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Exile is out today, has anybody picked up a copy yet? It seems Lumiya, predictably, survived the explosion in Tempest, as she's listed in the Dramatis personae on Wookieepedia.

Who cares about EU anymore?

I'm waiting for it to come to the public library here, then maybe I'll take a look at it. There's no way I'm buying it (unless it somehow turns out to be a work of genius after reading).

Won't be able to pick it up until Friday; it's my reading material for the trip up to San Francisco's Wondercon.

According to the new additions to SW Wiki information, Jacen sends Ben on a mission to secretly test him as a worthy apprentice. Ben ends up on Ziost (and celebrates his 14th birthday there, whee) and, I guess, fights some badguys and escapes in a Sith Meditation Sphere. Yes, Voyager finding a 400 year old pickup truck in space and getting it to work, has been beaten by Ben finding what I assume to be a 5,000 year old Sith spacecraft and getting it to travel through Hyperspace. @__@

Allston wrote it, and I currently have a gift card, so I guess I'll pick it up tomorrow. With Allston writing it, I'd probably get it even without the gift card.

Regardless, I probably won't be spending a dime on any of the others, not even a dime that's only redeemable for books.

I picked it up this morning, havent had to much time to read it but from the list of characters, it seems like Aleema Rar is still hobbling about. I swear does anyone else see a resemblance to Austin Powers. One day Luke is just going to pop up and ask "Why wont you die!?!?!?!?"

consequences wrote:Snip

USed to be my line of though too. But Allston wrote the first book in the series, which I was unfortunate enough to purchase and now consider a waste of money.

Looking over the new SW Wiki articles, I swear to fucking god, the planets allying with Corellia now call themselves the Confederation.

VT-16 wrote:According to the new additions to SW Wiki information, Jacen sends Ben on a mission to secretly test him as a worthy apprentice. Ben ends up on Ziost (and celebrates his 14th birthday there, whee) and, I guess, fights some badguys and escapes in a Sith Meditation Sphere. Yes, Voyager finding a 400 year old pickup truck in space and getting it to work, has been beaten by Ben finding what I assume to be a 5,000 year old Sith spacecraft and getting it to travel through Hyperspace. @__@

Wow, they really don't make 'em like they used to, huh?

VT-16 wrote:Looking over the new SW Wiki articles, I swear to fucking god, the planets allying with Corellia now call themselves the Confederation.

Hrm... that sounds awfully familiar. I wonder why.

Darth Fanboy wrote:

consequences wrote:Snip

USed to be my line of though too. But Allston wrote the first book in the series, which I was unfortunate enough to purchase and now consider a waste of money.

I'm still interested enough to see where the hell it goes. But not at hardcover prices anymore, and probably not even at paperback prices for the other authors.

But I can easily see your point of view. Me, I'm considering Betrayal the one free hiccup that any generally good author gets.

i really dont know why everybody is on the EU's case. I mean i know its not the OT but you guys should take it for what it is. I enjoy it mainly because it's expanding my favorite saga (Star Wars). 10 years of EU for me has resulted in 85 books, 200+ comics.

anyway, enough of my EU is good if you forget about the movies.

I'm still reading the Dark Nest Trilogy so i have the advantage of getting the first hardcover as a paper back when it comes out in May

Prior to the LotF series I might have been inclined to agree (but the EU bashing has long been apartt of the board, ,since we do carry a not-insiginficant number of people who are simply canon/movie purists and others hate what authors like Stackpole/Traviss/KJA have done to pollute the series - with reason of course.)

Having read a number of (and greatly enjoyed) 40K novels whose writing quality is infinitely better than the vast majority of current EU novel selections, I've come to the conclusion that LFL no longer feels like it has to care as much about the quality of the writing as it used to, since the novel franchise is pretty well established and there are enough fans who will buy anything SW because its star wars (much like with Voyager/Enterprise era Trek, it would seem.) Early on, they probably had to be more careful because they were still trying to attract fans, which is why you still had novels which, while full of flaws and errors like the 8 km SSD, and you still had crap authors like KJA, you still had books that were on the whole enjoyable and fun to read (Allston, Zahn, Luceno, etc.)

The basic fact is is that the post NJO era is basically in decline and has been. There were signs of it in the NJO, the Dark Nest books were good but not great (I know alot of people hate them, but I enjoyed them immensely.) That end of the era is basically panned out as far as I am concerned, and as more and more of the "movie" characters get phased out its going to become less like the Star Wars we knew. Jacen is becoming intolerable, Alema Rar just won't die, and the Mandalorians are becoming family-first superwank warriors.

Maybe if they start focusing more on the prequel era books things will be different, but as far as I am concerned, the post NJO era is not going to be worth following anymore. (As for the post ROTJ era, its already clogged with too manyn stories so you can't get very many more out of it.)

Connor MacLeod wrote:Prior to the LotF series I might have been inclined to agree (but the EU bashing has long been apartt of the board, ,since we do carry a not-insiginficant number of people who are simply canon/movie purists and others hate what authors like Stackpole/Traviss/KJA have done to pollute the series - with reason of course.)

