PT Novels worth picking up?

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2005-06-05 08:25pm

Many of you fine folks who contributed to my NJO book series question may want to chime in here for this one. In my quest for EU books after a good experience with the ROTS novelization and a general thirst for SW in general I wonder is it worth it to pick up the Prequel Era books that are out there. I've heard some bad things about some of these novels. I believe Master of Ossus considers one of them among the worst books ever written. (Sorry can't remember which one MoO - perhaps Rogue PLanet?)

Anyway I've heard some good things about Yoda - Dark Rendevous and alot of people seem really happy with Labyrinth of EVil (though I tend to avoid hardcovers due to their cost vs. space issues I have) anyone want to recommend a few to me or tell me which ones to avoid?

Also in my browsing of Amazon.com I found this hardcover The Star Wars Encyclopedia by Sansweet and Zahn. Zahn is by far my favorite EU author so I was wondering how good the Encyclopedis was as well as any of the Visual Dictionaries.

Once again guys, thank for any advice you might have for me.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2005-06-05 08:28pm

The Encyclopedia is not worth buying. It's horribly out of date and there are far better and extensive resources on the Net, such as TFN's Completely Unofficial Star Wars Encyclopedia.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2005-06-05 08:29pm

Why don't you start off with Shatterpoint? Its relatively early in the war, features Mace Windu, is a in many ways a retelling of classic literature (Heart of Darkness by Joesph Conrad - the source for Coppola's Apocalypse Now), and is written by the author of the ROTS novelisation - Matthew Stover.

Labyrinth of Evil is an excellent lead-on to ROTS, and I'd also say Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader which will be coming out shortly, would be a good one (Labyrinth of Evil, the Revenge of the Sith novelisation, and Dark Lord are supposed to function as a sort of de facto EU novel trilogy).

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2005-06-05 08:33pm

Who's doing Dark Lord, Luceno or Stover? *prays it's not Stover*

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2005-06-05 08:37pm

Some are good, some are bad, some are mediocre.

Cloak of Deception was good though dry.
Shadow hunter was pretty bad.
Approaching storm was the one MoO was talking about.
Rogue Planet was pretty lame.
Cestus Deception was pretty dry.
Shatterpoint was pretty good, typical stover
Medstar series was kinda lame, though you might want to read it soley for some references to medical tech for your fanfics
Hard Contact was great
Jedi Trial, most anyone here, particularily you, cold have done a much better job with. I just thought it was boring with terrible characterizations
Dark Rendevouz was interesting, though that vision of Dooku doesn't mesh with what we see in LoE and ROTS
Labrynth of Evil was great. Only thing I didn't care for were minor tech errors, the characters and plot were phenominal

Revenge of the Sith - Honestly, after reading this the movie was a damn let down. Stover brought his A game, and it showed.

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2005-06-05 08:38pm

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:Who's doing Dark Lord, Luceno or Stover? *prays it's not Stover*

Luceano. But I don't see the issue with Stover, his grasp of Anakin in the novel was amazing.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2005-06-05 08:47pm

Luceano. But I don't see the issue with Stover, his grasp of Anakin in the novel was amazing.

I didn't like Stover's writing style for the RotS novelisation at all, to be frank. I felt that he droned on about unimportant details at points, that some of his scene expansions and dialogue additions were unnecessary and silly, and really didn't get caught and pulled by the story one bit. Basically I didn't get wrapped up into the story like I did with Foster's ANH novelisation, and just didn't like it.

Mind you, while I've never read Luceno other than the OT ITW, I'd just prefer to not read Stover again.

JME2 · Post by **JME2** » 2005-06-05 08:48pm

I second Dark Rendevous, Shatterpoint and Cloak of Deception. In regards to other upcoming prequel novels, don't forget Zahn's Outbound Flight either.

President Sharky · Post by **President Sharky** » 2005-06-05 08:48pm

I would highly recommend that you read The Cloak of Deception by James Luceno. It's an excellent lead-in to TPM, and it gives a lot more depth and backstory to the political situation in the film. Luceno's writing is absolutely wonderful, and the story has a thrilling end. This is definitely a must-read.

