there is no contest." Which is remarkable to consider the height of optimism in such a dark tale.

 

Thanks.

In regards to the various characters' varying perceptions of the Force, well . . .
There is a Taoist proverb about five blind men encountering an elephant. I recommend it.

I believe that the text of Shatterpoint describes Nick as "around twenty" (this would be, as you'd expect, "Standard years").

The Surrender sequence in Shatterpoint is not a conscious reference; I had not read any Lando novels until I began my research for Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor.

I have never met, nor had any communication, with Samuel L. Jackson. My editor at LucasBooks told me a copy had been sent to him, but that's all I know.

MK1138 --
My protagonists often (though not always) have that I Will Beat Them Like a Rented Gong moment because it's such an accurate reflection of the feeling I get when I finally figure out how the protag(s) is/are going to overcome the impossible odds against him/her/them -- and the price that will be paid for the victory.

KG --
A great deal of my non-SW work (primarily my Acts of Caine sequence, but also the late, lamented The Real Flash Gordon) examines, in considerable detail, the private person behind the Legendary Hero persona. It's just one of my things. I was an actor before I became an SFF writer, and I've always been interested in the ways people find (or fail) to live up to the image they create for themselves

 

And the image that is created for them? That's really what I was asking about, how we make heroes for someone to look up to. Similar to Anakin as "The Hero with No Fear" in ROTS.

 

Thank you very much for answering my questions .

 

The "I Will Beat Them Like a Rented Gong" moment sounds about right. I could definitely feel it in reading Heroes Die, though with Caine, that isn't too hard, but it's still wonderful. Thanks, Matt!

 

Matt, all your Star Wars novels have focused in some way on Jedi and their relationship with the Force, and have dealt with a sort of philosophical exploration of heroism, of the Right Thing to Do. Your protagonists, especially in your original (non-ROTS novelization) Star Wars work, tend to be heroes, moral men seeking a moral solution. Yet this doesn't seem to be the case with your non-SW work -- Caine is more antihero than hero, a ruthless killer who's quite willing to do things Mace Windu, Jacen Solo, Obi-Wan Kenobi, or Luke Skywalker would balk at.

Is that simply a result of playing in the Star Wars universe -- the nature of the setting pulls you to Jedi characters and you make hay with the philosophical ground that gives you? Or is it a conscious choice to seek out thematic elements that you maybe can't deal with in the same direct fashion in the Acts of Caine series and make use of the opportunity the setting gives you to explore a different kind of character?

Put another way, if you had to write another Star Wars book, would you prefer to write something a bit more Cainelike, with a more hard-edged, gray-areas hardass for a protagonist -- a young Han Solo, a Nick Rostu, a Jango Fett, a Gallandro -- or would you gravitate to a Jedi character, a more consciously right-seeking character -- a Luke Skywalker, a Leia Organa, an Obi-Wan Kenobi?

 

Hmm. Well . . . I hope you'll excuse the more-than-slightly didactic tone of the following . . .

First of all, Caine is not an antihero. Holden Caulfield is an antihero -- that is, a protagonist who drifts through the story, reacting to events rather than driving toward a goal. Caine is more properly regarded as (with thanks to the perceptive folks over at TV Tropes and Idioms.Com) a heroic sociopath, a long and noble lineage that includes James Bond, Sam Spade, "Mad Max" Rockatansky, most of Clint Eastwood's Western incarnations (not only the Man With No Name, but Josey Wales and the protagonist of High Plains Drifter -- though specifically not Will Munny), Shane, Jeremiah Johnson, the fictionalized versions of John Henry "Doc" Holliday -- and, for that matter, Batman and the Shadow; the original incarnation of the type is probably Odysseus.

That being said, however, it's worth noting that when originally approached for the book that became Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor, what I wanted to write about was Nick breaking Kar Vastor out of GFFA supermax to help rescue the remaining Korunnai from Vader's revenge . . . but the original slot of the book would have been before the first Coruscant Nights story, and would have (by its nature) contained massive spoilers.

I wrote Jedi for reasons unrelated to their moral nature; all three Acts of Caine feature leading characters who consciously seek to Do the Right Thing -- Pallas Ril, Toa Sytell, Tyrkilld Aeddhar, Angvasse Klaylock, Ambassador Damon (and, of course, Raithe of Ankhana), and -- most notably -- Deliann Mithondionne.

I am by nature, taste and avowed profession an inextricable mix of Epic Fantasist and Adventure SF guy. The fundamental structure of Epic Fantasy is the metaphoric journey(s) of the main character(s) to a deeper understanding of their own essential nature and their place in the universe -- in Joseph Campbell's formulation, "atonement with the Higher Self." Jedi are natural protagonists for this type of story, because their true effectiveness arises from the depth of their understanding of themselves -- a true Jedi's journey is always along this path, because Mr. Lucas designed his universe that way. Adventure SF is about the struggle of the protagonist(s) to impose his/her/their will upon reality -- put most simply, to Get What They Want.