Having read a number of (and greatly enjoyed) 40K novels whose writing quality is infinitely better than the vast majority of current EU novel selections, I've come to the conclusion that LFL no longer feels like it has to care as much about the quality of the writing as it used to, since the novel franchise is pretty well established and there are enough fans who will buy anything SW because its star wars (much like with Voyager/Enterprise era Trek, it would seem.) Early on, they probably had to be more careful because they were still trying to attract fans, which is why you still had novels which, while full of flaws and errors like the 8 km SSD, and you still had crap authors like KJA, you still had books that were on the whole enjoyable and fun to read (Allston, Zahn, Luceno, etc.)

The basic fact is is that the post NJO era is basically in decline and has been. There were signs of it in the NJO, the Dark Nest books were good but not great (I know alot of people hate them, but I enjoyed them immensely.) That end of the era is basically panned out as far as I am concerned, and as more and more of the "movie" characters get phased out its going to become less like the Star Wars we knew. Jacen is becoming intolerable, Alema Rar just won't die, and the Mandalorians are becoming family-first superwank warriors.

Maybe if they start focusing more on the prequel era books things will be different, but as far as I am concerned, the post NJO era is not going to be worth following anymore. (As for the post ROTJ era, its already clogged with too manyn stories so you can't get very many more out of it.)

The problem is that people think that the "old guard" should go away but I'm not ready to hand over the reigns to the new gen. Especially if there going to have sex with "ants". I really dont care that Jaina has Jag in her room or Alema Rar (i hate her) is wearing revealing clothes.
What happend to having Leia in a white robe and making people imagine

anways i agree with you in the saturated post RotJ-just before NJO. What i want is books dealing with "The Dark Times" and between OT movies.

I dont agree with you about the Post NJO though. I believe as long as the NJO Jedi get a massive character change (except Jacen, he finally got good) or then its going to be just like another sci-fi show with an "N" infront of it.

the post NJO era is not going to be worth following anymore.

But the late Legacy era is, with the comic set 137 years after Yavin. I've enjoyed it alot. 8)

I was wondering who this Alema Rar was... so I Wookie'd her, she's only >30, so it couldn't be that she's getting old and should be showing signs of aging... like a certain Skywalker, so why does she need to die?

General Schatten wrote:I was wondering who this Alema Rar was... so I Wookie'd her, she's only >30, so it couldn't be that she's getting old and should be showing signs of aging... like a certain Skywalker, so why does she need to die?

Because she was killed off seemingly permenantly in Dark Nest (I believe she was eaten). But the authors for the Legacy series had the bright idea to give her a Boba Fett-esque comeback. It was all very contrived.

General Schatten wrote:I was wondering who this Alema Rar was... so I Wookie'd her, she's only >30, so it couldn't be that she's getting old and should be showing signs of aging... like a certain Skywalker, so why does she need to die?

The quickest way to explain it is that they keep "killing" her character only to have her return from the dead in the next novel. And besides the fact that her "serving the balance of the force" mentality is annoying.

Is she the one with the sister who got attacked by Voxyns?

General Schatten wrote:Is she the one with the sister who got attacked by Voxyns?

Indeed. Numa Rar.

The Original Nex wrote:

General Schatten wrote:Is she the one with the sister who got attacked by Voxyns?

Indeed. Numa Rar.

Well then, the obvious answer is that she's part of a clone army of blue Twi'lek Jedi that Jacen will use to conquer the galaxy... of course everyone knows falling to the darkside turns you into a slut, so... no one's going to care...

Finally got through it during the four hour ride up to Wondercon.

Well, the first cycle is complete' the authors are now about to commence round 2 and I'm still waiting to be impressed. Granted, there have been a couple of "Holy @%&" moments, but I'm just not being sold on the whole Clone Wars Deux. For all it's flaws, the NJO better conveyed the sense that the fate of the galaxy was at stake. LOTF is trying, but failing horribly. All I'm cocnerned about now is Alema Rar dying once and for all and Jacen following not close behind.

Still, a few good bits. Always good to see Lando as well as the Errant Venture. I was also surprised on the apperances of Admiral Klauskin and Fyor Rodan. In regards to the former, I thought he was simply a one-shot character and was surprised to see Allston utilized him even more. I'll be very curious to see what role Klauskin may still have to play. In regards to the latter, the Commenorian Senator's brief apperance was a treat to this NJO-era fan; the senaky little bastard hasn't been seen since Destiny's Way back in 2002 and while only a cameo, it was fun to see him again. Allson's humor is also great too, as always.

All in all, decent filler, but they really need to knock one of out the ballpark with the next one with Sacrifice (and with Traviss back on board for book V, that's not likely going to happen).

*checks Fyor Rodan's Wookiepedia entry and spies something unusual*

Oh Jesus Fuck. How original is that, a secession movement named the Confederation. Nope, doesn't sound anything like Confederacy of Independent Systems at all.

Just noticed another semi-major continuity goof. Essentially, Tycho tells us the the altered invasion plans were drawn up to invade Commenor during the initial post-Endor years, but became moot when Coruscant fell and Commenor overthrew its Imperial leadership. We're told that Bel Iblis drew up the plans.

One small problem -- Bel Iblis didn't rejoin the NRepublic until nearly two years later during the Thrawn campgain. Not as bad as the Chu'unthor good from Tempest , but not by much.

JME2 wrote:One small problem -- Bel Iblis didn't rejoin the NRepublic until nearly two years later during the Thrawn campgain. Not as bad as the Chu'unthor good from Tempest , but not by much.

Didn't he wield his own little rebellion in those years, though? Those plans could have been made by him for an invasion by his own forces.