Worst EU Author

[Darth Fanboy]

Here are the nominees:



Kevin J Anderson

Atrocities: Darksaber, Jedi Academy Trilogy, numerous comics,

Gary Stu: Kyp Durron

Notable Abominations: Giving Crix Madine a horrible Death, creating the incompetent Admiral Daala and perpetuating her use. Fashioning Kyp Durron as the EU's first "emo jedi". Also desanctified the DUNE novels. Helped allow the idiotic IG-88 story in Tales of the Empire to partly make it into the canon.

Michael Stackpole

Atrocities: Rogue Squadron, Wedge's Gamble, Krytos Trap, BActa War, Isard's Revenge, I Jedi, Dark Tide Duology

Gary Stu: Corran Horn

Notable Abominations: Must have really loved watching ANH, because in his novels a squad of X-Wing fighters can defeat just about any obstacle they come across, including Super Star Destroyers. Stackpole also treats us to some of the most bizarre combinations of interspecies relations including a one night stand between his own Gary Stu and an otter-like Selonian. Stackpole's creation Corran Horn was also a Jedi of some reknown and even beat Luke Skywalker in a sparring duel at one point.

Barbara Hambly

Atrocities: Children of the Jedi and Planet of Twilight

Mary Sue: Callista

Notable Abominations: Each of her two novels are considered strong nominees for "worst star wars book of all time." They also combine with "Darksaber" to form the "Callista Trilogy", which did nothing except give Luke a story about a crazy ex-girlfriend so he could better relate to the guys at the cantina I guess.

Karen Traviss

Atrocities: Hard Contact, Triple Zero, True Colors, Odds, A Practical Man, Legacy of the Force novels, and more utter shit on the way

Gary Stu: Boba Fett, Republic Commandos, and anything Mandalorian

Notable Abominations: Devolved Star Wars to trek levels by inventing a ridiculous sounding Mandalorian language, is the first EU author to utilize a character from the films as her own personal Gary Stu, has degraded the ssize and scope of the Clone Wars to cover her own mistakes on the size and scope of the war. Has threatened to "rip out the tracheas" of her detractors. May have shown her deformed breats to one "Dark Moose" in exchange for his help in spreading her unholy works. Appeared to have some potential at first before revealing herself as a complete hack.

Other

Please Specify and complete a profile.

Also please feel free to add anything to my litte profiles that I may have missed.

[Darth Fanboy]

Honorable Mentions:

Vonda McIntyre: The author of The Crystal Star only has the one terrible novel to her name and even though it is her only one it still is just a speck of shit in the pond compared to our top 4.

Troy Denning: Saved by his previous good works, including the first book of the NJO that didn't suck. However, he is on probation after writing the crapfest that was The Swarm War Trilogy.

John Ostrander: Not an author per say, but in his capacity with Dark Horse Comics he has unleashed the horrible stain/Moutain Dew Commercial Edgy Jedi that is Quinlan Vos. Deserves a spot on this list for not having the character die as depicted in the Ep III Graphic novel.

[Anguirus]

I can't fairly say Traviss because I haven't read her stuff. Stackpole is guilty of some sins, but I think he does write some interesting characters (including Horn).

Anderson, well, there's nothing else really to say. But on rare occasions, his mostly pathetic work has entertained me, though I add the proviso that I read his stuff as a child.

Hambly...I only read a sample chapter of Children of the Jedi and it was horrible. Planet of Twilight, though...I read it because it was at a library and I was bored. It was godawful. Leia spends the whole book drugged-up, Daala finds her ex-boyfriend and lives happily ever after, and basically the book felt entirely unlike Star Wars.

So Hambly wins (or rather, loses).

[The Grim Squeaker]

Kevin J Anderson

The Man raped, desanctified and violated Dune. I don't give a shit about Traviss, since I've never read her stuff, but I've read all of KJA;s and it was my second experienc ein the SW EU after Zahn, he tainted my perceptions!

[montypython]

I would have to say more than one, as some have contributed their own BS to SW as noted in the OP.

[Androsphinx]

Hambly is just a terrible writer, but at least they managed to get rid of her fairly quickly. KJA, on the other hand, just kept on going - you didn't even mention the "Young Jedi Knights" abominations, nor that his books seem to be much more prominent and have much more impact than Hambly.

If you ignore Traviss' RL nonsense, her books aren't actually terrible. Stackpole has no idea of scale or realistic tactics, but if we're honest neither do a lot of the movies, so I'll let that slide.

[Havok]

I was under the impression that Travis's stories and writing aren't all that bad, it is just the scope and numbers, plus her reaction to the fans that point out her mistakes, that makes everyone hate her? Is she actually a bad writer?

[SilverWingedSeraph]

I was under the impression that Travis's stories and writing aren't all that bad, it is just the scope and numbers, plus her reaction to the fans that point out her mistakes, that makes everyone hate her? Is she actually a bad writer?

I believe its also the excessive Mando-wankery that people loathe about her writing.

[Ghost Rider]

It's hard because it literally comes down to really two retards.