Put another way: EF is a soft martial art -- understanding brings power. ASF is a hard martial art -- power brings understanding. The differences between the protagonists of the GFFA and those of the Acts of Caine are primarily the result of the differences between Mr. Lucas' universe and our own.

I don't know if that

 

I figured you'd object to classifying Caine as an antihero, but "more antihero than hero" was the best I could come up with at the time. Sociopathic hero sounds about right, though.

I know there are more straight-up Do-The-Right-Thingers in Caine -- Deliann and Pallas came to mind immediately, as did the more traditionally "heroic" woman who goes up against Berne in Heroes Die (damned if I can recall her name at the moment), but they're supporting characters for Caine, who dominates the narrative as the person through whose eyes most of the novels are seen, in the same way Jacen and Mace dominate Traitor and Shatterpoint respectively. So there's a bit of a tonal difference that I found interesting enough to prompt the question. It's not so much that the themes aren't handled in each as that the emphasis on the themes is different, if that makes sense?

Anyway, the EF/ASF divide makes sense to me. Thanks for the answer.

 

Well, yeah. I mean, one of the premises of the Acts of Caine is the synthetic nature of morality -- that is, that morality is developed to mold behavior in a direction we think is a good idea. It's not that Caine isn't interested in Doing the Right Thing, it's that for Caine, the Right Thing is to protect the people and things he cares about. He's a pragmatic existentialist.

On the other hand, when his "circle of affection" expands, his behavior turns a bit more toward the heroic . . . I was going to say "conventionally heroic," but I suppose there's not much "conventionally" lying around there, except in the broader sense of sacrificing his body/ideals/happiness/immortal soul/whatever in service of what is, to him, a greater cause.

Does that help at all?

 

Yeah. I definitely noted a difference between Heroes Die and Blade of Tyshalle -- "**** the city, I'd burn the world to save her" vs. Caine essentially having a greater sense of fighting for Overworld, for everyone. Heroes Die is almost completely personal on Caine's part, and while everything is always personal with Caine, there's perhaps a greater sense of justice in Caine's motivations in BOT. The sort of standard-morality "I oppose this on the grounds that it's just not right, regardless of its personal impact on me" sense, rather than Caine's more typical "I oppose this because it threatens me or my family, or just pisses me off" approach (of course, one can state that the sole reason the first type of person is opposing it is because of its personal impact on him and the threat it poses to his personal idea of justice . . . but there we get into the fun subtleties while missing the broader point -- which is that there's an appreciable difference, whether of motivation or self-awareness of motivation). His circle of affection has, as you say, expanded to encompass Overworld as a whole in a way we don't typically see from the immediate-circle-centered Caine.

And I think that highlights one of the things I most enjoy about the Acts of Caine, which is the way it plays with notions of heroism. Caine is the hero, yet were the novels not following him, he could as easily be the villain -- as we see from Raithe's POV. He's sympathetic -- yet so is his opponent Raithe, when we see from his eyes. So is Ma'elKoth/Tan'elKoth, when we see from his eyes. Caine is a self-centered, sociopathic, ruthless bastard . . . yet he's a hero anyway. Is it because we only see him when he's fighting for a noble cause? Is it because the people he defeats are even worse? Is it because there's something about his self-awareness and dedication to what he does stand for that mitigates his flaws? I don't know -- I just know the books make me think. So thanks for letting me bounce ideas off you.

 

In your mind, is this still part of the back story for Nick and Vastor, prior to their appearance on Mindor, or did that background die when the original story was axed? Because it appeared to me that you were careful not to give away too much information about how Cronal got a hold of Vastor, and why Nick went after him (<- spoilers Mindor).
If you ever get the desire and the opportunity to explore this, I'd certainly want to read that story. Even more so, I think, if it was a another "holothriller."


On another note... I take it this is one of the two tie-in projects you mentioned a couple of months ago? Now that Del Rey's published that information, is there anything you could say about the project (such as how connected it will be to the plot, such as there is, of the games), or are you still not allowed to? I'll undoubtedly read it anyway, but I'd much prefer if I didn't have to play or read up on the new, concurrently released game instalment first.

 

If this is true: I'll buy the first copy.

I'm only peripherally aware of 'God of War' having never owned a Playstation or played the game(s) but from the ads I saw on television years ago, it looks like a mature fantasy world in to which Matt could really sink his teeth.

Generally, I get excited about any new MWS title.

