Why Troy Denning Should Never Write Another Book... EVER

Every time this horrible author writes a book, I get more and more angry at him. Every time he wrights a book, he mischaracterises almost everyone (even Saba, who he made up, yet somehow mischaracterises her in his later books... the only people he doesn't mess up are Luke, Leia, and Han... but they are hard to mess up, as he has movies to go by!). Especially Corran Horn (my favorite character), Kenth Hamner, and Gavin Darklighter.

His writing style is also one of the most boring things ever... even if I hate a book, I rarely get bored with it... but when Denning writes Star Wars he somehow makes the first half boring, and finally gives you some good writing near the end... but always leaves you with so many questions, thus you aren't satisfied after reading his books.

Furthermore, he didn't include Jagged Fel in Dark Nest II, barely included him (although mischaracterised him) in Dark Nest I, and acording to III's personel list, he doesn't include Jag in III either.

Who doesn't want Jag to marry Jaina? Denning is pissing off alot of fans by not furthering their relationship. I expected them to be married, or at least close to it, in in the Dark Nest Trilogy, but I was really mistaken.

Hopefully Allston (who is one of the best Star Wars authors) can salvage what is left of Jaina and Jag's relationship in the Legacy series...

 

Threatening an author's life, no matter what the context, is NOT cool.

EDIT: Make that anyone's life.

 

I never threatended his life... I simply expressed that I had the urge to do bodily harm to him... not that I was going to....

But to appease you, and to prevent further conflict, I will edit it.

 

C'mon, Bit Harsh.

These have been some of the best Star Wars books for a long time. The issues they raise are a lot greater than they are in other books. It is also going to be the remedy for the Heresy the Jedi came up with in the NJO.

Characters can change over time (Plus they've had to adapt to the new view of the force). We haven't seen any of the characters for 5 years (in universe). We've barely seen any of Kenth to make a sound judgement on his character. Personally I think Ben, Jacen, Zekk, Kyp, Corran, Saba etc. have been characterised well. I've enjoyed reading them, as well as the new characters Jae Junn and Tarfang - brilliant.

About Jag and Jaina. Just because the fans want it doesn't mean it should happen. Jaina has a lot to get around right now and just having Jag suddenly turn up and them getting together would be a bit hard to swallow.

I have enjoyed these books immensly and have made me go and read Dennings other works Star by Star and Tatooine Ghost, which I also thought were great books. I can't wait for TSW.

 

Plus at the end of tUF, they were starting on a break from each other to discover how they feel about each other. I don't know why you expected them to be almost married, despite the time they spent together. However just because they were going out for a while doesntt mean they were going to stay together. Just like Jaina spent a lot of time with Zekk in the YJK series. Perhaps she has rediscovered the feelings she had for him.

I think that the characters do seem different somehow. Just like they felt different from the Bantam era to the Del Rey (Enjayo) era. I don't think that he is misrepresenting Saba in any way, just making her more mature. She has been promoted to master b/w tUF and tJK.

 

When it comes to Star Wars, I will always defer to George Lucas and his vision for the Universe.
In truth the only author I trust with Star Wars is Timothy Zahn, even though he is the original minimalist.
The Thrawn Trilogy was the first EU series I completely read, and it felt like Star Wars.

The X-Wing books felt like the game and I always found myself wondering why the Rebellion needed Admirals, Fleets, and Jedi at all if they actually had more than a few X-Wing Squadrons.

I often try to pretend The New Rebellion was not real, and have only read Children of the Jedi Darksaber (ugggh), Planet of Twilight, and Crystal Star once to understand the story, and then never again.

The Jedi Academy Series was a nice idea, but failed in delivering a powerful antagonist; Daalla was simply not Thrawn, and the series went a little Super-Power crazy.

The Black Fleet Crisis was a great set of books, finally showing some proper scale and realistic situations in the Universe, and detailing a non-Imperial conflict. (FINALLY?.)

The Corellian Trilogy was about the kids?I did not find them that entertaining.

Finally Zahn returned, I was happy, the age of Empire/Republic weekly wars was over and authors would be forced to make new characters and storylines?

Vong Invasion; a lot of books, perhaps only 3 or 4 truly worthwhile?

Now we have the Dark Nest.

Troy Denning is a good author; I cannot fault the writing style in those Star Wars books.
I simply do not like where this is taking the characters and the universe.

Zahn?s 6 Books, the Black Fleet Crisis, Star by Star, and Unifying Force were the only EU books I would liken back to the movies.

The rest always felt a little too like your average trekker-timeline-be-damned filler stories.

