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I would like your take on the writing styles of NJO.

I have read by my estimate 90% of non NJO SW books. books by A. C. Crispin, Timothy Zahn, and Stackpole. and a few others. my questions is that I relly get into the writing style of these authors, I have red one NJO book "force Heritic 1" I think, but found the authors writing dull in spots, lots of introspective moments that served for charater development but seemd to drag during important moments in the story.

because I have pretty much draind the local book store out of there older plublished SW books I have a huge selection of NJO to choose from. I do plan to finish the 3 part "Force heritic" set because I just cant leave a story hanging like that, but I would like sugestions on other NJO titles you would suggest reading. Allso if there is a Timeline out there listing the order of NJO books please point me in that direction. (I know there in the book flap but im looking for somthing on the web allso)

The NJO Timeline is as such:

Vector Prime (series-pilot)
Dark Tide duology (Onslaught/Ruin)
Agents of Chaos duology (Hero's Trial/Jedi Eclipse)
Balance Point
Edge of Victory duology (Conquest/Rebirth)
Star by Star
Dark Journey
Enemy Lines duology (Rebel Dream/Rebel Stand)
Traitor
Destiny's Way
Force Heretic trilogy (Remnant, Refugee, Reunion)
The Final Prophecy
The Unifying Force (series-finale)

Of these, I'd go with the following:

* Star by Star (Easily the ESB of the NJO)

* Traitor (Mind-f***, Jedi Style )

* Enemy Lines duology (Only if you're a fan of the X-Wing books)

* The Unifying Force (Kick-ass book and way to end the EU until Trou Denning's trilogy in 2005).

Thnx Ill take a look and see if there in stock, I can special order them allso the store owner is a huge SW fan. sort of talked her into stocking more titles. and getting complete sets. before she had allot of book 3's of a assorted trilogies but she is getting better.

No problem; always glad to be of help.

I'll say this about the NJO: It certainly is entertaining. Well, it was for me anyway. Many people loathe and despise it for shitting all over continuity and the more technical aspects of the SW universe, but this is true for the EU in its entirety, not just the NJO.

I haven't finished it, and I don't know when I'll get around to it. I left off on Destiny's Way (which I thought was very good). IMO, the story is very strong. Very emotional. Unlike the boring "chip away at what's left of the Empire" the early EU loses itself in and the "what's left of the Empire chips away at the New Republic" that plagues the latter EU, the NJO has a definate sense of desperate urgency. It's a deadly crisis and the devastation is enormous and mind-bogling. You really love to hate the Yuuzhan Vong, this is a major problem solved for me; because I tend to sympathize with the Empire more often than not. The YV are a different matter entirely, they're disgusting, cruel and stupid. While they land massive blows against the galaxy, when it comes back at them you want to stand up and cheer. I like that. Also, it has a whole new take on the Force itself that I found most intriguing.

what lazy raptor posted pretty much summed it up.

now i'll add my own perspective on it.

the whole NJO is similar to the "The Lost Era" Star Trek series where in the first book of the series, Sulu, in command of his own ship discovers a branch of humans in the Large Melleganic(?) Cloud that were originally one of the O'Neil Halo Colonies.

to cut a long story short, Sulu, while holding peace talks with the Tholians uncovers infomation about attacks on the Tholians on the far side of their space.

after travelling to the area where the attacks are occurring, sulu finds an alien ship attacking a Tholian Colony near a Rift(the rift was a major story for The Original series (if you want to know more, lets just say that all humans onboard a starship entering the rift need a special drug, made from a Klingon poison, to enter the rift and stay sane!))

after telling the alien vessel to cease attacking the colony, a fight between the Excelsior and the alien vessel occurs, leaving both disabled.

after beaming onboard a body from space, they learn that the alien is alive after it escapes from sickbay, but it is recaptured and sent to the brig until sulu visits it. this opens "a whole new bag of worms".(?)

when sulu visits it and talk to it, they learn about what happened to one of the O'Neil colonies.

supposedly when Zefram Cochrane was developing his warp drive, they tested it on some of the O'Neil colonies.

VanGuard and others.

anyhow, the colony named Vanguard(and this is directly from the story) was transported 210 light-years from Earth orbit.

after some time(Centuries?) and alien attacks, the survivors inside the colony developed GEing. again after time had passed, something/some one set of the warp drive again, this time moving them to a point 210,000 light-years away from Earth.

after time in this new area of space, the survivors again rebuilt their way of life.

after some time(Centuries?), a alien spacecraft landed on the Asteroid.
the aliens were killed and the Neyel(for thats what they were calling themselves) discovered FTL drives.

again, after some time had passed, the Neyel had taken over the area of space they were in.

at this point the Neyel found the Rift and started attacking the Tholians.

this the point when the events of "The Sundered" occur.

at the end?

sufficent to say that the rift was closed, the Neyel had discovered where the ancestors were from and everyone was happy.

draw your own conclusions from that

drphlox

Lazy Raptor wrote:I'll say this about the NJO: It certainly is entertaining. Well, it was for me anyway. Many people loathe and despise it for shitting all over continuity and the more technical aspects of the SW universe, but this is true for the EU in its entirety, not just the NJO.

