Second Worst Minimalist Author

[PainRack]

Well, after his rambling that Nomi Sunrider was weak since she did not follow the Dark Side (or whatever), that does not exactly require any superhuman powers of deduction.

Right. And in the novel, he was the main lead that discovered this. I'm sorry, but that's classic Mary sueing.

Illuminatus addressed this; it was only after the plot was resolved, a kind of petty symbolic revenge against Lord Kun for the beating he took at his hands.

And how is that not Mary Sueing? His actions should had no effect whatsoever on the main plot, yet, it is key and highlighted in the story.
I Jedi suffers badly from this because it was supposed to be written from the perspective of Corran Horn, in the first person narrative, and he's an egoistic person as benefits Stackpole ideology of what makes a good pilot.
That in no way changes the fact that it is Mary Sue.

Well, he also managed to clean up some of the stupid shit that KJA wrote up in it, so is the insertion really such a bad thing?

So, if my character manages to fix Janeway idiocy in Voyager, that makes my character not a Mary Sue?
Corran Horn lectured luke skywalker on the Dark Side. He presents himself as an authority on various matters due to his Corsec and grandfather against established authorities in the canon timeline, as well as areas of expertise where canon heroes are weak in(security). If Corran Horn hadn't been a main character in the X-wing novels, this would clearly had been a Mary Sue from fanfiction.

[Darth Hoth]

Right. And in the novel, he was the main lead that discovered this. I'm sorry, but that's classic Mary sueing.

What, is it Mary Sueing that Corran is merely not as mindbogglingly dumb as all the other named characters who cannot make two plus two equal four in their heads under KJA's laws of illogical writing?

And how is that not Mary Sueing? His actions should had no effect whatsoever on the main plot, yet, it is key and highlighted in the story.
I Jedi suffers badly from this because it was supposed to be written from the perspective of Corran Horn, in the first person narrative, and he's an egoistic person as benefits Stackpole ideology of what makes a good pilot.
That in no way changes the fact that it is Mary Sue.

That was switching the argument fast. First, he was wanked because he torpedoed Lord Kun, then he was a Mary Sue because he blew up a temple out of spite, with no practical benefit whatsoever.

So, if my character manages to fix Janeway idiocy in Voyager, that makes my character not a Mary Sue?
Corran Horn lectured luke skywalker on the Dark Side. He presents himself as an authority on various matters due to his Corsec and grandfather against established authorities in the canon timeline, as well as areas of expertise where canon heroes are weak in(security). If Corran Horn hadn't been a main character in the X-wing novels, this would clearly had been a Mary Sue from fanfiction.

He lectured him that the Jedi way is not the only way, that it was crazy to let the mass murderer Kyp Durron go free and that it was going to be a huge propaganda defeat for the Jedi. These are points any ten-year-old would bring up after reading the Jedi Academy trilogy, and I for one was practically astonished that no one commented on them till IJ. I am sorry, but not being rampantly stupid and morally bankrupt like a KJA-written doofus is not being a Mary Sue.

[American Infidel]

*Wolverton: The Millennium Falcon killing an Executor-class Super Star Destroyer. With common ordnance, it is not even a moronic KJA superweapon. (The Courtship of Princess Leia)

The SSD Razor's Kiss and the SSD Iron Fist were destroyed before The Courtship of Princess Leia during the Wraith Squadron books, IIRC. Also, The Falcon's missles only blew out the bridge and killed Warlord Zhinge and dropped the shields on the Star destroyer( ). The Hapan Battledragons were the ones trashing the rest of the ship. I think that's right.

[Darth Hoth]

*Wolverton: The Millennium Falcon killing an Executor-class Super Star Destroyer. With common ordnance, it is not even a moronic KJA superweapon. (The Courtship of Princess Leia)

The SSD Razor's Kiss and the SSD Iron Fist were destroyed before The Courtship of Princess Leia during the Wraith Squadron books, IIRC. Also, The Falcon's missles only blew out the bridge and killed Warlord Zhinge and dropped the shields on the Star destroyer( ). The Hapan Battledragons were the ones trashing the rest of the ship. I think that's right.

If I remember my Solo Command, the New Republic task force only believed that they had destroyed the ISSD Iron Fist, when really they had blown up Zsinj's ploy ship, the Second Death, built from the wreckage of the Razor's Kiss for just that purpose.

