Matthew Stover: Good or Bad?

[Noble Ire]

It seems that there is a great deal of animosity towards Stover in the EU reading community, both here and elsewhere. Some have objected to his darker, more philisophical writing style, others to his "character interludes", and still others to his fondness for Mace Windu's Shatterpoint sense. So I ask, overall, taking into consideration his three Star Wars works, Traitor, Shatterpoint, and the Revenge of the Sith Novelization, overall, is he a good or bad author? What do you dislike/like about him?

Personally, I really enjoy Stover's work, and Shatterpoint and Traitor are among my favorite SW novels. His grittier style and more cerebral characterization is engaging and refreshing, and heck, I didn't even mind the the shatterpoints.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

I personally did not like what I read of the RotS novelisation, thought he just babbled on and dwelt too much on stuff in general, as if he was filling space or too impressed with himself. Overall his writing in that book just really didn't agree with me at all.

Basically I guess you could sum up my feelings on Stover as: "just shut up and get on with the damn story."

[DoctorPhanan]

I only read Traitor, and based on that, I have to say that Stover's work is... complex. I personally dont mind deep, philosophical and complex reading every so often, but if every EU book was like that, I probably wouldn't like Star Wars as much as I do now. I think that his "Character Interludes" were fine for "Traitor" as it is really a story about isolation and internal conflict, something that his writing was very well done. But I cannot imagine that would be a positive and important thing for the RoTS novelization. Although Anakin does go through some heavy mental turmoil, I dont think that it should be to such a degree that Jacen went through in Traitor.

But then again, since I haven't read RoTS yet I will reserve judgement until I do.

[Darth Fanboy]

The RoTS Novel could have been much better, More details on Order 66 as an example. Instead Stover chose to focus too deeply on characters and not deeply or often enough on events IMHO.

[Dakarne]

I honestly liked both Traitor and the RotS Novelization...

I didn't mind the change of pace from action to a more philosophical approach... of course, I watched the film first, and then read the Novelization, which was almost fundamentally different in every respect.

Traitor is also amongst my favourite of the EU Books, if not my absolute favourite. The Characterization was brilliant, and I honestly started to like Vergere as a Character.

[Guardsman Bass]

It depends, really. I didn't particularly like Shatterpoint, but that was a book in which he actually did mostly have story action on Haruun Kal. On the other hand, I really enjoyed the RoTS novelization, because frankly, we don't need the novelization to be a movie script, and Stover's contemplations helped put a lot of the significance of the event (the Revenge of the Sith) into perspective. One of the best examples was his description of the crashing ship that Anakin piloted down to Coruscant, and how he described it as Anakin's masterpiece because of the state of the ship and the fact that he's never piloted anything like it before.

[Freeman's Trigger-Finger]

I've only read the RotS novelisation by him, and I have to say that I enjoyed it immensley. I was hesitant about delving into it after hearing complaints (namely from Spanky) about he's over indulgence in how he writes the characters and he's tendencey to dramatise events to much. But honestly, I found the breaks in story for ''character interludes'' to be refreshing and interesting, and the final moments of Anakins transformation were suited to the dark, gritty and philisophical approach which he adopted.

[Ghost Rider]

Overall, he's not bad. I never cared much for Traitor(though that's more due to my lackluster feelings of the NJO series as a whole) and Shatterpoint was near Mace Wank(RoTS has nothing on this book).

But RoTS was enjoyable, and I did like it better then either the TPM or AoTC novelizations, given it wanted to add more to everyone and in some cases did make them better(Both Obi Wan and Anakin I enjoyed more in the novel).

So he is a decent writer, but he does have faults on focus.

[Stravo]

I have not read much of the EU but I have read the ROTS Novelization and thoroughly enjoyed it. Little details like the galaxy's view of the heroes Kenobi and Skywalker mentioned always together and in the same sentence really made the novel for me and did what the EU SHOULD be doing - fleshing out what is in the movies not giving us shit like IG-88 taking over the Deathstar or *shudder* Darksaber and Crystal Star.

The ROTS novelization made me try to pick up the EU again....and promptly made me give it up when the next 2-3 books I read were hardly up to snuff.