I'm glad you liked it, but I am indeed one of those who can't stand it. It's not even fun reading IMO. Also, the story just drags on forever, just a repetative cycle of the New Republic getting the s$*% beat out of them and they rally for a win here and there, and finally at the end the NR survives and becomes some new government with a stupid name. I just wish they could have thought up a whole new story line, and left the writing to good authors.

In reply to drphlox, remember that The Sundered was simply the pilot for the Lost Era; while it lagged, there were good parts, like how the L.J. Akaar or the DS9 relaunch-novels came to be and why Tuvok finally chose, other than the end of his toru of duty, to leave the Excelsior, not to mention a whole new take on the Tholians.

The books really began to pick up with Serpents Among the Ruins and The Art of the Impossible (my favorite of the series), lagged again during Well of Souls and Deny thy Father, but finished on a high noted with Catalyst of Sorrows.

But since this is a SW thread, I think we'll just leave it at that.

Personally, I thought the NJO on a whole was brillaint. The Bantam books were all pretty much the same and rather bland (save for the TZ novels) and the NJO was a welcome change of pace.

As for non NJO books the only thing I didnt like was cookie cutter plot lines. Yes allot was Empire vs Rebel, but there was allot of (insert new race here) who discerdits (inserter new republic council member here) and causes unrest and unstability.

what draws me is reading about the charaters I know, like comfort food, there paths are set. as with NJO I know ill be treading into new waters, the rules are there but anything thing can happien.

I can see Han becoming more like a modren sitcom husband to Liea, the old scruffy, smuggler side grommed out of him.

Luke, before Mara Jade was second guessing himself, lots of inner struggle trying to build up the Jedi order. Then getting maried and back in action again.

Chewy, not much change, got married before ANH, has children, but A life debt is a life debt. he is a great supporting charater but he gets kill'd off in NJO. "I heard he was asking Lucas for more percentage from movie revenue"

Liea, still as political, and in some cases relying on it more that her force abilties. "ploitics is a more consuming then the dark side"

Casmaran wrote:Chewy, not much change, got married before ANH, has children, but A life debt is a life debt. he is a great supporting charater but he gets kill'd off in NJO. "I heard he was asking Lucas for more percentage from movie revenue"

For Vector Prime, they were trying to figure out who to give the boot since Lucas had stated NO to any ideas of killing off Luke. Then someone made the suggestion of killing off the family dog AKA Chewie. The fact of the matter is that Chewie pretty much got wasted during the later Bantam novels and more or less took on the role that te NJO editors used during that meeting session.

The being said, Cheiwe's death was effective by showing SW fans that the NJO was different from the Bantam novels (by having someone major die; I don't count Crix Madine in this since his death was lame and I will never forgive KJA for killing him off).

How much life is really left in the NJO sieries? charaters are getting old, some of the EU timelines are way past "Return of the Jedi" at some point even the books will "Jump the Shark" and loose intrest from the reader base.

I would like to see prequels more or less, like pre empire Jedi vs Sith. Bring back the days when the Sith temple on Yavin 4 was active. there is 3000 years of pre history there to work with.

Casmaran wrote:How much life is really left in the NJO sieries? charaters are getting old, some of the EU timelines are way past "Return of the Jedi" at some point even the books will "Jump the Shark" and loose intrest from the reader base.

I would like to see prequels more or less, like pre empire Jedi vs Sith. Bring back the days when the Sith temple on Yavin 4 was active. there is 3000 years of pre history there to work with.

Del Rey has confirmed a series of OR-era books from thousands of years before the prequels coming out in the next year, so you may get your wish.

As for the NJO, it showed the characters aging together, that they weren't the same as they were back in the original trilogy, and the fact that they have survived what would have destroyed others played heavily on their minds, espeically Han over Chewie's death. It allowed them all to gain a better level of maturity and who they were, Jacen especially.

I hated Vector Prime. Traitor got boring. The rest of the series ruled.

Only beaten by the Thrawn trilogy and first four X-wing books.

Meh, I'm only about four books into the seriers now. And I'll say that it is a refreshing change from the crap that came before. There are problems with the series though.

*Bio tech wank. Its just so damn silly. I can see they wanted to go in a different direction with a 'badguy' but damn they went too far. The Ampistaff's are cool and I have no real problem with the living armor stuff even though they've pretty much made them into screaming Klingons attacking with staffs when the enemy has ranged weapons.