Yes, they only killed the bridge and thus made the ship helpless (complete shield loss, utter loss of control). That is more or less an effective kill, though, would you not agree? In any case, it is asinine that a single modified freighter would be able to do even that... by sailing under its shields, no less.

All else aside, I found more fun when I re-read it: Apparently the NRN Coruscant Defence Force comprised all of one ISD... That beats even Stackpole by some margin.

[Lex]

but IIRC Zsinj was on a regualr star destroyer while being killed, because the Iron Fist was undergoing repairs?

[American Infidel]

If I remember my Solo Command, the New Republic task force only believed that they had destroyed the ISSD Iron Fist, when really they had blown up Zsinj's ploy ship, the Second Death, built from the wreckage of the Razor's Kiss for just that purpose.

That's right, I had forgotten about that.
In The Courtship of Princess Leia there was a SSD being repaired in a shipyard but I don't believe that it was an active combatant or that Zsinj was on board. When Zsinj's ship was in trouble, two other Star Destroyers came along side to protect it. For a SSD that wouldn't mean shit, for regular Star Destroyers that would help a lot.

Yes, they only killed the bridge and thus made the ship helpless (complete shield loss, utter loss of control). That is more or less an effective kill, though, would you not agree? In any case, it is asinine that a single modified freighter would be able to do even that... by sailing under its shields, no less.

I don't necessarily consider bridge loss an effective kill unless we are talking about Star Trek ships or special cases like the Executor plowing into the Death Star II. Under ordinary circumstances, Star Destroyers should have shield projectors on the bottom and the rest of the ship's crew, armor, and weapons would still be operational despite the loss of the command tower.

The whole SD bridge killing thing is fucking ridiculous, in my opinion. I could accept it once or twice for the Executor or for a bad ass like Han pulling it off; but the bridges get blown up all the damn time, always resulting in some catastrophic development. But yes, it is asinine even when the Falcon does it.

[Darth Hoth]

That's right, I had forgotten about that.
In The Courtship of Princess Leia there was a SSD being repaired in a shipyard but I don't believe that it was an active combatant or that Zsinj was on board. When Zsinj's ship was in trouble, two other Star Destroyers came along side to protect it. For a SSD that wouldn't mean shit, for regular Star Destroyers that would help a lot.

The ship Han blows up in the end is consistently referred to as the Iron Fist; its class is never mentioned, but by the name it is clear which ship it is intended to be.

I don't necessarily consider bridge loss an effective kill unless we are talking about Star Trek ships or special cases like the Executor plowing into the Death Star II. Under ordinary circumstances, Star Destroyers should have shield projectors on the bottom and the rest of the ship's crew, armor, and weapons would still be operational despite the loss of the command tower.

Thanks to Doctor Saxton, this is now so. In the past, not so much, as the assumption was that all shield projectors were in the round modules above the bridge. I believe that fallacy originated in computer games. In the days when CPL was written, the norm was that once a ship lost its bridge, it was helpless.

The whole SD bridge killing thing is fucking ridiculous, in my opinion. I could accept it once or twice for the Executor or for a bad ass like Han pulling it off; but the bridges get blown up all the damn time, always resulting in some catastrophic development. But yes, it is asinine even when the Falcon does it.

Oh, I have no problem with bridge destruction causing momentary confusion, perhaps even to the point of losing a battle. Even the case of the Executor was not so very bad, as the ship had already lost its shields beforehand. What I hate, however, is when an entire ISSD can be written off due to one single lucky shot. This is one thing I am thankful to Aaron Allston for: Establishing that ISDs do have secondary bridges, something that other authors with no sense of scale or knowledge of military matters had managed to miss up till then.

Not that Han's missiles were not plenty wanked even without the Star-Trek-shield-riding stuff, taking off the entire upper half of the command tower...

[DaveJB]

It feels kind of odd voting for KJA, seeing as he's the guy who game up with an nigh-invincible fighter sized craft that wielded more destructive power than the Death Star, but... claiming that building the Executor nearly bankrupted the Empire is one of those claims so stupid that it automatically wins a poll like this.

[Praxis]

Didn't Aaron Allston also write Rebel Dream, Rebel Stand, and Betrayal?

I remember being irked in all of these because he actually referred to turbolasers as actual lasers (i.e. "light") and even stated that they moved at light speed when they had a cruiser fire one from outside a star system.

