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Thrawn is certainly not a Mary Sue in the Thrawn Trilogy, where he gets beaten at one point by Lando's mining robots. He has flaws and is just generally a very dangerous opponent. The idea of Thrawn being a Mary Sue came from subsequent authors vastly inflating his talents and turning him into king murder god of the galaxy.
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Oct 24, 2015 21:11
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ImpAtom posted:This i don't really agree on. I think Pellaeon and Thrawn are trying to be but they miss some critical things. Watson was kind of a badass, not just the guy there for Holmes to explain to, and Holmes was kind of more of a tire fire of an individual than Thrawn ever was. Honestly, it would be really cool if they HAD that relationship. It would help tone Thrawn down a lot if he had more significant flaws I think. He obviously doesn't need to be to Holmes level but still. Fair enough. It's been too long since I read the series. 
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Oct 24, 2015 21:29
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PlisskensEyePatch posted:Wraith Squadron feels like post-9/11 "soldiers are awesome!" poo poo done in the Star Wars universe and just not interesting. Wraith Squadron was published in 1998.
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Oct 25, 2015 01:00
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And if you really want to read "Soliders are awesome, gently caress everybody else, they don't understand what its like to be a soldier!!" go read the Republic Commando books.
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Oct 25, 2015 01:27
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PlisskensEyePatch posted:I really don't get the love of the Thrawn trilogy and Wraith Squadron. I'm trying to read through both, Thrawn for the first time since I was twelve and Wraith the first time ever, and they are just not interesting. Wraith Squadron is a Star Wars/M*A*S*H/A-Team mixture, if anything.
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Oct 25, 2015 01:31
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I think Thrawn is an effective character only because he's seen
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Oct 25, 2015 04:38
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PlisskensEyePatch posted:Wasn't Zahn known for some super hard sifi before Heir? ImpAtom posted:Pellaeon is a more developed character than Thrawn in the books, yes. jivjov posted:And if you really want to read "Soliders are awesome, gently caress everybody else, they don't understand what its like to be a soldier!!" go read the Republic Commando books. A lot of authors would have depicted Bel Iblis' as some sort of military superman who doesn't take poo poo from liberals, but his portrayal was incredibly nuanced. He's a highly effective military leader but gets all bent out of shape because of some petty poo poo with Mon Mothma, takes his toys and goes home. Then spends years fighting his own private war with the Empire because he's paranoid and thinks Mon Mothma would set herself up as a dictator any time. Hand of Thrawn is largely about how democracy is messy, and getting along with each other can be really hard sometimes. Zahn's Cobra series is pretty good evidence that he's not some right wing nutjob. It's kind of like if Starship Troopers wasn't preachy and had a better plot and characters. A big part of these books is that they went and developed these super soldiers but they're still regular people despite their abilities, and there are societal consequences to having developed them. Anyway Cobra is pretty great and everyone should read it.
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Oct 25, 2015 04:51
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Casimir Radon posted:Not really, his stuff is really more of a grounded space opera. Completely off the wall poo poo doesn't really happen, and there's internal consistency, but he's not about to agonize about the science behind something to the point that it wrecks the plot. What I read of the Quadrail series was a bit out there though. Quadrail is cool cause it starts off as normal semi-hard scifi and then goes off the wall crazy halfway through the first book. And yeah Cobra is really great, at least the first one (the sequels aren't bad but they're really just generic sci-fi action adventure.) It's really neat to see a story where the war ends a thrid of the way through and then the rest of the book is about trying to get supersoldiers to integrate back into civilian life. Also Hand of Thrawn always had a kinda post-Cold War, mid-nineties Yugoslav Wars vibe to it, where the big evil enemy is gone and everything looks like it'll be fine and dandy, but then reality reasserts itself and all sorts of little petty grudges come out and it turns out that keeping the peace is hard. (And the presence of hardliner of the old evil empire stirring up trouble is kinda funny given current events in Ukraine  )
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Oct 25, 2015 05:30
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StashAugustine posted:Quadrail is cool cause it starts off as normal semi-hard scifi and then goes off the wall crazy halfway through the first book. And yeah Cobra is really great, at least the first one (the sequels aren't bad but they're really just generic sci-fi action adventure.) It's really neat to see a story where the war ends a thrid of the way through and then the rest of the book is about trying to get supersoldiers to integrate back into civilian life. Hand of Thrawn might actually be the better series. The conspirators hiding behind a "returned" Thrawn and their internal dynamics make them pretty interesting enemies.