Now let's look at the general group.

1. Stackpole. Other then Corran Horn, and some weird wanking of X-Wings, at least his book...sans Corran...had some appeal. You could read them and get a decent story. Really I cannot say that much about the rest.

2. Troy Denning. His earlier stuff was very readable and I can forgive some of his latter shit.

3. John Ostrander. While I don't care for his Clone War stories or Legacy yabbering, at least I can derive something of enjoyment if for nothing else then a laugh.

4. Middling yabbos. These are the Hambly's Vonda and the rest I care little for. One shots and glad for it.

So it's down to Karen Travis and Kevin J Anderson.

For Travis, most do not get it is not just her scale, it literally is her rewriting of the saga. It takes a particularly fucking stupid retard to thinking the Jedi are mindless spoonbenders, and that they CONSPIRED with PALPATINE to continue with the Clone Wars. Her latter material is near mindless Mandoa Wanking that make Ronald Moore's hardon for Klingons look normal

And in the other corner?

Kevin J Anderson. With him we have the worst abomination yet. Daala was peanuts, the Sun Crusher was annoying, Kyp is nothing but a wanna be Luke. No with KJA, we have the uber gifted SOLO CHILDREN. Fuck all the rest, the Solo kids got their infectious start and a great deal of useless background because of this cock sucker.

Between the two?

I give it to KJA, because I enjoyed Traviss' first book versus nothing of KJA's library of shit.

[Darth Servo]

Travisty. Everyone on the list seems guilty of minimalism and other assorted stupidity but only Travisty has actually gone to the effort to try and SILENCE critics of her crap.

[Havok]

For Travis, most do not get it is not just her scale, it literally is her rewriting of the saga. It takes a particularly fucking stupid retard to thinking the Jedi are mindless spoonbenders, and that they CONSPIRED with PALPATINE to continue with the Clone Wars. Her latter material is near mindless Mandoa Wanking that make Ronald Moore's hardon for Klingons look normal

Holy fuck, I can't believe I forgot about that!

And in the other corner?

Kevin J Anderson. With him we have the worst abomination yet. Daala was peanuts, the Sun Crusher was annoying, Kyp is nothing but a wanna be Luke. No with KJA, we have the uber gifted SOLO CHILDREN. Fuck all the rest, the Solo kids got their infectious start and a great deal of useless background because of this cock sucker.

Two things here...
1. 2/3rds of them are either dead or going to be dead soon.

2. Someone was going to do it, and they were going to have the Force, and they were going to be major characters as they "aged".

Anyway, I voted for Hambly, because I remember reading her and thinking: "Wow, That sucked."
At least Traviss and Anderson give us something to bitch about.

[Gullible Jones]

Hmm, McIntyre? That's rather interesting, from what I've seen of her she's a damn good writer.

She is kind of heavy on the weirdness though, which I imagine could be a problem when writing for the decidedly unweird SW universe.

[Darth Fanboy]

Hmm, McIntyre? That's rather interesting, from what I've seen of her she's a damn good writer.

She is kind of heavy on the weirdness though, which I imagine could be a problem when writing for the decidedly unweird SW universe.

Crystal Star sucked horribly. I haven't read any of her other works, but I know to know that she should never be permitted to write for Star Wars anymore.

[Battlehymn Republic]

I'm still hoping that Ostander and Legacy will bring us something that is ultimately at least worth a half-satisfying "meh" as a half-reboot of the EU. (I still like to think of it as the Ultimate Marvel of the SW comics). If he does, then it'll redeem him.

How about we use this method to determine this: which of these authors is actually worse than Supershadow? Then there you go.

[Peptuck]

Hambly, definitely. I can handle Hackpole, even with his X-Wing wanking, and Anderson I ignore, and Travissty I just laugh at, but Hambly made me wonder why the hell I'm even reading the fucking book.

The one good thing about Hackpole is that he created the series that would eventually be taken over by Aaron Allston, who is infinitely superior.

[Imperial Overlord]

Hambly was a terrible choice for a writer of a Star Wars novel. Her other writing is much better, but her style's a poor match for Star Wars.

KJA, on the other hand, rapes everything he's involved with and is guilty not merely of bad story telling but of introducing all kinds of stupid stuff into the Star Wars universe.

[NecronLord]

Traviss got my vote. The others might be poor or terrible writers, but they've never posted blogs about wanting to rip the throats of their critics out.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Hambly wins for me. Planet of Twilight is the only SW book that I've ever been unable to finish.

And I read Crystal Star three times.

I can't vote for Traviss, because I havn't read any of her stuff, but I stopped reading Twilight when they found a Jawa sandcrawler in an asteroid that smugglers had contracted to sort through old junk.

Because only Jawas can do that, apparently.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Between Traviss and Anderson, Traviss. I can't stand that bitch or her sorry existence.

[Lord Pounder]

Traviss is a fucking disgrace. Not only does she ignore the current story arc in favour of her own agenda but she adds retcons which then fuck up the flow of other books. Add this to her childish behaviour towards the fan base who ignore her and you have a writter begging to be on the dole queue. There have been many things said on this thread about Anderson but when did he get anyone banned from Theforce.net of the official site just forhaving a differing opinion.