 

I just listened to the audiobook of RotS and that is exactly the difference given by Palpatine between the Jedi and the Sith (having a public library that provided it and several hours of driving to keep awake for). Palpatine really shines in the book, btw, and really the only thing I wished was different is that once he's revealed as Sidious he never really gets called on the highly treasonous collaboration with Dooku and the Separatists. Mace just arrests him because "You're a Sith Lord" and the whole thing gets framed as sectarian Jedi/Sith conflict. I understand you typically refrain from commenting on the text, though.

But I do wonder if you've heard the audiobook and, if you did, what you thought of it. Did you like the reader's interpretation? Were you satisfied with how it all sounded spoken aloud? (I thought the guy did a very good job but made some weird choices with how he read some passages.)

 

Kotaku says that it is a novelisation of the events of the first game. I have no idea if they're right or not, though.

It amuses me that Kratos is voiced by T.C.Carson... aka Mace Windu from both Clone Wars series.

 

Anybody know what is going on with the Mindor paperback release. I believe it had been scheduled for release in August, and I was really looking forward to that. Now it seems the release date has been moved back to I don't know when.

Something fishy seems to be going on recently on with Star War paperbacks that were originally hardcover. There will be no paperback for The Clone Wars novel, and there has yet to be any kind of paperback release date for any of the Fate of the Jedi books.

And now this with Mindor.

If this is the direction Del Rey is going, I think it's a huge marketing mistake. I've been turned on to many books due to paperbacks. They have lead to me sometimes going back and reading the whole series the book may have been a part of and/or searching for more books by the author of the book.

This is basically how I discovered Asimov, Card, and many of others years back.

 

I have a question for you, Matt, regarding something I've noticed in a few of your novels. I started this summer with the determination to read your Acts of Caine novels. Having thoroughly enjoyed Heroes Die, I moved on to Blade of Tyshalle, which still blows me away after reading it for the second time.

What I noted was this: in previous posts you've made, you've discussed how Mace Windu is similar to Caine, but the key distinction was that Mace has a Jedi orientation, his main love being the Republic and its laws, as opposed to Caine's loyalty to the people he cares about.

This connection was in my mind when I read about Caine's "black Flow" that Deliann and others perceive in his Shell, and I was wondering if this is in any way related to Mace's Vaapad? Are they related, or is there a major distinction here as well?

 

This is a complicated question. The simple answer is No, because Flow does not have a moral dimension, which the Force does (though the moral dimension of the Force is more complex and nuanced than I can explain here without straying into Confidential Proprietary Information).

As I believe I have mentioned before: If Caine were to be dimension-shifted into the GFFA, he would unquestionably be considered a dark-sider (in the Cainist formulation: My Will, or I Won't). But the dark side of the Force alone cannot account for the fundamental chaos (chaos of the mathematical, not the moral, kind -- as in chaos theory) that is the root of Caine's "Caine-ness." Black Flow is not black because it's Evil, or even inherently Destructive; it's black because it is the underlying substrate that provides the matrix upon which the other flavors of Flow interact.

In the Acts of Caine, the functional duality is not Good/Evil, or even Light Side/Dark Side (which is not the same thing), it is Apollonian/Dionysian. Each of these respective "sides" contains its own (synthetic) moral dimension, separate from that of the other side. To massively over-simplify, you can think of it in the terms of the old AD&D "alignments" -- or Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion stories, for that matter. For a full understanding of the Apollonian/Dionysian thing, you'll get the most out of reading Nieztsche's The Birth of Tragedy, and Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Though it would be a mistake to take even these books as some sort of Acts of Caine gospel; as Caine points out in Blade of Tyshalle, dual-valued systems break down in contact with reality.

 

You're a troper too, Matt? I added some of your Death Star novel to the Death Star countdown on the Magic Countdown (specifically calling it a retcon, rather than a justification).

I'm glad some writers realize that tropes are tools, though. We all use them; we just don't know it, Lucas' work with Campbell's Monomyth notwithstanding. Most of us, fortunately, know the "bad" tropes.

 

Hey, thanks. That's particularly generous, seeing as how I didn't write Death Star. Though that does sound like it ought to be a Stover title.

 

Damm right it should be.

 

I thought you did. Oh, Reeves and Perry did. (My SW authors sort of get mixed together. Since the 'verse is so large.) I did like your ROTS novelization, though. (Was that a reference to all the Obidala fanfic out there? I'm guessing the time Obi-Wan was caught leaving Padmé's apartment was in TPM, but the way Palpy said it just?implied more. But that's how he is. Magnificent Bastarve and all.) Didn't like Traitor, but I hated NJO in general. (They killed Chewie! *sob*)

(Thank God I didn't mention Death Star's author by name.)

But it's still great to see people who seem to get that you can't just put the "good" clichés together and avoid the "bad" clichés.

 

I can see how you'd get confused. Probably happens all the time.