Also, in Betrayal, he has Wedge's daughter attack a Nebulon-B frigate alone with her wingmate, and takes down the shield generator by firing a single proton torpedo into it DESPITE THE SHIELDS BEING UP so that the next pass can destroy it. He also repeatedly states that a proton torpedo's payload is capable of destroying capital ships.



Timothy Zahn never struck me as THAT minimalist. I don't remember anything really standing out that badly. Although maybe I'm just biased cause I've met the guy

I've been rereading a lot of EU lately, and Aaron Allston has been the one to bug me most. I'd give Stackpole second place though, for how massively overpowered X-wings seem to be and how a Star Destroyer is supposed to be a sizable galactic force for some reason and a large fleet consists of like three of them.

And can I give Troy Denning an honorable mention for The Dark Nest Trilogy, the entire concept of which revolves around rapidly breeding bugs with cheap starships with nuclear-powered rockets supposedly posing a threat to an entire sector fleet?
*facepalm*



But seriously, Allston is the worst perpetrator. As mentioned, he reduces the New Republic's fleet down to almost nothing on every occasion, makes huge planetary assaults into a dozen or half-dozen starships, makes their weapons into "light", perpetrates the "just shoot the shield generators" myth, and turns proton torpedoes into something more ridiculously overpowered than even Kevin J Anderson as hard as it is to believe.

[Anguirus]

I remember being irked in all of these because he actually referred to turbolasers as actual lasers (i.e. "light") and even stated that they moved at light speed when they had a cruiser fire one from outside a star system.

Well TLs clearly aren't light, but I thought the theory was that the non-visible part of the beam propagates at lightspeed.

I think Allston is a very funny author, but he does lose points for his "shield generators on capital ships are super vulnerable" business. I never read Rebel Dream, but that scene you describe is obviously retarded.

[Darth Hoth]

Didn't Aaron Allston also write Rebel Dream, Rebel Stand, and Betrayal?

He did, but I refuse to support Legacy of the Force by buying any of its books, so I could not list whatever errors he makes there.

[Praxis]

What's so bad about Legacy? I just started reading it. It's worse than NJO and full of flaws, but far better than the "Crisis of the week" stories that were going around just prior to NJO that couldn't get the reader to care at all.

[Lord Pounder]

Going to have to vote for Kevin J Anderson here. the Jedi Academy trilogy I could forgive if it was a one of but Darksaber sank to all kinds of minimalism, including a dude like Wedge Antilles use a fecking Frigate as a flagship despite a larger Assault Frigate being part of his fleet, also for the fact that Wedge considered two Frigates and a couple of gunships a fleet in the first place. Don't get me started on the fact that this crappy fleet was written as beating Ackbar, with a full sized Star Cruiser, in wargames.

[Darth Hoth]

What's so bad about Legacy? I just started reading it. It's worse than NJO and full of flaws, but far better than the "Crisis of the week" stories that were going around just prior to NJO that couldn't get the reader to care at all.

You are talking about the comic Legacy, as opposed to the novel series known as Legacy of the Force, right?

[Praxis]

Nope. Legacy of the Force.
I'm not that far into it, and while it's hardly a masterpiece and suffers from a fair share of character assassination, it's still better than Dark Nest trilogy or Crystal Star and other crisis of the week books.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Nope. Legacy of the Force.
I'm not that far into it, and while it's hardly a masterpiece and suffers from a fair share of character assassination, it's still better than Dark Nest trilogy or Crystal Star and other crisis of the week books.

Bullshit. At least Crystal Star or The New Rebellion had some value in their intrinsic plot, or revealing how the galaxy worked. Better yet, if they sucked, at least they were self-contained, instead of butchering the themes and lessons of the films and being generally derivative, wanky pieces of shit. The EU was much better when it didn't self-consciously try to be "epic".

[Cal Wright]

I had to pick someone, and so help me God my hatred for Kevin J Anderson grows more everyday. When I was still actually keeping up with Star Wars EU he was a dominating force in it's architecture. Just utter bullshit at every turn, squandering the best parts of the timelines, leaving us now only with strung out unimaginative crap that claim even more bullshit.

Sirs, I believe he is the source of our downfall. That mother fucker is our Senator Palpatine in all of this.

[Ghost Rider]

Dude, the thread is dead.