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Publius wrote:It is simply amazing that she has the temerity to attempt to pass off her complete lack of research and preparation as though it were a good thing. Her protestations to the contrary, it betrays an insulting lack of seriousness about her work. It positively smacks of appalling unprofessionalism.

She's totally serious! She probably spent an entire HOUR writing her fandalorian language, it takes serious effort to add the letter a accompanied by a pair of random letters to the end of every word.

Who could possibly have time to keep continuity in check between other books and the films when you're filling in irrelevant backstory?

Ender wrote:Also, durasteel has a yield stress of only 80 kg/cm^2

She can't be serious?! That puts it well behind your average fucking wood and only slightly above rubber, FFS! Perhaps it's that organic technology showing its ugly face again

Yes, because SW material sciences have never shown extreme, multiple orders of magnitude strengths beyond that of normal steel. Thats how they built gargantuan battleships the size of moons, or destroyers with guns that have multi-gigaton recoils, and weapons able to survive the heat of energies capable of blastng a planet the size of Earth to a handfull of sand in one shot. Ya, rite...

I became a movie purist after Odds. This latest work of art only confirms my choice.

You stupid Talifans! How dare you use common sense to criticise her half-assed creations!

Dooey Jo wrote:

Ender wrote:Also, durasteel has a yield stress of only 80 kg/cm^2

She can't be serious?! That puts it well behind your average fucking wood and only slightly above rubber, FFS! Perhaps it's that organic technology showing its ugly face again

She probably "calculated" that figure the same way she "calculated" the Clone Army numbers.

"I need a figure for the yield stress of durasteel... hmmm 80. That sounds like a lot."

Dooey Jo wrote:

Ender wrote:Also, durasteel has a yield stress of only 80 kg/cm^2

She can't be serious?! That puts it well behind your average fucking wood and only slightly above rubber, FFS! Perhaps it's that organic technology showing its ugly face again

What the fuck kind of stress units are kg/cm^2 anyway? Stress is force per unit area, not mass per unit area. You need a fixed acceleration to convert mass to force. She never even bothered cracking open a high-school science text before doing that. Unfortunately, that's about her typical level of research, since we know she doesn't like to read.

Until Karen Traviss, I always thought that old line about putting a thousand monkeys in front of typewriters was just a joke. But it looks like we're dealing with one of those monkeys now.

Darth Fanboy wrote:Who could possibly have time to keep continuity in check between other books and the films when you're filling in irrelevant backstory?

Shall we be frank? This author has more than enough time to painstaking research while creating detailed backstories in between working a very stressful and intellectually demanding job. This author clearly spent a great deal more time writing a novelization of a story over 10 years old, despite the fact that -- unlike Ms. Traviss -- he is an amateur who does not protest loudly and to anyone who will listen that writing is the source of his livelihood. If one is so proud of one's credentials as a writer, it might behoove one to treat writing seriously.

I couldn't agree more. Publius has produced a sizable amount of fiction in his spare time. It's extraordinarily well researched, he links sources widely separated by publishing date or licencees, and actually allows someone like myself to understand the Star Wars EU. Rather than 'retconning' or inserting his pet projects, his fiction creates an easily-digested synthesis of dozens of relevant sources. Basically, he reads everything so we don't have to, and the standard of his writing is far higher than the pulp fiction nonsense that actually gets published under the Star Wars name.

The writings of Publius are almost the only SW fiction I've read in years that hasn't had me snorting in derision or throwing it aside in disgust. And it's just a hobby.

Darth Wong wrote:What the fuck kind of stress units are kg/cm^2 anyway? Stress is force per unit area, not mass per unit area. You need a fixed acceleration to convert mass to force. She never even bothered cracking open a high-school science text before doing that. Unfortunately, that's about her typical level of research, since we know she doesn't like to read.

Perhaps she thinks the kilogram is used for both mass and force, like the pound sometimes is, even though it is forbidden and stupid to do so within the SI system. Though I guess it's equally possible that she was simply lucky she didn't write something even more non-sensical like Pa/m^2, seeing as the figure she gave (assuming an acceleration of 9.82 m/s^2) is completely ridiculous. But no doubt her avid defenders will claim that the standard gravity in Star Wars is close to a black hole or a neutron star or something...