I also highly recommend Shatterpoint by Matt Stover, the author of the ROTS novelization. This is a Mace Windu story that offers a lot of his philosophy on the Force and the war. It's somewhat based on Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.

Republic Commando: Hard Contact by Karen Traviss and Labyrinth of Evil by James Luceno are also great stories set in the Clone Wars. The former concentrates heavily on the military and the psyche of the clone troopers specifically, while the latter is another excellent lead-in (for ROTS) by Luceno.

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2005-06-05 08:55pm

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:
Luceano. But I don't see the issue with Stover, his grasp of Anakin in the novel was amazing.
I didn't like Stover's writing style for the RotS novelisation at all, to be frank. I felt that he droned on about unimportant details at points, that some of his scene expansions and dialogue additions were unnecessary and silly, and really didn't get caught and pulled by the story one bit. Basically I didn't get wrapped up into the story like I did with Foster's ANH novelisation, and just didn't like it.

Mind you, while I've never read Luceano other than the OT ITW, I'd just prefer to not read Stover again.

See I have to disagree here. I thought Stover's writing in the novelization was one of the better ones (though I still find Kahn's ROTJ Novelization the best because it did a fantastic job depicting Luke and in particular his inner thoughts during the confrontation with the Emperor.) and I particularly warmed up to the weird second person narrative he sometimes broke into. It did a good job of laying character foundation and frankly I found his writing of the Dooku/Obi Wan/Anakin duel to be one of the best written SW duels ever in any novels. Which is why I found the greatest disappointment in the novel was his utter lack of detail in the Obi Wan Anakin duel. Its was as if he had to finish the last third of the novel in a night while spending so much time on the set up.

It was as if I were to suddenly bring Starcrossed to a close in the next three chapters after all this buildup. But what a buildup.

BTW thanks for saving me like $40 on that enclycopedia.

Post by **Vympel** » 2005-06-05 09:11pm

I'm really interested in the Vader novel after RotS that forms the last part of the de facto trilogy- 20-something post-suit Vader ... interesting indeed.

Noble Ire · Post by **Noble Ire** » 2005-06-05 11:38pm

My personal favorites were Hard Contact and Shatterpoint, and the Medstars and Dark Rendevous were good too.

Heck, I even kinda liked Approaching Storm........but hey, Barriss.

The only one I wouldnt recommend is Cestus (very poorly executed, even if Kit Fisto and Jangotat were expanded decently.) I havent read Jedi Trial.

Stover's novelization was one of the best I have ever read, especially for its characterizations of Obi-Wan and Anakin. The interludes were very fitting in my opinion for character develpoment.

Cal Wright · Post by **Cal Wright** » 2005-06-06 11:48am

If your talking about EU then no. So far, Approaching Storm and Shatterpoint are the only ones I've read, and they sucked monkey balls. I'll still pick up the other ones just for relevant discussion.

As far as the PT novelisations themselves...somewhat. I was just about to post about this too after finishing up RotS. My view basically goes like this. I think a lot of the production and staff of Lucasfilms have missed the point entirely, and it's evident in the cannon material. The OT and it's novelisations were great. You pick up so much from the movies themselves, only to follow up with a wealth of information from the novels. ESB and RotJ especially have detail that begins after a scene has ended.

Now while I feel the TPM novel is excellent and actually retains some of this, AotC and RotS both lack horriably. In fact, I knew it was never a good idea to use an EU author to pen those books. AotC was boring as shit. For a movie that I simply loved and enjoyed I was amazed how Salvatore could not simply write something I could get into so much so that I would re read it. (Which I've done with the OT novels several times.) RotS is bearing the same thing, only tenfold. I think all whats-his-face did in RotS was take the first half and concentrate on retelling 'Shatterpoint' over and fucking over. The Horuun Kun master this, the Horuun Kun master that, or whatever the fuck planet it was. Then it's about finding the shatterpoint, his special Force gift. Give me a fucking break man. Then the second half wasn't all that good.

As far as PT novels go, where I had extremely high hopes, they are on the verge of being dashed to pieces. Read at your own risk.

edit: I forgot looking at Ender's post was Rogue Planet, Shadow Hunter, both sucked. Dumb as fuck and boring as hell. Cloak of Deception (you can say I wank to Luceno's writings all you want) was fucking excellent.