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Oct 25, 2015 05:37
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Yeah I'd honestly agree with that, with the caveat that they really shoulda done it as three books since the last one is super long. And the later Cobra books were still decent, just not quite the same since they weren't as much about the social issues of supersoldiers. I should really read the new trilogy, I read the first one but it was like two years since I read the previous one in the series and totally forgot all the characters and politics.
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Oct 25, 2015 06:15
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Does anyone have the Crix Madine 'sick of these Star Wars' image? I seem to have lost it.
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Oct 25, 2015 06:42
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Casimir Radon posted:. Zahn is, as far as I'm aware, an evangelical Christian and generally centre-right on politics, but I'm not sure it's really a factor in his Star Wars novels. But, not having been aware of such things when I read them, I don't know whether that's an accurate assessment of not. StashAugustine posted:Also Hand of Thrawn always had a kinda post-Cold War, mid-nineties Yugoslav Wars vibe to it, where the big evil enemy is gone and everything looks like it'll be fine and dandy, but then reality reasserts itself and all sorts of little petty grudges come out and it turns out that keeping the peace is hard. (And the presence of hardliner of the old evil empire stirring up trouble is kinda funny given current events in Ukraine I had not thought about the End of History influence in Hand of Thrawn but it is interesting. Obviously, AOTC and ROTS and a lot of the Clone Wars novels from that period are very much post-9/11 (I believe there's one where some Jedi discuss how Palpatine has declared three of the main Separatist planets as an "Axis of Evil"). NJO began before 9/11 but I have to assume that the Republic becoming increasingly authoritarian in the face of a war against an entire species of religious fanatics - while hardly unique to the post-9/11 world - didn't come out of nowhere. I wonder how the prequels and EU from the period would have been different if there had been no War on Terror?
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Oct 25, 2015 11:25
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Black fleet crisis is the most boring series of books in Star Wars. At least other lovely series had entertaining schlock, like the moffrence, or the entire darksaber plot. I can't even remember anything happening in the black fleet crisis, except that no ones plots intertwined or had any relevance to anything.
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Oct 25, 2015 14:46
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Wheat Loaf posted:Zahn is, as far as I'm aware, an evangelical Christian and generally centre-right on politics, but I'm not sure it's really a factor in his Star Wars novels. But, not having been aware of such things when I read them, I don't know whether that's an accurate assessment of not. Yeah he always struck me as kinda centre-right but sensible enough to keep it nuanced, not beat you over the head with it, and tell an exciting story first.
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Oct 25, 2015 14:58
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VaultAggie posted:Black fleet crisis is the most boring series of books in Star Wars. At least other lovely series had entertaining schlock, like the moffrence, or the entire darksaber plot. I can't even remember anything happening in the black fleet crisis, except that no ones plots intertwined or had any relevance to anything. The most out-there thing about that series was how it seemed like it was trying to fill in an important part of Luke's backstory (who his mother was) then in the last book the character who claimed to know who his mother was said she was lying, so it was all a shaggy dog story. I wonder if that was the plan, or if they really did want to say who his mother was and Lucas only caught wind of it and vetoed the idea relatively late in the game. Curious to think of how things would have gone if Lucas had been even more hands-off with the EU and they'd established this whole alternate backstory which was irreconcilable with the prequels; Wookieepedia would be a very different website, for one thing. 
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Oct 25, 2015 17:09
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The only reference I find to Zahn's religion suggests that he might be Presbyterian, which would make him a Mainline Protestant.
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Oct 25, 2015 20:07
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VaultAggie posted:Black fleet crisis is the most boring series of books in Star Wars. At least other lovely series had entertaining schlock, like the moffrence, or the entire darksaber plot. I can't even remember anything happening in the black fleet crisis, except that no ones plots intertwined or had any relevance to anything. I remember that my copy had a printing error where the same 50-page leaf was used twice in succession. It took me several pages to notice, and i didn't care enough about what was going on to replace it.