Denning is a good author, I just don?t happen to like the Dark Nest very much.

 

Who doesn't want Jag to marry Jaina? Denning is pissing off alot of fans by not furthering their relationship. I expected them to be married, or at least close to it, in in the Dark Nest Trilogy, but I was really mistaken.

Hopefully Allston (who is one of the best Star Wars authors) can salvage what is left of Jaina and Jag's relationship in the Legacy series...



You are entitled to your opinion, you just don't express it very well. Troy Denning did not write these book to please you, believe it or not. And there are a LOT of people who don't give a flying fig who Jaina ends up with. For God's sake, being in a relationship doesn't make or break a character. They need to keep the character away from anyone and let her become a character in her own right. Not catering to the tiger-beat aspect of the NJO was a good thing. We needed a little break from that. It doesn't mean they won't get back together. Let Jaina come into her own.

 

I agree that Dark Nest Trilogy is, thus far, abysmal (except for the characterization of Leia, Han, Saba, and Kenth Hamner, which I will split from you on, and Alema finally getting kicked out of the Order) but Star by Star was wonderful, tragic, and appropriately graphic (the best book I might never manage to get through again, because it's just so emotionally painful to read) and Mr. Denning, regardless of my personal opinions on his seeming compulsion to throw all the YJK pairings back together, has a right to his own views of the Star Wars universe. Just as long as he doesn't start calling Super Star Destroyers "Star Dreadnoughts"

 

As much as I hate what was done with J/J relationship in DN so far I think that Troy writes SW really good and it would be bad if he didn't write anything SW in the future.

 

We are all now less intelligent for readin that. You should mail us all 20$ for wasted time. And you should neture yourself.

 

Star by Star failed to live up to the hype. Denning's a decent author, no more. His writing style is prosaic and dull-- there's nothing bad about it, but nothing at all exceptional. It's not irritatingly pedantic like Luceno or full of repetitious lines and bad dialog like Stackpole's, nor is it rich with characterization like Keyes or realistic and mature like Stover. It's just there. The plot wasn't anything to write home about either.

The huge complaint I have about Denning is his wierd muckery with SW tech; I hear that his latest offering has crap like carrying hyperdrive fuel in buckets and excessive mention of 'nacelles' or something similar, which is horribly inconsistent; on the other hand, in SbS he was one of the few authors to treat thermal detonators correctly. His handling of Thrawn in TG and the random death of Threkin Horm-- with no repurcussions-- was also awkwardly done. His tendancy to pimp his own creations-- squibs and YVH, for instance-- is mildly annoying, but other authors do the same thing. He also references other material excessively, leading to the usual irritating small-universe syndrome.

On the other hand, he did write thermal detonators correctly, like I said above, and I enjoyed his treatment of SW news media in TG.

On the whole he's a decent author, but nothing special.

 

I think Dennings great with characters. The actions a little meh, but that's okay with me. As long as he doesn't screw up the characters. He's great at the movie characters, and gets iffy with a few of the EU people.

Either way Jag and Jaina... I never liked it anyways. I'm happier.

 

That's my impression, too. He is great with characters. I liked how he described Jacen's thoughts about the justification of his actions and of course the dialogue with Tenel Ka. Very well-written.

 

How old are you, Galore?

 

The Man wrote Star by Star! He's the greatest, he has excellent charterizations, he created Tesar Sebatyne and his mom, he introduced the Voxyn. He KILLED LUSA How anyone can dislike him is beyond me.

 

On Jaina and Jag - If you give your readers what they expect every time, your stories get boring quickly. Let's face it, there is something to be said for the anticipation of what will be revealed, in this case what will be next for Jaina and Jag.

About the only criminal thing an author can do is change the past, which he has not done. They were separated for a while, some things surely happened between TUF and now. Just ride it out. All will come in time.

Brian

 

Seems like your really upset at the fact that Jag and Jaina are not together which is the basis of this rant about Denning. That's real sad i dont care either way as far as shipping goes but to have it be the fuel of rage is ridiculas.

 

Yay, let's all personally bash authors because things happen in their books that we disagree with! That worked out great with Salvatore and Karen Traviss! Let's do it again with Denning because Jag doesn't reunite with Jaina immediately!
Seriously, do you realize what you're saying? You say Denning's characterization is horrible? The man for whom characterization is almost always listed as a strong point, even those who don't care for him? You say he mischaracterized his own creation Saba? Basically, you're accusing him of the worst incompetence imaginable if you say he doesn't even know his own characters. Don't you mean "I had an image of Saba and it didn't work out the same as her creator's vision for her and now I'm angry!" Not "OMG, Troy Denning is so teh suxxx0rs cuz i know all about teh Saba and he doeznt!!!!1111!!1!!11"
Dark Nest is to me creative, exciting, and very well-written, as was SBS. (Tatooine Ghost I thought merely good) I just don't get where you're coming from at all, and your juvenile way of expressing your dislike isn't helping.

