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From Star Wars.com

Among the titles launching in 2009 are the first three in a new Star Wars multi-book, multi-author story arc following directly in the footsteps of the Legacy of the Force series. The nine-book, three-author series, Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi, will break new ground by being the first multi-book Star Wars series to be published all in hardcover. The series, which will be published over the space of three years, will launch in April 2009 with Outcast, by Aaron Allston; the other two authors planning and penning the nine novels will be Christie Golden and Troy Denning.

You know, I really, really miss the anthologies from the Bantam-era more and more; they were infinitely better than the crap we can expect from the same people who brought us the POS that was LOTF. I don't care anymore.

10/02 Edit -- Changed the Thread Title.

At least Karren Travis isn't one of the authors. Perhaps she has lost her luster with LFL due to slipping sales and the fan base waking up. Or maybe she just got sick of beating off to her Mando stories.

I'm always willing to give a new arc a chance, in the hopes that it might be good.

Anyone know the background on Christie Golden? I've never heard of her. Off to Google I go.

*Edit: Well, now I know what she has written. (Voyager?) Has anyone read any of her work?

havokeff wrote:At least Karren Travis isn't one of the authors. Perhaps she has lost her luster with LFL due to slipping sales and the fan base waking up. Or maybe she just got sick of beating off to her Mando stories.

I'm always willing to give a new arc a chance, in the hopes that it might be good.

Anyone know the background on Christie Golden? I've never heard of her. Off to Google I go.

*Edit: Well, now I know what she has written. (Voyager?) Has anyone read any of her work?

Voyager: Homecoming and it was like bad fanfic. I never read a Voyager book after it.

I doubt i would buy any off these if they are hardcover. hardcover is for classics, that should endure for the ages. lately star wars has been more for reading in the bathroom.

Even ignoring the fact that I've been completely turned off from the SW EU by the sickening hack writing and Mando wanking, is anyone else fucking tired of these "epic" nine-book arcs that will change the SW universe forever? There was the extremely long Yuuzhan Vong series followed by that Killik trilogy, then LOTF, and now this one. Can we just have some fucking standalone novels, or even trilogies, that don't require you to buy a shitload of books and follow them for years? SW has taken on one of the worst aspects of the comic book industry.

Jim Raynor wrote:Can we just have some fucking standalone novels, or even trilogies, that don't require you to buy a shitload of books and follow them for years? SW has taken on one of the worst aspects of the comic book industry.

I again reiterate how much I'd love to see another anthology or two. The problem with Del Rey and LFL is that they seem to have forgotten that you don't have to have the main movie characters or Force users to tell SW stories (ex. The X-Wing novels). I agree that I'm sick of these ongoing arcs.

I chuckled a bit when I saw that this series was going to be called "Fate of the Jedi", because thanks to the comics we already KNOW what the fate of the Jedi is going to be!

Give me the Brian Daley type Han Solo books any day.

JME2 wrote:

Jim Raynor wrote:Can we just have some fucking standalone novels, or even trilogies, that don't require you to buy a shitload of books and follow them for years? SW has taken on one of the worst aspects of the comic book industry.

I again reiterate how much I'd love to see another anthology or two. The problem with Del Rey and LFL is that they seem to have forgotten that you don't have to have the main movie characters or Force users to tell SW stories (ex. The X-Wing novels). I agree that I'm sick of these ongoing arcs.

Or the older "Tales..." series. The only character I can think of who became major in other novels is Fett - Bossk appeared once or twice, and IG-88, but there wasn't much of Muftak (for example).

Golden has a written a number of novels in the Starcraft and Warcraft universes. Most of them are somewhat mediocre (although not horrible), but they generally fail to capture any sense of grandeur or feeling.

Lord Poe wrote:Give me the Brian Daley type Han Solo books any day.

Supposedly this is what is to be expected from Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor by Matthew Stover.

I'll have to rant more at a later time, but the dearth of creativity coming out from LFL of late is astounding. You see it across the spectrum. Don't tell a new story, repackage Anakin's fall with him as Quinlin Vos/Jacen Solo. Don't create a new game, repackage Age of Empires/Battlefield/SOCOM with SW units. Don't write an RPG that expands the universe, release a new edition, then a revised edition, then a saga edition... none of which introduces anything new, but just tweaks the existing stuff. Don't write a new guide, just reprint stuff from other sources in a new book with a different cover and different entries. And here it is again - don't hire an author to create something new and dynamic, redo the same concept you've done poorly twice before.

I guess from a business point it makes sense - resell the same shit again and again and again and it saves on production. But that doesn't mean it is good.

^Quite true. At this point, the only interesting story is Legacy, and it says something about a franchise if the comics tell a better story in 30+ pages than a 400 page novel.

Sues Rostoni has posted more updates on FoTJ, including plots and clues to the first three books. There are also one or two updates on other post-LoTF novels:

April 7, 2009 - Hardcover: FATE OF THE JEDI 1: OUTCAST by Aaron Allston. Luke and Ben attempt to follow Jacen's previous journey in the hopes of discovering what and how various Force-using groups influenced him to accept and use dark side powers. No cover yet - but we should have a cover direction by the end of next week. Hopefully.

