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zombie84 wrote:I agree. The EU is comprised of shitty sci fi written by equally horrid writers--for the most part at least. Theres a diamond in the rough here and there, but even still, they tend to take Star Wars in silly directions and often reduce the great Star Wars series to the level of Star Trek.

Its a combinations of the sheer quantity of EU that is written, the fact that a lot of times the authors are limited in their narrative (a natural consequence when you have one hundred authors all competing in the same fictional universe) and a bunch of smaller miscellaneous things, like the fact that most of the EU writters just arent very good authors--again, this may be due to the above two facts, but it seems to me that EU often smacks of the same quality (and not surprising, the very same storylines) that you would find in POS fan fiction (hell sometimes even that is better). I guess one of the problems may be that the EU essentially boils down to the fact that its movie-merchandise.

It does anger me when people often argue the crappy EU notions with the same validity as the films, because the EU often carries the series into realms not really meant for Star Wars (i guess its just denial), but what can you expect? At least Lucas can acknowledge that the EU exists in its own seperate alternate universe from the films.

Kitsune wrote:

Stofsk wrote:The Thrawn books are good examples of the EU at work: exciting plot, cool and interesting characters, and a climax that doesn't suck (TLC). Even the duology is pretty good (though not at the same level), and it does a good job of showing just how fucked up the NR is when it comes to inter-faction squabbling.

I must admit I've never read any of the NJO. Can anyone recommend some of the books to read? Which were the best? Which are best avoided?

I stopped after the X-wing series....the Thrawn series was ok in my opinion but not great...Zahn still seems to love the "Super Weapon" just too much. No super, in the sense of something like the deathstar, but high tech solutions to tactical / strategic problems. Truce at Bakura was not very good either although better than Anderson's books.

Stofsk wrote: But what about the NJO? Are there any books in it which don't suck? Or are interesting?

DPDarkPrimus wrote:

Stofsk wrote: But what about the NJO? Are there any books in it which don't suck? Or are interesting?

Not particularly. I curse myself for ever purchasing some of them.

Stofsk wrote: I stopped reading after the X-wing series as well. Y'know what's worse than the "super-weapon-of-the-week" idea which permeates throughout SW EU? The "small-band-of-heroes-that-triumph-inspite-of-overwhelming-odds" idea in the X-wing novels. It just sucks to see a SSD taken down by a fleet of freighters.

SylasGaunt wrote:

Stofsk wrote: I stopped reading after the X-wing series as well. Y'know what's worse than the "super-weapon-of-the-week" idea which permeates throughout SW EU? The "small-band-of-heroes-that-triumph-inspite-of-overwhelming-odds" idea in the X-wing novels. It just sucks to see a SSD taken down by a fleet of freighters.

It's been a while since I read the X-wing books-

-but weren't those freighters loaded down with anti-ship torpedoes?

And weren't the Rogues there in their X-wings.. in fact wasn't there a star destroyer or two there to?

Stofsk wrote:You mean an ISD in the hands of Wedge and his team? I... can't remember that.

Murazor wrote:The Black fleet crisis is some of the best writing I've seen in the EU to the date.
However, this brings something to mind? Where in hell are hiding the fallanasis since the end of the Farlax crisis? At some point, the Vong will heard of them and try to hunt them...

Kazuaki Shimazaki wrote:

Stofsk wrote:You mean an ISD in the hands of Wedge and his team? I... can't remember that.

Sair Yonka's Avarice. Later reinforced by the captured (man, Varrscha was DUMB) Virulence. We can rationalize it all we want and bring it CLOSE to plausibility, but let's face it, it is really fighter-wank stuff on the edge of such totally contradicting the conclusions from canon ROTJ that it can be almost ignored.

Stofsk wrote:I take back what I said about TLC's climax - Thrawn dies in an unexpected and deserved way (which was good), but we read nothing about the battle between the Imperials and Rebels. Both fleets should have been seen duking it out; instead, we get no impression of the conditions in the battle or how desperate it was for either side. It was an "OK" climax, but not really good.

Falcon wrote:

Pacifists in general are willing to make huge sacrifices for peace. For the record, I'm curious, what "massive concessions."

He indicated a willingless to let the Vong have whatever they'd already taken, including Coruscant. What makes him think that after they've rebuilt they won't take the rest of the galaxy and wipe out all the original inhabitants as per their STATED INTENTIONS. That really bugs me.

Illuminatus Primus wrote:Zahn has some great adversion to using maximalist combat and to allow some confrontations to be demonstrators of the n squared law, rather than bizarre psychological clarvoyance and trickery by Thrawn or whomever.

Stofsk wrote:

Illuminatus Primus wrote:Zahn has some great adversion to using maximalist combat and to allow some confrontations to be demonstrators of the n squared law, rather than bizarre psychological clarvoyance and trickery by Thrawn or whomever.

I liked Zahn's books because they were interesting and gripping - well, to me at least, some find them boring. But he just can't write battles, for some reason. His clarvoyance and "artistic insights" were a cool character trait, but his minimalist fleet battles were a big let down.

Is there any book in the EU which has some nifty fleet combat, on the likes of which rival or exceed the Battle of Endor (the novelisation of which kicks arse)? The Stackpole X-wing series doesn't have it, just a bunch of flyboys taking down SSDs and so on, the BFC series had some, but the final battle ended with a bizarre plot contrivance that annoyed me. I guess the NJO would have some fleet battles - are they any good?