 

Hear Hear! Well spoken, I second that! Couldn't be truer! Star by Star rocked! Havac, I'm putting you on my watched users list!

Get a grip people! I'm glad Troy isn't a member of this Forum like poor Karen Traviss was, she was flamed off hotter then a burnt burger just because people didn't like what she wrote!

Sometimes I think Anakin was right in AOTC, the system doesn't work.

Onward the revolution!

 

That's exactly why Havac has already been on my watched users list.

Honestly: do you really think that flaming an author because you disagree with the choices they make for the characters, the decision in HOW to characterize them is right? Do you honestly think that it makes you look even remotely intelligent to slam them for "characterization" just because they characterize so effectively that it makes you angry because it's not the direction YOU anticipated? Precisely how do you think that makes your point, to comment that they should never write a book again, simply because they have the - gasp - AUDACITY to surprise YOU and to take the books a different direction than YOU, one of MILLIONS of readers, ANTICIPATED?

Moreover, the fact that you cannot even properly form a single coherent argument rather than simply ranting does not speak particularly well of your ability to appreciate good writing.

Get this through your head. What YOU want characters to do, what YOU think should be the story does not matter. AT ALL. If it did, you'd be the one making the money writing these books. Is your name on the label of ANY published work? No? Do you have any experience in good characterization? No? Then be quiet.

It's one thing to criticize something you don't care for, or to say that you wish something went a different way storyline-wise. But to bash the author as incompetent because of your wishes is not only ill-considered, it makes you look positively like an idiot. It also proves quite conclusively that you have no understanding of what makes books good or bad. Stop wasting our time.

- Keralys

 

Whooohooo! Thanks!

 

Would you guys lay off of him. I personally disagree with the guy, because I love the DN so far, and liked Tatooine Ghost (though not Star by Star). Troy does great characterizations and much more as you have all pointed out. I wish Jaina would be with Jag or Kyp, yet I will accept Zekk or anyone else because overall I think that Denning is a good author. Again, I like Denning, but everyone is entitled to their opinion, and jumping down other people's throats will certainly not help anything. Rudeness and meanness should never be praised. Just because one person is rude and spiteful does not mean that others ought to be in return. God bless everyone. -JacenSolo48

 

I'll be happy to not be rude - I hope I didn't come across that way. But while he's entitled to his opinion, he's also entitled to have it argued with, particularly when he doesn't even make a particularly cohesive argument, just an unending stream of rants. There's a big difference between expressing an opinion indicating that you don't care for an author's style, and saying that someone is a terrible author because you happen to dislike a few plotting choices.

- Keralys

 

Whilst I'm not exactly a fan of either NJO or DN, it has to be said the basis you are choosing to slag Denning on seems a strange choice.

After my carpet-bombing of TJK, several posters pointed out the characterisation displayed, which is true to greater degree in TUQ, which I had to admit. It was simply for me the excellent aspects, such as characterisation was outweighed by others such as the plot and the world being shown.

In comparison to his prior work, DN is mostly equal to SBS: At times wonderfully good, often very flawed, but readable all the same, TJK being the real exception, sorry Troy but I found it a stinker, TUQ however was far better, if TSW is a similar step-up it'll be a killer and as TUF forced a re-appraisal of NJO, so may TSW do for DN. His best book remains TG, which was excellent and showed exactly how good he can be, which is probably why I've been so harsh on DN ie. the sort of reaction being: 'He wrote that (TG) and now he's writing this?! (DN) Is this the same guy?!'

As to the characters detailed:

Horn: Given he is somewhat conservative in outlook, it isn't a departure, Horn used to be a cop, which means he used to enforce laws which means being for the status quo. It is no longer the time of the Rebellion.

Kenth Hamner: Doesn't have enough character to screw up yet.

Gavin: Again, strictly a military guy Gavin, he will follow the chain of command despite not always agreeing with it.

Jag: Given NJO decided to go with a cardboard character who either got steam-rollered or flattened by Jaina, who realising he might be her match in NJO after failing to drive him away, decided to kill the relationship, well, no loss. Had NJO allowed Jag to have a personality and actually challenge Jaina then it could have been of interest, as it is....

JB