What novels are unmemorable and just plain bad

LongVin · Post by **LongVin** » 2006-01-16 08:23pm

Well during my Christmas break I decided that for the new year I would accomplish the noble goal of reading every full lenght star wars novel and if possible in chronological order.

Now when I made this resolution I forgot just how many Star Wars novels there are. So Far I read 4 and it took about 2-3 days for me to read each at my current rate its going to take me about 100 days to read every book which is just not doable since there are plenty of other books coming out I want to read between now and the summer. I decided to modify my resolution a bit. I am going to read every Star Wars books that postively contributed to the EU and are actually entertaining.

So what books would everyone say that I could skip over without missing anything important. Or books that are just so terribly bad they should be avoided like the plague?

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2006-01-16 08:25pm

The Approaching Storm was by far the worst book I have ever suffered through. Every odious phrase and page of that text should be given the Arthur Anderson deluxe treatment so as to protect the general population from self-inflicted eye injuries.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2006-01-16 08:26pm

Your title isn't accurate: the worst are always the most memorable.

Noble Ire · Post by **Noble Ire** » 2006-01-16 08:36pm

Master of Ossus wrote:The Approaching Storm was by far the worst book I have ever suffered through. Every odious phrase and page of that text should be given the Arthur Anderson deluxe treatment so as to protect the general population from self-inflicted eye injuries.

Actually, I kind of liked that book. The Ewok-analogs did on my nerves, but otherwise, I thought it was pretty good, better than most of JKA's stuff at least (I know that isn't saying much, but still.)

My personal anti-favorites? Balance Point and Dark Journey of the NJO. Both were incredibly boring and tedious, with no statisfactory conclusions or characterizations at all. Nevertheless, I would recommend the rest of the NJO, exempting possibly the Force Heretic Trilogy. There are bound to be people in this thread who say "BURN Teh NJOz!1!!"; ignore them.

NRS Guardian · Post by **NRS Guardian** » 2006-01-16 10:30pm

Crystal Star, Children of the Jedi, and Twilight Planet. The only thing you miss by skipping these is the Callista arc and a few minor things brought up in other stories. Twilight planet especially can be ignored.
The Jedi Academy Trilogy can almost be ignored just by reading I, Jedi.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2006-01-16 10:55pm

The Black Fleet Crisis was also pretty abysmal, with one of the MAJOR story-arcs (taking up one quarter to one third of the entire trilogy) literally never tying in to the rest of the story and ending... nowhere... after basically nothing happened with it.

JME2 · Post by **JME2** » 2006-01-16 11:07pm

Master of Ossus wrote:The Approaching Storm was by far the worst book I have ever suffered through. Every odious phrase and page of that text should be given the Arthur Anderson deluxe treatment so as to protect the general population from self-inflicted eye injuries.

Eh, it was alright, but could have been a hell of a lot better. Probably the worst SW book I've read would be Dark Nest III: The Swarm War. Christ, what an underwhelming conclusion; thiis is unfortunate considering I enjoyed Dark Nest I: The Joiner King very much. The only good part was Luke seeing the Mustafar footage.

Regardless, the book has hammered home a feeling of mine that has been growing greatly as of late: TUF should have been the end of the post-ROTJ era EU. It wasn't perfect, but it could easily have closed the curtain on the original heroes and their lives. But, it did not and if this final book is any indication of where the post-NJO and Legacy of the Force is going, then I'm likely going to bail out.

JME2 · Post by **JME2** » 2006-01-16 11:11pm

Noble Ire wrote:Nevertheless, I would recommend the rest of the NJO, exempting possibly the Force Heretic Trilogy.

I'll agree on FHII: Refugee and FHIII: Reunion, but notFHI: Remnant .

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2006-01-16 11:22pm

Dark Nest is skipable, so is most of the NJO, the CotJ, DS, PoT trilogy is forgetable witht he exception of the important plotpoint of the ned of the Empire's factionalism.