[Noble Ire]

Traviss nearly ruined the franchise for me, and I still haven't recovered all of my interest in it. If she were a hack to begin with, her obsession with Mandalorians, large-scale revisionism, and extreme resistance to any sort of criticism wouldn't be quite as bad, but I actually liked Hard Contact a lot. It took an interesting perspective on the war and the SW universe in general, and as far as EU books go, its prose, characters, and plot were pretty good. I was really looking forward to the sequel, but then the Grand Army of the Republic article came out, and my hopes for her crashed. Not only did her own refusal to accept or even listen to criticism indicate extreme anti-social behavior on her part, it revealed the flippant disregard among certain echelons of Lucasarts for the input of fans, especially those staff involved with SW.com. Since then, she has only gotten worse, contriving more and more ludicrous "plots" and blatantly anti-canonical story devices to bolster a single, poorly though-out sentence in a years-old magazine article, as well as tapping into her rabid fanbase by spewing out over-used and outright nonsensical "Mando'a" detritus to the exclusion of decent plot-development and interesting detail.

And yet, despite all of this, Traviss seems to be taking on the role of "the EU author" of the day, as Zahn was a decade ago. If that continues, I may end up turning away from the EU completely, or at least the parts of it with which she's involved.

[Warsie]

it's hard to say there really is a 'worse' author, just various styles. I haven't read any of Traviss' stuff so I can't say.

Stackpole and KJA's Jedi Academy and Darksaber were cool to me, but I didn't like how easily Daala got beaten as you all said.

[General Soontir Fel]

And I read Crystal Star three times.

You poor thing.

Now, I did enjoy the Callista trilogy, so I can't vote for Hambly. They aren't the sort of things one enjoys on re-reading. I also like Stackpole, though Allston is much better.

KJA... Ok, he wanks the Solo kids in YJK (though how much of that was him and how much his wife Rebecca Moesta is uncertain), but one issue I take with him is that his stuff just isn't memorable. You constantly have to flip back in the book to see what happened before--his writing just doesn't keep it in your head, and after you're done, you'll be hard-pressed to recall any details within a day. And that is specifically KJA--I noticed the same in the Dune spinoffs, and in his own Saga of the Seven Suns.

Vonda McIntyre deserves to be on the list just for the crime of introducing centaurs into the SW universe.

I'll have to vote for Traviss. Even not taking into account her behavior outside the novels, Boba-wanking (though, granted, she wasn't the first, and K.W. Jeter wrote three whole novels of nothing but wanking Fett), Mando-wanking, the annoying Man'doa "language", giving Fett all good things in life, and killing off Mara Jade Skywalker in the stupidest way possible earns her this. Not to mention that she's the only author among those listed who's currently actively writing in the EU. The others' damage is done. Traviss is still going at it.

Honorable mention: Dave Wolverton and his Star Wars Amazons. Did he write that to pimp his feminist credentials?

[18-Till-I-Die]

Traviss.

I read little of the EU, so i have no idea how bad Stackpole or Hambly is and thus i cant comment.

And, yes, i'm one of those bizarre mutants that actually likes Kevin Anderson's books. Not "like", per se, but i simply dont find them nearly as bad as everyone says. Most are, to me, competent at the very least and hampered mainly by how far he seems to have a stick up his ass while writing. Some people like that sort of thing, i guess i'm one. I dont know. Some people find Furry culture sexy, i dont pretend to understand it, but there you go.

Now Traviss is a whole different story.

First off, lets beat the dead horse: the woman is loony as a toon. She writes with glee about killing her critics, and accuses random people of being "woman-haters" when they disagree with her. She has a persecution complex out her ass, and she practically throws a temper tantrum whenever someone points out even the smallest problem with her logic, or lack thereof.

Besides that, she doesnt just write bad shit, she wants to rewrite the whole series. I seriously cannot even imagine how you could vote for anyone else, because frankly, no matter what you think of KJA or Stackpole's X-wing wankery, God at least they TRIED to make it fit within the SW universe as is...Traviss wants the universe to change, to fit HER fucking stories. The Jedi are conspiring with Palpatine, that's the crux of her idiotic "saga". That is the only argument i really need to win this discussion.

Finally, and this i believe pisses me off more than anything else...more than once Traviss has made comments about how "stupid", "immature" or "uneducated" the fanbase is and how we should never criticise her bullshit. Now, stop me if i'm off track here, but should a woman who actually things that an army smaller than the standing army of WWII Russia can occupy and control an empire with over 1,000,000 planets have the right to tell anyone else they're uneducated? For all of her supposed "knowledge" of military tactics and shit, she seems to have little or no knowledge of fucking math. But then maybe i'm just not seeing the big picture, what with the Jedi-Sith conspiracy and all that.

No probably not.

Travis, all the way.

[An Ancient]

I actually enjoy most of Stackpole's stuff, torn between Traviss and Anderson for the vote.