Books The Old Republic: Annihilation by Drew K

Do they go pew pew?

 

nope it i still me old JediMatteus

 

I picked this up from the Library a couple of days ago and finished it last night. Was it Crystal Star or Jedi Academy Travesty bad? Nope - but it was relentlessly dull. Boring bad guy, dull good guy (bordering on "I really hate you"), a threat that could have been cool but was totally paint-by-numbers and a plot that was merely a sequence of events in chronological order as opposed to an actual, engaging story. I finished the book, but only because it was free. If I had paid for this, I would have felt ripped off!

 

Just finished the book- ok, it's not deep, it's not a classic, but it's great fun- I thought this was one of the most enjoyable SW books I've read in a long time.

And, I am proud to announce, finishing Annihilation leaves me with only Scoundrels left to read and then I have read every single adult SW fiction book that is currently available! I can see the peak of Everest.

 

Did it mention a bottle of red hair dye in Satele's bathroom?

 

To me this book was the ONLY good book in the Old Republic timeline except for Revan. But even Revan had some issues and inconsistencies. Hated Fatal Alliance, hated Deceived. This book was actually very entertaining.

 

See I like those books.

So maybe if you like one you won't like the other?

 

Fatal Alliance has probably been my favourite of the TOR books. Red Harvest I actually enjoyed in a camp horror B-Movie kind of way, though it's much harder to really "place."

Revan and Deceived I probably would put together... Kemp definitely is a much better writer than Karpyshyn but I'm just not fond of Malgus, so both books came off rather flat to me.

Annihilation admittedly sounds interesting story wise, but I'm miles behind on my reading so it'll take a bit before I get to it.

 

Karypyshyns my favorite author. Revan and the Bane trilogy are my favorite SW books, so I'm looking forward to reading this after I finish up vision of the future.

 

i agree. Drew is much better than Kemp i think

 

Probably it just comes down to different preferences, which is fine of course. I actually don't mind most of the TOR-related novels, although I'm a bit more forgiving with them since these don't involve killing relatives of OT characters at least.

I'd probably rank Revan and Annihilation as lower than the others though, especially as Fatal Alliance and Deceived were released well before the game was launched so they were still tinkering with things. Well, that and the Revan novel was such an... anticlimax after all the hinting about the True Sith and such (not that Revan in the game itself was all that great either). Annihilation was just forgettable (well, it doesn't help that it follows a somewhat similar plot to Lost Suns and that was much better written), not horrible, but also pretty generic. A darkside-enhanced ship that is basically better than any other ship isn't exactly that original.

A glimpse into the post-Chapter 3 Sith Empire is slightly interesting, even if it only shows that they're barely making any progress.

 

This book blew me away. I've liked Karpyshyn's books in the past, but found them to be mostly forgettable. Even the last Bane book, which I remember thinking vastly superior to the first two, was something I hardly remembered when I thought back on it.

I read Revan last week and liked it quite a bit. I love this book, though. Just a total blast to read.

What I'm wondering, though, is do we have a review thread for it? I couldn't seem to find one. And if not, can I start one?

 

I'll start one. Apparently no one cared enough about it to ever request a review thread up until now, and I certainly didn't care enough about it to pinpoint its release date.

 

I just read the novel.

One thumb down.

I really loved Drew's work in Darth Bane's trilogy, expanding on a psychopath in an excellent way without making him either too sympathetic or one-dimensional, while I felt the Revan novel was passable. I certainly thought the ending had the courage of its convictions of making it clear Revan was overwhelmed and arrogant in his chances of defeating the Sith Emperor--never imagining there was someone more powerful.

Here, I was underwhelmed. The plot is Star Wars at it's most basic. There's a Superweapon run by a cyborg Dark Lord of the Sith (who is a fallen Jedi) and our plucky band of misfits w/ one smuggler, one Jedi, and one soldier have to go stop it. All we needed was a pair of droids to cap it off. Actually, the lack of droids hurt it because Theron is painfully unfunny and needed some comic relief.

I'm being a bit harsh but there was something which seriously irritated me about Theron. His basic arrogance that nothing in the universe could touch him and the sheer inability to believe any of his decisions could be wrong reminded me of Dash Rendar. Except, Dash Rendar had a reality check when his attempt to shoot the reinforced torpedoes failed and became a more interesting character as a result.

