I so totally agree. He also had people scrabbling over embankments, scrabbling up ladders, scrabbling through trenches, scrabbling down tunnels. The guy really needs a thesaurus.
Again, Thrawn gets another vote. I thought Hambly’s Children of the Jedi was okay, too, save for the inexplicable and illogical fate she has in store for the Callista character. Other than that, avoid the genre like the plague, the Han Solo trilogy nearly gave me the heaves, and I was almost moved to violence py the excreable Jedi Academy gunge.
Cast a vote for the New Jedi Order series. Some books are better than others, but the compelling issue is that everything is up in the air. The “major” characters are getting beaten. Some even get killed – and stay that way. If a character enters into an impossible situation, there is now the chance that they might not walk away.
I wanna toss in another: the Jango Fett: Open Seasons mini series; I just got the last issue today, although I believe it’s being released in paperback in December. It nicely chronicles Jango’s life, from his youth through his career as a Mandalorian, up to his brokering a deal with Dooku 10 years before Clones. The great thing is that it nicely cleans up the legends about Boba Fett’s past, including his original identity as “Jaster Mareel” and the conflict between the Jedi and the Mandalorians.
SolGrundy, um no. The X-Wing series is THE best, and some of them are quite good.
Doesn’t anyone remember Lt. Kettch? Face and Phanan and Piggy?
Sheesh!
I liked the Han Solo Trilogy-the newer one, but I HATED Bria. What a Mara Sue.
The ongoing Lt. Kettch joke had me practically in tears I was laughing so much.
Zahn’s books are excellent and fit well in the SW Universe. Anderson just seemed to be stretching things too much. But the X-Wing books top all.
The only one that captures the spirit of the original three movies is Brian Daley’s Han Solo stories. The rest take themselves far too seriously and ruin it… just like George Lucas did with the last two movies.
-fh
“Um no” what? I was being tactful by stopping at “not good.” I realize that when you’re dealing with market-driven, licensed fiction, you have to lower your expectations a little bit, but most of these book stretch the borders of tolerance even for me, and I read comic books. The X-Wing books come the closest to being good books just because they’re harmless.
Besides, Tomcat started his OP by describing how he’s a Star Wars fan. Nothing erodes fandom more than seeing how little respect Lucasfilm licensing (and George himself) has for the characters to let them get put in such absurd situations.
Well, I may be the only person on the planet who enjoyed the Corellian Trilogy and The Black Fleet Crisis (except for the Luke subplot). And the X-wing series. And I, Jedi. And a good chunk of NJO is pretty good (like was mentioned above… some good, some bad).
Ones to avoid:
-Most of the singles: Truce at Bakura, The Crystal Star, The New Rebellion, Children of the Jedi… Courtship of Princess Leia, I think, is decent, however.
-The Jedi Academy Trilogy. Ugh.
-The Dark Empire series. Everything was GREEN.
Agree with SPOOFE there, the Black Fleet Crisis was ok anywhere Luke wasn’t. Any part of those books with Luke in them was so utterly crap and out of character, and I got a bit tired of the alternative force users being so condescending and powerful, while at the same time being conventiently unknown and hidden. Blargh.
Michael Kube (PRONOUNCED CUEE BEE AND DON’T YOU FORGET IT) McDowell really can’t write Luke at all, and likes making his other characters into gods to fit the plot.
Kube. No, cube. Cube. CUBE!
Most of the Star Wars books are generally 2nd rate, if they weren’t banking on the name, I’d doubt they’d sell more than 2 copies.
OK, I’ll try to get my hands on the following:
Zahn’s Heir to the Empire trilogy and Thrawn trilogy (duology? I got confused)
Brain Daley’s Han Solo trilogy
I’ll try the X-wing series, but I’ll be cautious as it was recommended by people who liked I, Jedi. {shudder} (I’m sorry, but that was the worst book I’d read since Battleship Earth)
Hey, anyone want to send me their used books? English books are hard to get here. I can Paypal for shipping.
MODERATOR ALERT, delete if necessary: I don’t know if the following is legal or not: Used books are legal, but what about used ebooks? Anyone have any ebook files of these that I can buy off of them?
-Tcat
Yeah, but if you’d pay attention to what I said, I, Jedi was written to take place during the Jedi Academy Trilogy. Stackpole couldn’t do ANYTHING about how stupid Gantoris/Kyp were-that was Anderson’s fault.
However, if you’d finished the book, you’d see it was pretty cool.
Corran RULES!