Lord Poe wrote:http://karentraviss.livejournal.com/324381.html

KT Jelly wrote:Re: Just finished...
karentraviss
2006-09-04 11:56 am UTC (link)
Thank you. I appreciate the kind words.

I took the base from the movies. That's what the Big Three are to me. I think it helped not reading SW books. (Or any books, as you know...) I have to work characters out for myself. That's not to say other writers are wrong, because the fun of the EU is finding the writer who sees what you see in the cast, and we all have different views; but I looked at those characters, ran through the traumas they'd had in the intervening years, and asked: "What's that going to do to them? Who have they become?"

Translation: "Me no read udder books! But me get angwy when peeple don't read mines!"

If you read the quote in context, it doesn't say she does no research. She says that for her, the core concepts of the SW characters are from the movies.


The line "ran through the traums they'd had in the intervening years and asked:" does suggest she taken into account other EU.

Or at least, digested some summaries of the events in other novels.

She says she reads the Holocron. How much in depth information or personality descriptions the Holocron actually provides (instead of just brief summaries of events) is unknown. However, Traviss has been known to bitch about and try to use other people's lack of EU reading against them in debates before (even if they still know what they're talking about, having also read summaries ) which is probably why she's being criticized here.

Lord Poe wrote:http://karentraviss.livejournal.com/324381.html

KT Jelly wrote:Re: Just finished...
karentraviss
2006-09-04 11:56 am UTC (link)
Thank you. I appreciate the kind words.

I took the base from the movies. That's what the Big Three are to me. I think it helped not reading SW books. (Or any books, as you know...) I have to work characters out for myself. That's not to say other writers are wrong, because the fun of the EU is finding the writer who sees what you see in the cast, and we all have different views; but I looked at those characters, ran through the traumas they'd had in the intervening years, and asked: "What's that going to do to them? Who have they become?"

Translation: "Me no read udder books! But me get angwy when peeple don't read mines!"

I think it's ironic with a Star Wars EU author who, as it seems to me, prides herself with not reading any other Star Wars novels.

EDIT: Does it really says "80 kg/cm^2" in the novel?

I'm only halfway through Bloodlines and despite a few minor points (Boba's "A bit of theater, a little public relations" comment on bounty hunting and Jacen pondering what we've all been wondering since TPM -- if Anakin was the Chosen One, why wasn't a Council Master selected for the job?), I'm not too impressed. Let's see:

* Look, I like Fett; always have But the ammount of Fandalorian wankage going on here is getting old (and don't even get me started on A Practical Man).

* Leia is seriously out of a character in this series -- since when the $^&( does she condone assassination?

* Jacen able to time-travel/astral project to Temple Raid -- WTF? For a second, I though Traviss was going to make Anakin's fall predestination. A

Now, granted, I'm only halfway through, so certain issues might be cleaned up, but it doesn't look like it. It's the same problem I had with Dark Nest. We're only two books in and my interest is waning after the first book. So, I'm hopping Denning's got an ace up his sleeve and that Allston's ready to follow through with his second book as well, because if they're not, then this Legacy of the Force is going to be a long read...

Mange wrote:
EDIT: Does it really says "80 kg/cm^2" in the novel?

It's a thought by Leia apparently. Ergo, Leia is an ignorant moron.

JME2 wrote:* Leia is seriously out of a character in this series -- since when the $^&( does she condone assassination?

Well, technically Luke assassinated the Empire's head of state and she thought him a hero for that...

* Jacen able to time-travel/astral project to Temple Raid -- WTF? For a second, I though Traviss was going to make Anakin's fall predestination.

Wait.. what? You mean like the raid in RotS?

Cao Cao wrote:Well, technically Luke assassinated the Empire's head of state and she thought him a hero for that...

Okay, valid point.

Wait.. what? You mean like the raid in RotS?