Noble Ire · Post by **Noble Ire** » 2006-01-16 11:24pm

JME2 wrote:
Noble Ire wrote:Nevertheless, I would recommend the rest of the NJO, exempting possibly the Force Heretic Trilogy.
I'll agree on FHII: Refugee and FHIII: Reunion, but notFHI: Remnant .

True. Seeing Pellaeon as a main character again was awesome, and his speech at the end was great. "You may win a few battles against us, Vorik, but the Empire will always strike back."

LongVin · Post by **LongVin** » 2006-01-17 12:03am

ok. so basically the whole middle block of the NJO order can be safetly ignored. As well as most books in the Young Jedi series.

Now if Im getting this correctly the more time that passes between the end of ROTJ and the book is directly related to how much it sucks.

Noble Ire · Post by **Noble Ire** » 2006-01-17 12:16am

LongVin wrote:ok. so basically the whole middle block of the NJO order can be safetly ignored. As well as most books in the Young Jedi series.

Reading the following will give you pretty much the cream of the crop, and still preserve the story (Italicized ones are a must, others are decent, but can be skipped):

Vector Prime
Dark Tide 1: Onslaught
Dark Tide 2: Ruin
Agents of Chaos: Hero's Trial
Agents of Chaos: Jedi Eclipse
Edge of Victory 1: Conquest
Edge of Victory 2: Rebirth
Star By Star
Rebel Dream
Rebel Stand
Traitor
Destiny's Way
Force Heretic 1: Remnant
Final Prophecy
The Unifying Force

Now if Im getting this correctly the more time that passes between the end of ROTJ and the book is directly related to how much it sucks.

Not always (for instance, Traitor is one of my favorite EU books, and it's late on), but mostly, that's pretty much how it goes.

Sharp-kun · Post by **Sharp-kun** » 2006-01-17 02:13am

Crystal Star and The New Rebellion are two I remember being abysmal.

Spetulhu · Post by **Spetulhu** » 2006-01-17 07:02am

Sharp-kun wrote:Crystal Star and The New Rebellion are two I remember being abysmal.

Funny, so do I! Well, exchange funny with plodding, tedious and routine and you have it.

Lazarus · Post by **Lazarus** » 2006-01-17 12:54pm

I thought the Corellian trilogy was pants. 'oh no there's a giant fleet coming whatever shall we do? Oh wait, that 5 year old has fixed it, never mind...'
It was full of crap like 'quick, we're inside their shields!', and the idea that toddlers can fly ships and outwit seasoned veteran pilots and troops is laughable. The enemy fleet was built up to be some massive deadly threat, and it was solved in a few pages by a toddler. Pathetic.
I quite liked the Jedi Academy trilogy, and one of the main bits I liked was that the villain wasn't dead by the end, often an occurence in real life (random example: the first gulf war) but rarely shown in the novels.

Lazarus · Post by **Lazarus** » 2006-01-17 01:05pm

I thought the Corellian trilogy was pants. 'oh no there's a giant fleet coming whatever shall we do? Oh wait, that 5 year old has fixed it, never mind...'
It was full of crap like 'quick, we're inside their shields!', and the idea that toddlers can fly ships and outwit seasoned veteran pilots and troops is laughable. The enemy fleet was built up to be some massive deadly threat, and it was solved in a few pages by a toddler. Pathetic.
I quite liked the Jedi Academy trilogy, and one of the main bits I liked was that the villain wasn't dead by the end, often an occurence in real life (random example: the first gulf war) but rarely shown in the novels.

General Soontir Fel · Post by **General Soontir Fel** » 2006-01-17 01:32pm

The Corellian Trilogy starts out OK, but quickly gets into a morass due to:
1. Extreme minimalism, even generally on the EU scale
2. Contradictions with the rest of the story. "No part of the Empire survives anymore, anywhere in the galaxy."... what?
3. Solo kids (esp. Anakin) wanking.