[Ghost Rider]

I have not read much of the EU but I have read the ROTS Novelization and thoroughly enjoyed it. Little details like the galaxy's view of the heroes Kenobi and Skywalker mentioned always together and in the same sentence really made the novel for me and did what the EU SHOULD be doing - fleshing out what is in the movies not giving us shit like IG-88 taking over the Deathstar or *shudder* Darksaber and Crystal Star.

The ROTS novelization made me try to pick up the EU again....and promptly made me give it up when the next 2-3 books I read were hardly up to snuff.

The Obi Wan and Anakin point you make is one of the very things I enjoyed of the novel.

It gave right off the bat, how large the tragedy was going to be but even better something they never ever did with Luke. A near Superman effect of all the chips are down, all hope is lost...oh wait here comes Superman, kiss your ass goodbye villain.

The way they portrayed that along with Needa's attitude towards even Anakin and Obi Wan gave me the much better feeling of Leia asking for this old hermit's help.

[Joe]

All I've read is Traitor, which I thought was a really good book. Stover has got a talent for descriptive writing and imagery. Definitely one of the high points of the NJO, which I was otherwise lukewarm about at best.

[Admiral Drason]

Traitor wat a good book compared to much of the NJO.

It made Jacen get his act together and stop being such a simpe.

Shatterpoint was alright not great but still I thought it was a bit diffenet haveing Mace off into a gurilla war and seeing how most war is actually fought.

I still havent picked up ROTS so I honestly dont know.

[President Sharky]

I think that his books were excellent additions to the EU. Traitor is definitely the best NJO novel, with the deepest and most complex characterizations. Shatterpoint and the ROTS novelization were also top notch IMO. I generally find his prose to be very captivating and interesting to read, and his books tend to be filled with well-written action pieces.

[Dakarne]

I still havent picked up ROTS so I honestly dont know.

You should, it offers a lot more perspective into the Story than the film allows...

Make sure you get the one by Matthew Stover.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Considering that Stover wrote the only novelisation to RotS, that shouldn't be too hard...

[Dakarne]

Actually...

There's been at least of RotS in novel form which wasn't written by Matthew Stover.

Here

And Here[/url]

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Those are both children's books, moron.

[Dakarne]

I know this, but when ordering off of Amazon, be sure to click on the right one, since they don't actually discern between them.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

I think someone with half a brain should be able to do that, particularly since someone like Drason already knows who wrote the damn book.

[Knife]

Traitor was ok. At times it went to deep at the expense of the story. By itself, as a stand alone, it was ok. But trying to connect it with the rest of the NJO made it cumbersome. Though it is in the top half of the NJO in writting and interest.

Shatterpoint was shit. The plot sucked, the delievery sucked, the characterizations sucked. There was very little in that book that I liked and it really turned me off for prequel EU.

ROTS was really good. Though, like Traitor, sometimes it went deeper than it needed at expense to the story.

So I guess he's batting atleast 2/3.

[Dorsk 81]

Somewhere in the middle. When he's on his game he's great, but then he seems to go off, snort some crack and write utter BS for the next thirty minutes, for example, the Windu, Fisto, Tiin, Kolur, Palpatine show down. It starts out great, Tiin losing his head, etc, etc, then he goes off on a complete tangent to wank on about Windu and Vappaad. Totaly ruins the moment.

[Lord Pounder]

On the whole the books Stover wrote where very entertaining to read. The problem being that many SW fans just want pop corm sci-fi, big explosions huge battles. Stover took it a different way annd focused on the characters thoughts and feelings. He is guilty of a crime most EU authors are, he specifically wanks the characters he pust most work into and thus likes more, Mace Windu being the prime example.

[Perseid]

He's pretty good, especially when it comes to fleshing out the characters in the RotS novelisation. Traitor was also pretty damn good, especially for a NJO book. All in all a pretty good writer.

Those are both children's books, moron.

Spanky that might have been the reason why he was looking at them.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

Those are both children's books, moron.

I've read the kiddie version (first in Japan of all places). It wasn't that bad. In feel, it is more like the other novelizations than Stover's work.

[Ender]

Traitor was trippy and I didn't really care for it.

Shatterpoint I hated.

Revenge of the Sith blew me away. It was perfect, everything it needed to be, and everything the other novels should have been. Rich in detail, focused on the characters and perfect in execution. Quite frankly, I can't figure out how anyone didn't like this book. I thought it was better then the film.