April 28, 2009 - Paperback: BLOOD OATH, by Elaine Cunningham. This is Zekk's story and takes place after his mishap in the battle in INVINCIBLE. Yes, he still lives. We have just received cover concepts on this one - the artist is Dave Seeley.

July 7, 2009 - Hardcover: FATE OF THE JEDI 2: ENIGMA by Christie Golden. Continues the FATE OF THE JEDI story..... major developments, new characters, lotsa stuff happens.

October 6, 2009 - Hardcover: FATE OF THE JEDI 3 by Troy Denning. More hapans... er, happens. Sorry for the typo, it means nothing.

In regards to the premise of Outcast...oy vey. Uh, was it not already established and have the Jedi not already accepted time and again that Jacen's selflessness, coupled with his torture at the hands of Vergere and his adopting the Potentium philosophy, laid the seeds for the emergence of Darth Caedus? Granted, part of me is still somewhat curious as to the full extent of his activities during the five-year sojourn, but this is just a poorly thought out plot and direction. At least, according to the link, we have a Great Hyerpsace War and Nomi Sunrider novels due out within the next two years.

Ugh. These zillion-part series are exactly what turned me off of the post-RotJ EU. Even at their worst, the Bantam EU books were never longer than a simple trilogy, meaning that you didn't have to make a huge investment to read them. Ever since the NJO, you-do. Even if they weren't simply milking the cash cow, I probably still wouldn't fork over the tons of money I would need to read them.

The post-RotJ EU is like the Simpsons-worn out simply by staying with the same characters for so long. It's more then coincidence that my favorite EU novels are the ones that don't have the movie characters as the stars.

While we might complain, the huge series are 'lock-ins'. We hear on SDN all the time how OCD fans will buy a book, hate it or be disappointed, and continue to buy the series out of completiveness. This trend is probably very obvious in sales figures, so it makes sense for them to do it.

Since it's obvious they don't give a fuck about the setting or quality when there's money to be made.

Stark wrote:While we might complain, the huge series are 'lock-ins'. We hear on SDN all the time how OCD fans will buy a book, hate it or be disappointed, and continue to buy the series out of completiveness. This trend is probably very obvious in sales figures, so it makes sense for them to do it.

Yeah, I was initially willing to do that with LoTF, but gave up with the penultimate novel, didn't even read Invincible, and sold my copies to a local used books store. That money will probably go to financing a purchase of Luceno's Falcon book; I at least trust Luceno to keep things nice with a stand-alone work.

Anyway, my point is, with access to Wookipedia, I see no need to continue physically buying these novel series.

I'll be picking up the Stover book, but that's about it. The only Star Wars novels I've bought in the last decade have been Stover's or Luceno's.

JME2 wrote: At least, according to the link, we have a Great Hyerpsace War and Nomi Sunrider novels due out within the next two years.

Ugh, I am not holding my breath for that one, all poised ruin an, all-in-all, relatively decent SW setting. What will they screw up there? I thought that series had suffered enough when KJA took over it. . .

Well, at least we do not see Traviss writing it and retconning it into a Wankalorian victory. . .

I wonder what the key selling point of the new series is, especially given the extremely cliched name of the series.

This is getting old, very old.

There's a lot of new authors, though. Hopeful.

Darth Hoth wrote:

JME2 wrote: At least, according to the link, we have a Great Hyerpsace War and Nomi Sunrider novels due out within the next two years.

Ugh, I am not holding my breath for that one, all poised ruin an, all-in-all, relatively decent SW setting. What will they screw up there? I thought that series had suffered enough when KJA took over it. . .

Well, at least we do not see Traviss writing it and retconning it into a Wankalorian victory. . .

No, she's doing that with the Second Galactic Civil War, i.e. that post-LoTF Boba novel coming out in 2011.

JME2 wrote: No, she's doing that with the Second Galactic Civil War, i.e. that post-LoTF Boba novel coming out in 2011.

Meh, who gives a shit.

As far as I'm concerned, anything Post-NJO (Admit it, that series did have it's moments of coolness, Mostly Wedge Antilles WTFPWNing an entire squadron of coralskippers sans R2 unit during the fall of courscant, and Ackbar smacking down the vong at Ebaq 9)
isn't part of the star wars universe. They let Travissty wank the mandos too much, and after FINALLY showing a semi-competent galactic government that wasn't the empire, turned it into a bunch of fascist dickheads under the control of a fucking sith lord so they could emulate the prequel's story. And to top that off, we know the Galactic alliance is going to be fucked over again in 150-odd years by Fel's empire and the sith.

Does anyone remember when the ending of ROTJ was supposed to herald the return of peace, freedom, and justice to the galaxy, and an end to dictatorial governments like the Empire?

Darksider wrote: Does anyone remember when the ending of ROTJ was supposed to herald the return of peace, freedom, and justice to the galaxy, and an end to dictatorial governments like the Empire?

Way,way back in the distant mists of time, back in the dark ages, watching ROTJ at the tender age of ten.
Before the dark times, before the EU.

Darth Nostril wrote:

Darksider wrote: Does anyone remember when the ending of ROTJ was supposed to herald the return of peace, freedom, and justice to the galaxy, and an end to dictatorial governments like the Empire?

Way,way back in the distant mists of time, back in the dark ages, watching ROTJ at the tender age of ten.
Before the dark times, before the EU.

Heh.