The Crystal Star is the absolute worst. Force Heretic II and III are close.

Republic Commando: Hard Contact is also very stupid.

I actually enjoyed the Callista story arc. Yes, even Darksaber.

Also, feel free skip anything written for a juvenile audience. Jedi Apprentice (Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan adventures, pre-TPM), Jedi Quest (Obi-Wan and Anakin adventures, pre-AOTC), and Junior Jedi Knights (Anakin Solo at the Jedi Academy). Young Jedi Knights (Jacen and Jaina at the Academy)... well, that's a tougher question. Some stories are actually quite good, so try a few, and see if it's your cup of tea. They are considered young adult novels, so you should get through them quickly.

A good idea is to have The Essential Chronology (either the old or new version will--not much has been added in between ROTJ and NJO) on hand, so you can get a complete picture without reading everything.

Oh, and you have to read everything that came from the pen of either James Luceno or Timothy Zahn.

Post by **Coyote** » 2006-01-17 02:54pm

I must say that Vonda McIntyre's Crystal Star is beyond abyssmal. I quit reading Star Wars novels for a long time after that one, because it was just heartbreaking to see the beloved characters used as little more than puppets to fulfill a plotline that would have been a below-average Star Trek fan novel.

Truce at Bakura is okay, but I don't feel it really adds too much to the overall storyline. A lot of the "Tales of the..." books are fun, but each short story has to be taken on its own merits. While entertainig, they can mostly be set aside for a later date when time is not so pressing.

theski · Post by **theski** » 2006-01-17 03:38pm

Crystal star is brutal.. and the Not a big fan of the "Rogue" series

AK_Jedi · Post by **AK_Jedi** » 2006-01-17 03:44pm

I thoroughly enjoyed the young Han Solo trilogy, paradise snare, hutt gambit, and rebel dawn They explain Han's life from childhood through to the beginning of Star Wars with lots of tie ins with other novels. Something that is missing in most of the EU.

The X-Wing books have some good clean fun, but they have way too much rebel pilot wanking in them. especially the wraith squadron books.

Sharp-kun · Post by **Sharp-kun** » 2006-01-17 03:59pm

AK_Jedi wrote: The X-Wing books have some good clean fun, but they have way too much rebel pilot wanking in them. especially the wraith squadron books.

I actually found the Wraith Squadron ones to be the better of the X-Wing novels. No Corran Horn for one thing.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2006-01-17 04:04pm

Darksaber. God was it ever dismal.

Tiriol · Post by **Tiriol** » 2006-01-17 04:06pm

The most awful SW novel I have so far had the misfortune to read is with no doubt The Crystal Star and I weep to the notion that the title might have given me some inspiration when I designed some parts of my Star Wars RPG campaign.

I'm not sure about which book you could skip over without missing anything important, although Planet of Twilight comes to my mind. It merely concluded Callista story arc - nothing else was important in it or memorable in any way.

Coriolis · Post by **Coriolis** » 2006-01-17 04:12pm

Avoid anything by Robert J Anderson

That's basically it

Lazarus · Post by **Lazarus** » 2006-01-17 04:34pm

About the X-Wing books, after the Thrawn trilogy they were the first books I read when I was about 9, and for character stuff I preferred the wraith squadron ones, various hilarious Hobbie-Janson-Wedge moments, notably Yub Yub Commander etc

My only problem with them is the minimilism, and the stupid beefing up of starfighters capabilities. If they were really that good why would anyone have capital ships...
And yes Corran Horn does get kinda annoying after a while...
I generally love anything from the Imperials perspective, avid Empire fan that I am, so despite several folks panning Remnant from what I've heard it should be great when I get to it. I'm on Balance Point at the moment. I'm about half way through, and someone said before it was pointless, and if it doesn't pick up or go somewhere by the end I'll probably agree.