Lit The Tide Turns: ACKBAR IS BACK - The 10 Year Anniversary of Destiny's Way

ACKBAR IS BACK

Today, October 1st, is the ten year anniversary of the publishing of Star Wars: The New Jedi Order - Destiny's Way. The book that saw the tide turn against the Yuuzhan Vong, the last huzzah of an ailing yet still sharp Admiral Ackbar, the return of Jacen Solo, and the establishment of the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances. Alot has happened in the Expanded Universe (for good & bad) since then, but this threads purpose is to celebrate, re-examine, and discuss the impact of Destiny's Way on the New Jedi Order series and the post-NJO period.

So, how does the stroy hold up ten years after it's publication? What do you think of Walter Jon Williams writing style? How does the book rate compared to the rest of the NJO?

Discuss!

--Adm. Nick

 

I think that it's one of the most kickass books in Star Wars. In terms of writing, a nice balance was struck between large-scale fleet maneuvers and small-scale personal actions. It was a nice ensemble book, with all of the protagonists getting their time in the limelight- further, the new generation in particular shined, while the Big 3, while important within the story, didn't hog all of the action. Jacen got to philosophize and play Bastila Shan, while Jaina led maneuvers against the Vong. And of course, let's not forget her takedown of Tsavong Lah. Definitely one of my favorites, and one of the first books to really show the cracks in the Vong side of the war effort. It's just such an exciting and fun book.

 

Destiny's Way was a very good novel and the first time I liked Jacen since YJK. There was a lot of action. The characters were all believable. Probably in my top 5 for the NJO.

Also 4 days until the anniversary of Vector Prime's release 13 years ago wasn't it?

 

I love Destiny's Way, but I have only read it once a few years ago.

 

Wasn't it revealed that Admiral Ackbar had died shortly before the Battle of Ebaq 9?

 

Ackbar died in The Unifying Force. Before the final battle of Coruscant I think

 

Ah, that's right, he planned the Battle of Ebaq 9 and died before the Battle of Coruscant.

 

Honestly, I can't really remember DW for good or bad. I know intellectually that that's the book Ebaq 9 happened in, but the only memory I have of actually reading the book is the "Nostril of Palpatine" speech.

 

Nostril of Palpatine
Han is a genius
That was the best part

 

Huh. I just started reading Destiny's Way for the first time. Literally, just started; I was on the second page of chapter one, then something else came up.

Anyway, it's fine so far.

 

Shades of Winston S Churchill's return as First Lord of the Admiralty!

"In some of the larger ships the cheering went on for hours" could have been better put to reflct the joy and boosted morale caused by his return to leadership - but othewise a great read!

 

Exactly.

 

That is my favorite part of the book. I still vividly remember reading that part ten years ago when I was home on break from college. I was sitting in my parents living room reading and I literally cheered out loud myself. My mom asked what was going on, to which I simply replyed "Ackbar is back".

My mother smiled and said, "Where did he go?

--Adm. Nick

 

I deeply enjoyed this novel (great fleet action and politics) and have actually reread it as often as my copy has begun to fall apart (the only other SW novel of mine with that honor is Iron Fist), sadly it is also pretty much the last book that actually makes really good use of Lando and Karrde, as Karrde has pretty much disappeared completely and Lando had little more than a cameo in LOTF.

 

It's criminals that we haven't seen much of Lando since TUF and we haven't seen Karrde at all since. I remember being ticked that we didn't get to see Lando until Exile came out.

 

Two-thirds or thereabouts of the way through (the Young Jedi Knights have just been, well, knighted). The very basic, almost childish depiction of most of the politics is irritating and some of the language is overblown and melodramatic (particularly noticeable with Jaina; I suppose I expect a much more straightforward point of view from her) but it's generally fine. Pellaeon and Dorja were both fun, as was Rodan. I feel a chance was rather missed in not making Rodan a constant oppositional presence in the Senate, or Omas's successor. The Yuuzhan Vong have been uniformly entertaining. It's all been really rather decent.

Oh you.

 

Wow, so it's been ten years since I really cared about an EU book? Doesn't seem that long.

Well, seriously, I thought it marked the moment when the NJO started going downhill. I'm not a fan of Destiny's Way or anything that came after it, unless it's a scene with Nom Anor. And once the NJO was over, I stopped reading the books as they came out in order to focus on my chronological project. That didn't quite work out, but I guess you could say that Destiny's Way just didn't interest me and made several missteps (killing Vergere, anyone?). And while it was Survivor's Quest that finally broke my relationship to the EU, you could call the long disillusionment that led up to that break by just listing the last year's worth of books from the NJO, including, of course, Destiny's Way. The malaise started here. My memory on specifics is frustratingly sketchy; I read it ten years ago and haven't revisited it since then. So I can't really defend my position with specifics and there's always the chance my thoughts would be different if I read the book today. But this is how I feel today.

 

Rogue1-and-a-half

For me, Destiny's Way was the point that the NJO started getting better. So, in terms of the series, you and I had opposite reactions. However, the post-NJO has been a total disaster and mess in terms of the various series by Del Rey, so it sounds like we are in agreement there.

I still love the Battle of Ebaq Nine. The concept of drawing the Vong in, tempting them with a "prize", and then brining in New Republic fleets one at a time before sending in overwhelming forces to finish the job was awesome. And I really love the idea to use mine fields. The Vong suffered nearly as severe losses retreating through the mines as they did during the fleet engagement.

Also- General Keyan Farlander and the MC80B cruiser Mon Adapyne are one of my favorite little tidbits!

--Adm. Nick

 

So what of Lando and Karrde rigging the election for Chief of State?

For myself, I found that plan to be quite weak - all it would have taken for the entire thing to collapse is for a politician possessing equal charisma to contempt for the populace to do a speech that the likes of Blair, Clinton and Obama would be envious of, as s/he/it explains how thoroughly they screwed up in their failure to fight the Vong, that they are throwing them selves on the mercy of the masses because they cannot countenance being blackmailed and the democratic process tainted! It only needed one Senator with a pair of brass balls equal or in excess of their dodgy record and the entire thing would have collapsed.

And if I'm being fair to Rodan, he'd probably be fine as Chief of State in peace-time, that's when you want someone in charge who will be actually be attentive to the process of things as much as the results, but in war-time? No, he would have been a disaster. DW was the book where the politicians finally got out of the way of the military, told them they had carte blanche to do their job and the military got on with doing with just that!