Disney buying Lucasfilm

[Cyrrex]

The only one I can find for her is Crystal Star, which I'm not sure I've read.  I'd have to be reminded of what the fuck it was about again.

That is indeed the only one.  Considered by experts (well, me) to be the worst of the EU books by a great margin.  It's like the Maw Installation of Star Wars books....it sucks so hard that all memory of it just disappears.  I have to this day no idea what it was about.  Rumor on the street is that only Splinter of a Mind's Eye (or whatever) is slightly worse, and that is enough for me to never read that book.  I mean, as bad as Hambly's stuff was, at least I remember that shit to some extent.

Of course, opinions will vary.  I don't hate (nor love) KJA's stuff, for example.  I'm not even sure what about it makes people more ragey than other EU books.

[Khaldun]

I thought Splinter was kind of amusing, back when we had no idea what a sequel to Star Wars might actually look like. Basically it goes off in a direction where Luke and Leia aren't related and he's still chasing her romantically, and Darth Vader is just an evil badass.

[Merusk]

The Crystal Star was indeed terrible. I'd have mentioned Vonda but it was such a worthless one-off that they never approached her for SW novels again.   

She actually was a ST novelist and the one that came-up with Sulu's first name.  I don't think it's coincidental that Star Trek novelists wrote some of the worst Star Wars books.  They share a genre, not much more.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vonda_McIntyre

Wikipedia and Wookiepedia have the same threadbare plot summary. Telling you that this book sucked SO HARD that nobody can even be bothered to explain why.   

(Spoiler tags for Length, not because anyone cares about spoilers on this.)


Of course, Amazon has a much better synopsis that explains the problems - in the reviews.

[Yegolev]

We're deep in bubble-wizard territory now.  I'm going to have to bail.

[Lakov_Sanite]

This thread is starting to scare me.

[Fabricated]

The only EU book I ever read was Truce at Bakura and that was because I got it for free in a pile of random books from my local library in high school.

It was pretty terrible but my memory is vague. I remember there being a weapon called a "paddle beamer" or some shit that I couldn't wrap my head around and the badguys were ridiculous shit that wouldn't make it over the bar for a SWTOR update.

[HaemishM]

There are entirely too many nerds in this thread.

[Cyrrex]

There are entirely too many nerds in this thread.

Well, it is a Star Wars thread, no matter how you turn it.  Nerd happens.

[Zaljerem]

There are entirely too many nerds in this thread forum.

FTFY?

[Merusk]

I wear a Stormtrooper jolly-roger shirt to the Gym.  I'm ok with that.

[Yegolev]

What is FTFY?  Fuck That For You?

[Venkman]

lol. Fixed it For You. But your definition works too.

Crystal Star was one of the few books I ever stopped reading midway through. I'm usually pretty tolerant, which is why that stands out in my memory. The other one was the first book in L Ron Hubbard's whatever-decology thing. And that was before I knew anything about scientology.

I don't remember individual books too well, but kinda recall eras. I thought the Zahn trilogy with Thrawn was interesting, but has the same problem as the Simarillion in general: oh you know that period of history everyone in the world knows about? Welp, that was just a footnote to the next struggle/other part of the world/whatever the IP holders decided to subsequently license out to separate creators.

Shadow of the Empire served as a good setup to RotJ. The Yuuzhan Vong (and how it weaved with Zenoma Sekot) were an interesting concept, but by then the EU fascination with galactic politics (as a setup for the why-the-hell-do-we-care prequel political crap) was really driving things off the rails.

You read something like that?  Dude.

Seriously, what? I'm gonna guess there's a chunk of us in our teens and early 20s were reading this kind of stuff quite regularly. As if SW EU was any better or worse narrative than the D&D campaigns  or Piers Anthony

...Maw Complex was killed by the AOTC and the end scene of ROTS.  The exposition on the Clone Wars has killed ALL of the Thrawn story, since - y'know - the Clone Wars refers to the use of them, not a war against replicants with a penchant for extra vowels in their names and there's no implication of "Force Madness" that require anti-force worms to create good clones.

AOTC establishing who designed the Death Star didn't seem to imply where it occured. Or maybe it did? The force madness thing makes sense, though afaik there's been no appearance of Spaarti cylinders (unless those too were retconned by a new source?).

But to your point, iirc the only sacrosanct EU material according to Lucasfilm are Mara Jade (though her origin and involvement is open season) and Chewbacca's death (though how and why I'm sure isn't).

[eldaec]

The extended universe.... as bad as Scientology.


Maybe.

[Kail]

AOTC establishing who designed the Death Star didn't seem to imply where it occured. Or maybe it did?

It's been decades since I read it, but I think the story where it was mentioned also had them talking to the scientists who invented it at the Maw.  They were a bunch of pacifists who invented it to destroy "abandoned planets" or some bullshit.

[Cyrrex]

Without going into it, there is extensive information in the EU about the origins of the Death Star and also the people who created it.  I think it is the selfsame Kevin J Anderson who came up with most or all of it.  Needless to say, Lucas pretty much wiped it out in AotC and RotS.

(also, actual scientists were not pacifists exactly...rather, they were secluded and naive about what they were creating.  Which is a bit pants-on-head, obviously)

[Simond]

The Diane Duane ST novels were pretty good (for licensed fiction) and Cryptic lifted huge chunks of her Rihannsu/Romulan stuff for STO.