Shan, however, just goes on to enjoy his arrogant free-wheeling ways like always. I've never wanted to see a character in Star Wars subject to High Inquisitor Tremayne's ministrations but I'm suddenly dangerously close to do so. It gets worse that he essentially spends all of his time stalking Teff'ith the Twilek for reasons that remain nebulous but could include insanity. No wait, the latter would be interesting.

About the only parts I really enjoyed in the book are the scenes between Satele Shan and Jace Malcolm. Both are very interesting characters and could have been the stars of a more interesting book, I feel. The Battle of Alderaan seems to have challenged Satele's views and their love affairs was actually intriguing--especially with it's non-standard but realistic ending. Too bad we didn't get more of these two.

Oh and I loved the fact the Dark Council has some sane members desperately trying to recruit NON-SOCIOPATHS, only to discover that the people they're trying to recruit think they're not sociopathic enough when they're dropping hints.

That's comedy, friend.

5/10

 

nothing changes.

This was a nothing book

 

My thoughts exactly: telling that my first thought on seeing this thread was, "oh yeah, this book happened, didn't it?"

But hey, I'll take boring Karpyshyn over smug Karpyshyn that bulldozes over established canon because he believes it could benefit from being less ambiguous and more br00tal and stuff.

 

Do tell. I'm not sure what you mean.

 

It'll have to wait for tomorrow if I want to really go into it, and even so I know there are others who could probably explain it better than I. The short version is that I feel The Bane novels simplify Bane as much as possible, and dilute his character to the point where you might as well be reading about any other dude with a lightsaber and anger problems. It takes a Sith that came off as a unique individual (or, at least, as unique as a Sith can be) and made him into Dark Side Revan, a dogmatic evil-for-the-sake-of-evil psychopath whose ambitions don't seem to extend beyond being the strongest around. He replaces what was hinted as an interesting backstory- one thing we don't see enough when it comes to Sith is the scheming and intrigue, and a book about a rivalry between Bane and Kahn is practically begging to be written- and replaces it with a lazy serial killer origin. He takes a character so pivotal in the conflict between the Jedi and Sith that his name is held in reverence a thousand years later and makes his defining difference between him and his peers his increased bloodlust.

And that's just what it did to Bane. Don't even get me started on it destroying Darovit's ending.

I don't hate the novels- by themselves they're fairly entertaining, if light popcorn books- but as alternative for what had come before, it was one big wasted opportunity.

 

Probs the changes from the comic with Bane.

I have not read the comic (getting it now) but the book did annoy me when it had Bane learn from Revan and I was a big fan of KOTOR then, but I was like "really?, why?"

 

Generally, I felt the exact opposite as Book Bane felt far more nuanced than comic Bane. That's a matter of opinion, though.

As for Darovit, I didn't see a problem with that as well.

He lived an entirely normal life.

Edit:

I think I agree with most of Aus Stig's review. The Republic winning the war against the Empire isn't really a "good" thing in terms of suspense. Why should i care about the Republic beating the Empire in a war they're destined to win? Likewise, Theron's activities endangered the lives of others and the lives of his men. He also directly lead to the deaths of tens of thousands of Republic soldiers by forcing the fight at Duros.

And again, he's a stalker. What's up with that?

 

yeah tha'ts how i felt. this was the first time i really enjoyed a book from this time period. But like i said Reven was pretty good too.

 

I wouldn't say he got to live a normal life at all; if memory serves, he was driven insane by his greatest childhood friend and was left to be slaughtered by a group of Jedi. I feel like Jedi vs Sith gave him the perfect ending. Now, one could argue that it was worth sacrificing his happy ending in service of giving Zannah her true moral point of no return, but I felt Darovit had a sense of finality about it in JvS.

As for Annihilation, I remember my greatest disappointment being the beyond weak interaction between Theron and Satele. That could have been very heavy dialogue, but it ultimately ended up as very thin. I also find it beyond annoying that Revan was not even mentioned. I mean, Revan would have appeared before the Jedi council, and almost certainly argued with them. Surely the revival of her great-great-whatever grandfather, coupled with the events surrounding them, would merit at least a passing mention, or much more likely, greatly influence Satele's point of view. Just another wasted opportunity, I suppose.

 

I like Karpyshyn' books. Never got to finish Annihilation but liked what I did read. When does the paperback version come out?

 

The paperback comes out on October 29.