Hell, even the dumb ass living ships, I can overlook. But the Villips and the Oolith whatever the fuck things that disguise a Vong are just breath takingly dumb.

*Moral preening of the Jedi. Ok, the EU is rife with this shit so I guess that having it in the NJO isn't unexpected. But god damn. Honestly, we get it. You don't want to use your powers in an offensive way too much. You don't want to go to the darkside. We fucking get it.

Also, this preocupation with Jacen and Luke and really the two camps of the order, about weather the Jedi should be 'police' or if they should be fucking monks. Can we please get a better 'black and white' fucking fallacy? My god, if I was there, I'd tear my hair out! You know you can still police the badguys and then go home to meditate you twit.

Ying and yang? Give and take? Push and Pull? Fuck and Suck? Its not that damn difficult. You can DO BOTH.

*The mighty Vong. So far they have lost every battle or have done a strategic draw of every battle described in the books.

The lost their beachhead on Helzhdoan;h;aootqae (What ever it was called)

Hell, the Battle of Duribillion (sp?) was a successful defense against an overwelming force. The withdraw to Dantooine and the resulting rearguard action was brilliant. True there were alot of casualties, but limited military units held off a massive ground assualt and even successfully eliminated the command element of the enemy.

Ithor was, well a plot device. Notice the NR/IR fleet was ontop when the YV did the bio weapon thingy.

The fleet action at Ord Mandell was a NR success.

Every bit of Vong advance seems to happen outside of the books descriptions. The mighty Vong expansion never happens in the god damn pages. It seems the only thing keeping the Vong in the fight is the political landscape of the NR and the damn authors needing a villian.

Honestly I think it's time to put the post OT EU to bed. They've done all they can do with it.

I found the NJO to be either hit or miss, it was either really good, or really bad. The first half of the series just seems to drag on but things pick up after Star by Star (with the exception of Dark Journey, which was a real clunker). Enemy Lines was excellant and reminiscent to the X-Wing novels. Enemy Lines, along with Traitor and Destiny's Way are probably the best of the series. Force Heretic and Final Prohpecy do a decent job for setting up the Unifying Force which was a satisfying end to the series.

Joe wrote:Honestly I think it's time to put the post OT EU to bed. They've done all they can do with it.

I disagree... but I will say that they need to get away from the "New Republic vs. great galactic villian of the week" and concentrate on smaller side stories. Tatooines Ghost and Survivors Quest, and the X-Wing series are good examples of side stories that dont invovle some great galactic upheaval where life or death depends on the Luke and company. They should focus on those kinds of stories.

But with the NJO over, and Episode III less then a year away, I think they will concentrate on prequel and clone wars novels for a while.

The thing is that the books they keep coming out with invariably follow the same characters. I think it opens up the story-telling possibilities a lot more if they give authors the ability to just ignore the main cast and focus on the smaller struggles in the Galaxy by creating their own planets and people to populate them.

I hated Vector Prime, that was a real piece of shit right there. Dark Tide was much more enjoyable, and Agents of Chaos was bland. AoC's poor performance combined with difficulty in finding Balance Point cut me off of the NJO for the time being, although I may go to the library agains soon to try and locate it since I'm riding the bus to work now.

I liked AoC: HT quite a bit, but the series didn't really pick up until the Edge of Victory duology. Dark Tide was easily Stackpole's worst work in SW, and Balance Point was boring until the very end.

The real action starts in Conquest and it reaches a peak in Star by Star, which is the best EU book out there.

IMHO the Enemy Lines duology offered the best action in the NJO plot-line. However it also brought up the dumbest fucking idea i'd ever heard of Lord Nyxnex(sp). When i was reading that part i had to check the cover to make sire it hadn't turned into a Kevin Jackass Anderson book. Overall i liked the NJO. It had more quality books than the Bantam EU books, with less turkeys.

Anarchist Bunny wrote:I hated Vector Prime, that was a real piece of shit right there. Dark Tide was much more enjoyable, and Agents of Chaos was bland. AoC's poor performance combined with difficulty in finding Balance Point cut me off of the NJO for the time being, although I may go to the library agains soon to try and locate it since I'm riding the bus to work now.

Exactly my opinion.
Vector Prime sucked... Dark Tide was great. Agents of Chaos was bland/boring. Balance Point also was a tad boring. After Balance Point were a couple books that were fairly good, but not quite to the Dark Tide level. Then came Star by Star, which *rocked*! After that was Dark Journey, which was OK, and the Rebel Dream and Rebel Stand books, which were awesome, Traitor was a bit boring again, but Destiny's Way also rocked.