No, no, this is all still on-topic. See, according to this ST novel, they run into "a scruffy-looking spice smuggler" amongst others. (Said others including original-Apollo and original-Starbuck, the Fourth Doctor, the Second Doctor, and a whole bunch of TV & film cowboys). So therefore Star Trek and Star Wars share a continuity! 

Maverick was in there too. it was totally unabashed multi crosss-over fanfic. And the writer got paid for it. The main crossover was with some western TV show (aimed at families or women, not like John Wayne western. I keep wanting to say Seven Brides for Seven brothers, but that's a movie and I'm pretty sure not what it was).

John Ford wrote "The Final Reflection" which was so goddamn good that it single-handedly created the modern Klingon. (They were black space barbarians before. Everything you saw in TNG and after? Based on that shit). He also wrote "How Much for Just the Planet" which is hilarious.

Then there was, i believe, at least one triliogy of flat out Spock/Kirk slash that got published (that didn't DO anything, but it wasn't exactly subtle. It was brick to the face). Then at some point, probably around the time of ST IV and the green-lighting of TNG, they got a little more serious about it. A little bit.

There was also the "Dreadnaught!" books, which featured quite possibly the most Mary Sue-est character to ever get published in official tie-ins. No, worse than whathername and her Boba Fett/Mandalorian fetish for SW.

[Morat20]

What's weird about Hambly is I've read some of her other (non-Star Wars stuff) and other than having a real interest in younger chicks with older guys thing romantically, none of them are remotely as wretched as her Jedi stuff.

I'm thinking she just plays poorly with other people's characters and was hired entirely on "being a published author willing to write a Star Trek novel"

[Reg]

Hah, I've been thinking the same thing ever since the thread started talking about her.  I've never read any of the Star Wars books but I remember reading most of her stuff in the 80s and 90s and not hating it at all.
I lost track of her after that because she started writing in genres I wasn't interested in (Star Wars and StarTrek) but according to Wikipedia she's still churning out novels every year or so.  
The books I've read by her aren't even close to being as awful as anything by Kevin Anderson so I was surprised to hear that she's practically the definition of bad Star Wars writer.


edit: spelling is hard

[Morat20]

I've only read bits and pieces of her fantasy. It's definitely more romance oriented and more and generally a bit dated, but given when it was written it was pretty innovative at the time. (Strong female characters, some urban fantasy --- even if it was modern person sent to magic world, and certainly not an Eddings/Brooks clone which for 70s and 80s fantasy was definitely different).

I don't remember the characterizations being all that bad, except all the 50+ 'wizard male leads' and the 20s-30s 'female lead' all had quite a bit in common, character wise. She branched out into some vampire stuff later, which I vaguely recall a friend of mine reading and happily exclaiming that it wasn't another goddamn Anne Rice clone. (This was around when she was big).

So, I dunno. Like I said, I guess she's just shit with sci-fi and other people's characters.

[Polysorbate80]

There are entirely too many nerds in this thread.

My 4-year old has never seen them, so I bought both trilogies on blu-ray yesterday and we've been spending the weekend parked in front of the tv having lightsaber battles and watching "Star Vader"

Even the wretched bits are awesome that way

[UnSub]

This thread is starting to scare me.

Just wait until we actually have something to talk about.

[eldaec]

Times like this I miss WUA.

[Ingmar]

Times like this I miss WUA.

You say that now, but wait until he's tearing through your gutter runners in Blood Bowl.

[Fabricated]

Times like this I miss WUA.

He's in shitposter heaven now. RIP WUA.

[murdoc]

Lawrence Kasdan says no EU

I'm so confused who is writing what now. Just make an entertaining Star Wars movie please.

[Merusk]

Ahahahahahahahaa!!!!

   

Fan-fucking-tastic.

[Tannhauser]

GOOD.

[Ingmar]

All I take away from that is 'new characters'.

[Tannhauser]

Dude wrote ESB, ROTJ, The Big Chill and Silverado.  He gets a pass from me.

"Now I don't wanna kill you and you don't wanna die."

[Ratman_tf]

Kasdan being involved is the first postiive news about the new movies.

Not IMO. Plain fact. 

[DraconianOne]

Dude wrote ESB, ROTJ, The Big Chill and Silverado.  He gets a pass from me.

"Now I don't wanna kill you and you don't wanna die."

So what you're saying is, a man who hasn't done anything decent in the best part of 30 years is a good custodian of future Star Wars films. If that's the criteria you use, why are we so against George Lucas being involved again?

Because, quite honestly, French Kiss, Mumford, Darling Companion and, particularly, Dreamcatcher are some of the worst films I've ever had the misfortune to sit through. And that's pretty much all Kasdan has done in the last 20 years.

[Tannhauser]

Maybe he's due.

[Paelos]

Dreamcatcher is about the source material. The book is beyond weird, and that's on King, not the film. Even though the film changed the ending in a really stupid way.

I liked French Kiss. I have no idea how you can lump that into the "bad" category. It's mixed reception at worst. I would have used Wyatt Earp, which is frankly the worst Western movie I've ever seen.

Darling Companion shouldn't have been made. I'm not even sure how that story made it past a pitch meeting.

[DraconianOne]

Haven't seen Wyatt Earp and French Kiss having a mixed reception at worst is not really a ringing endorsement. Phantom Menace had a mixed reception too.

 

[sickrubik]

It's almost like any writer/director can do some bad shit. Also, to be completely fair, Kasdan didn't write French Kiss. Since we're talking about a movie in which he will only be writing, I think that's important to point out and be fair about. Even shitty movies can have an okay/good script, weighed down by poor acting/poor directing/etc.