Yep. Jacen, in an attempt to better understand what made Grandpa tick, utilizes the same methods he used in Dark Nest I (to fix a point in space and time and send a message to Leia a week into the future) to project himself back to the night of the ROTS raid. While Vader can't see him, Jacen is able to sense Vader's thoughts and determine the split in their differing philosophies: Anakin's turn is driven by a fear of loss, Jacen's by a desire for order.

Anyway, I'm all for suspension of disbelief, but this really streaches it to the breaking point....

Jim Raynor wrote:She says she reads the Holocron. How much in depth information or personality descriptions the Holocron actually provides (instead of just brief summaries of events) is unknown.

In other words, she reads the Cliff Notes instead of reading the book, because she's too damned lazy to do her research properly.

JME2 wrote:Yep. Jacen, in an attempt to better understand what made Grandpa tick, utilizes the same methods he used in Dark Nest I (to fix a point in space and time and send a message to Leia a week into the future) to project himself back to the night of the ROTS raid. While Vader can't see him, Jacen is able to sense Vader's thoughts and determine the split in their differing philosophies: Anakin's turn is driven by a fear of loss, Jacen's by a desire for order.

Anyway, I'm all for suspension of disbelief, but this really streaches it to the breaking point....

So much for the days when I could say "At least Star Wars doesn't have time travel."

I'm kinda happy I barely read Dark Nest and do not plan on picking up the new series, i used to be a hardcore 'buy every single Eu book' freak, but lately this kind of stuff disgusts me.

Cao Cao wrote:

JME2 wrote:Yep. Jacen, in an attempt to better understand what made Grandpa tick, utilizes the same methods he used in Dark Nest I (to fix a point in space and time and send a message to Leia a week into the future) to project himself back to the night of the ROTS raid. While Vader can't see him, Jacen is able to sense Vader's thoughts and determine the split in their differing philosophies: Anakin's turn is driven by a fear of loss, Jacen's by a desire for order.

Anyway, I'm all for suspension of disbelief, but this really streaches it to the breaking point....

So much for the days when I could say "At least Star Wars doesn't have time travel."

I suppose the time travel bit is part of her 'in-depth portrayal' of Jacen. Obviously, she's apparently incapable of simply showing us through his actions how Jacen's turn differs from Vader's, so bring on the time travel! Let's see how much LFL lets by!

Cao Cao wrote:

JME2 wrote:* Leia is seriously out of a character in this series -- since when the $^&( does she condone assassination?

Well, technically Luke assassinated the Empire's head of state and she thought him a hero for that...

Luke did not kill Palpatine, Vader did. Besides, self-defence can be argued in Luke's case. Nevermind the fact that Palaptine was...Palpatine. You simply cannot compare the situations.



EDIT: Spoilers: Don't you find it interesting that among the military Pellaeon seems to be the only decent guy?

So much for the days when I could say "At least Star Wars doesn't have time travel."

"Unless you can alter time, speed up the harvest or teleport me off this rock..."

Sorry

VT-16 wrote:

So much for the days when I could say "At least Star Wars doesn't have time travel."

"Unless you can alter time, speed up the harvest or teleport me off this rock..."

Sorry

That was Luke whining. It doesn't mean there are means in the GFFA to do that. Well, the Aing-Ti do teleport as does Palpatine in DE, but time-travel?

Looks like the writers and expose-stuff have run out of plot-points so they do the Trek-thing and bring us time-travel.

I suppose it isn't entirely unprecedented either. In the Exar Kun saga 4,000+ years ago, Kun and Ulic Qel-Droma are fighting, when, from the past, a long-dead Sith Lord communicates to them and legitimizes their Sith-ness. Of course, that was future time travel, of a sort.

FTeik wrote:That was Luke whining. It doesn't mean there are means in the GFFA to do that. Well, the Aing-Ti do teleport as does Palpatine in DE, but time-travel?

Just pulling your leg. ;)

Looks like the writers and expose-stuff have run out of plot-points so they do the Trek-thing and bring us time-travel. :evil:

With all those time travellers running around, they really should have started to call it "Time Trek". And it's such an easy way to have loose, inconsequential continuity, too. :P