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Oct 25, 2015 21:54
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I'll defend the Black Fleet Trilogy, at least for the most part. I think there's a difference between how it shows the military and the more mil-SF aspects of the X-wing and Republic Commando books, in that while the military is definitely in a good light, there's not a general condemnation of the democratic aspect of politics, and Leia is shown to be an actual good politician who does politicking well in order to work through it. But more than that, I think the BFT is maybe the only series in the Bantam era, and one of the few of the entire Star Wars book like, where it actually feels like the characters are developing and growing beyond the holding pattern that ROTJ left them in. Han and Leia are a believable married couple, and Han and Chewie don't keep flying around on the Falcon pretending to be smugglers (I don't even think the Falcon is in the series at all). It actually remembers that Chewie has a family of his own, and beyond that actually gives Chewie a plot of his own. It gives Lando something beyond being a ladies' man smugglers, and not only has Lobot come with him, also pairs the droids up with him rather than keep the typical Luke/Artoo and Threepio/Han & Leia pairing. (And Lando's plot is like a Star Wars version of Rendezvous with Rama.) And it tries to do something with Luke's Jedi philosophy beyond just making the Jedi ninja fighter pilots, but actually has him contemplate what the ramifications of having God-like powers could be (and funnily enough if some of the rumors are true, Luke in Episode VII could be closest to the Luke of BFT). Plus, Nil Spaar and the Yevetha were pretty unique villains, especially for the time in the EU. I don't think it's a perfect book series - for one thing I do think it tries to do too much, the Lando and Luke storylines could each have been their own books and the Leia/Han/Chewie storyline could have been its own trilogy. Plus the whole thing with the search for Luke's mom didn't even make sense at the time because we knew when the books came out that in a few years we'd be getting movies with the real Luke's mom, but having him not know who she was in the EU at that time caused a whole lot of problems later on with when he could find out about Padme. That was a terrible decision. But overall I like the trilogy in general, and I do think it deserves credit for trying to be something more than the typical Star Wars spinoff novel.
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Oct 26, 2015 04:05
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Black Fleet Crisis is probably the worst offender when it comes to multiple plots that don't work well together. Many of the other EU books set up a few plotlines, drag them along, and lazily conclude them at the end of the trilogy or whatever. Black Fleet Crisis has three main plots that aren't really connected to each other at all, plus the Chewbacca plot which ties into the Han/Leia plot. The Luke and Lando plots probably should have been dropped because they're both ultimately pointless. Luke spends the trilogy looking for his mother's people, which we all know licensing isn't going to really allow to happen, no payout. Lando spends the trilogy locked on a mysterious spacecraft, which is cool until it becomes obvious that the mystery is going to fall flat on its face. The Han/Leia/actual plot is a mess because the author seems to have bolted it onto some non-Star Wars idea he'd previously conceived of. The characterizations are pretty terrible, off the top of my head Ackbar is probably the worst. I can remember a bit where this alien whose species got wiped out Yevetha is trying to join the New Republic military to avenge his people and gets denied. Ackbar than plays author self-insert for a chapter while he jabbers at all these poor underlings who are being obtuse because the plot demands it. The Chebacca plot is a mess because almost none of the authors write Chewie very well, especially in this case. In Hand of Thrawn Zahn sends Chewie and the Solo kids off to Kashyyyk for the duration, probably sensing that no good could come of their inclusion. It's a fair assessment as attempts to continue jamming in Solo kids get kidnapped, and Chewie story lines had gotten really old by that point.
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Oct 26, 2015 04:57
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Chairman Capone posted:I'll defend the Black Fleet Trilogy, at least for the most part. I think there's a difference between how it shows the military and the more mil-SF aspects of the X-wing and Republic Commando books, in that while the military is definitely in a good light, there's not a general condemnation of the democratic aspect of politics, and Leia is shown to be an actual good politician who does politicking well in order to work through it. Really? I always thought BFC was the worst of its era in trotting out the mil-SF cliches; Leia's utterly ineffectual and idiotically trusting for the first two books of the trilogy. It's your bog standard 'military warns of threat, idiot civilian leaders ignore it until it's too late' plot, where Leia and the republic government are unwilling to take any action until Akbar and Mary Sue Fleet Admiral of the Week force their hands. Meanwhile, the villains are your bog-standard murderous fanatics with no redeeming features, so any attempts at negotiations or diplomacy are worthless from the beginning, with the author trying desperately to convince us that these guys are actually worse than the Empire so we don't feel any sympathy for their suffering after decades of slavery or wonder if, hey, maybe they have a reason not to want human colonies so close to their homeworlds after their past experiences...
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Oct 26, 2015 06:57
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OK is there a single remotely respectable title in all of Star Wars fiction that would be a good Book of the Month selection given the new movies coming out or are they ALL crap I'm not demanding literature here just not absolute poo poo -- quality pulp or "How Much For Just the Planet" style parody is fine, just something that will engage an intelligent, non-juvenile reader on some level, or is this entire sub-genre just utter trash and that's the glory of it
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Oct 28, 2015 00:33
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Shatterpoint by Matthew Stover is good. The Revenge of the Sith novelization (coincidentally also by Matthew Stover) is also really good. Heir to the Empire (and the other two books in that trilogy, or the trilogy as a whole) by Timothy Zahn would make an interesting retro-active "What might have been" entry, and are not half bad besides.
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Oct 28, 2015 00:43
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The first book in the Medstar duology is FANTASTIC. The second is passable
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Oct 28, 2015 00:46
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Ok I'm gonna need a consensus pick, y'all are getting one entry in the poll, make it a good one and sell it to me in a sentence ("this book had cool lightsaber action AND actually made me think about ____."
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Oct 28, 2015 00:53
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Revenge of the Sith by Matthew Stover, because it's a poo poo ton better than the movie.
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Oct 28, 2015 01:05
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Strobe posted:Revenge of the Sith by Matthew Stover, because it's a poo poo ton better than the movie. Just finished rereading this and the style of writing is so much better then the movie.
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Oct 28, 2015 01:25
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ROTS might be a good pick. It's actually kind of difficult to get an intersection of "good," "definitive", and "approachable." Thrawn trilogy is a big part of the EU but as we discussed a while back it's not the best (although it's still pretty decent), but Hand of Thrawn (the end of the Rebellion vs the Empire) kinda requires knowledge of the EU despite being better.
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Oct 28, 2015 01:30
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My vote goes for Kenobi. A good book about a character that everyone knows about and manages to explore what he did in between being a Jedi master and a crazy old man.
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Oct 28, 2015 02:26
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Ok I'm gonna need a consensus pick, y'all are getting one entry in the poll, make it a good one and sell it to me in a sentence ("this book had cool lightsaber action AND actually made me think about ____." I vote for Traitor. Traitor is Star Wars deconstructed, definitely the most literary choice. The RotS novel is a master class on how to take all the plot points of a George Lucas script and reshape the action and dialogue so it works. The first Zahn books are deece SF that are a good "what might have been" look back and are accessible reads since they came first.
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Oct 28, 2015 02:28
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I'd say Heir to the Empire, simply because it's the first post-Return of the Jedi book, so it might be the most interesting to compare to how JJ Abrams approached setting up the post-Return of the Jedi era.
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Oct 28, 2015 02:33
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Chairman Capone posted:I'd say Heir to the Empire, simply because it's the first post-Return of the Jedi book, so it might be the most interesting to compare to how JJ Abrams approached setting up the post-Return of the Jedi era. Pssst.
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Oct 28, 2015 02:36
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yronic heroism posted:I vote for Traitor. Traitor is Star Wars deconstructed, definitely the most literary choice. Traitor is in the middle of the whole Vong shitpile though. ROTS or Thrawn novels are my votes.
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Oct 28, 2015 02:38
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The Coruscant Nights books are pretty good noir-ish Star Wars that don't require as much background knowledge as other Star Wars books, if you read only one book read the first Coruscant Nights book, Jedi Twilight.
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Oct 28, 2015 02:39
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?? That's not set after ROTJ. If anything I recall Lando having the Falcon in those books which would pretty clearly make it before A New Hope.
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Oct 28, 2015 02:46
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Oh, you meant set after Return of the Jedi. In that case, here. The point is that Heir to the Jedi is neither the first published nor the first set after Return of the Jedi.
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Oct 28, 2015 02:48
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Divisive series aside, the first Republic Commando book, Hard Contact is a really good military SF read. It's also probably the best book in the series because it focuses entirely on the mission and minimal mandalorian wanking.
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Oct 28, 2015 03:21
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Strobe posted:Oh, you meant set after Return of the Jedi. In that case, here. Truce at Bakura came out two years after Heir to the Empire... not really sure exactly what you're going for here. Like, Heir to the Empire is pretty well known for being the first Star Wars book set after ROTJ.
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Oct 28, 2015 03:25
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yronic heroism posted:... On second thought, I'm changing my vote. I've lent this book out over a dozen times to various friends and family members, and the average opinion's that it turns a decent movie into a gripping story. This is probably the best book to recommend people with a passing interest in the movies and no desire to read a hundred-something other books in the setting.
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Oct 28, 2015 03:36
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Kenobi is really really good. You don't need to know poo poo about the EU to get it.
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Oct 28, 2015 03:41
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Chairman Capone posted:Truce at Bakura came out two years after Heir to the Empire... not really sure exactly what you're going for here.
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Oct 28, 2015 04:01
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