Crazy_Vasey wrote:Allston and Denning have both written excellent EU novels. Stover's book was also extremely well written IMO but I don't agree with some of the plot points regarding the force in there which mars my enjoyment a little.
I also think that Stackpole could write an excellent EU novel if they forced him to not use Corran Horn and do a little research outside playing TIE Fighter.
Kathy Tyers didn't do too bad a job in TaB even if the plot is ridiculous IMO, shame that in BP she fawned over Mara so much it put me off the novel.
Greg Keyes work was also fairly enjoyable even if it suffered from uber kid syndrome. The Solo brats really get on my nerves sometimes.
Alliston writes great character driven stories, as does Stackpole, Kathy Tyers' TaB pissed me off to no end. Zahn on the other hand writes grand space opera's which is what I find interesting. He has plots, within plots and subtext, I guess that is what apeals to me more.
Crazy_Vasey wrote:Depends really, KJA's novels I think are better for children than adults. I quite enjoyed them when I was younger but now I just can't bring myself to read them.
I have to admit that the first EU 'novel' I read was "The Glove of Darth Vader" and it was nearly five years before I read another. I can't actually remember which was the first EU novel I read that I actually enjoyed, it was a long time ago now
KJA work is just plain bad. I read it in year 8, and I hated it then and I still hate it now. It's for mental retarts. Do you know how fustrating it is to read 800 pages of drible and then have a finished ending with the superman effect? I mean what was the point of me reading the first part of the trilogy to begin with?
Carzy_Vasey wrote:But still everyone was cacking their pants at the thought of facing Thrawn again even though he was a complete non threat.
And the problems of the OR were almost completely manufactured by Palpatine's manipulations behind the scenes. It worked fine for thousands of years before he sunk his claws into it. That guy played everyone magnificently. Everything that happened, happened because he wanted it to do so.
NO! NO! NO! Half were shitting their pants, the other half were calling it a hoax, and Leia and Co were trying to figure out what the fuck was going on! Man you admit it's been a while since you read it yourself, but please that was obvious. Palpatine did not create the coruption and the decay of the OR all by himself. It was their to be exploited, and he was the most manipulative bastard there ever was. Remember that Dooku mentioned to Obi-Wan that Qui-Gon knew of the corruption of the Senate? That does not happen because of one man over night, it's something that as a whole goes around. (did that sentence structure make sense?)
Crazy_Vasey wrote:We've seen these people be captured by Vader before and not show any fear towards him, they were fine until they saw Thrawn and then bam they're shitting themselves. I seriously don't think so.
Yes we saw Lando and the Diamilan senator captured by Vader when exactly? You could argue Cloud City for Lando, however I wouldn't say that Lando wasn't exactly scared at the time, hint: Lando always massaging his throat in the presence of Vader.
Crazy_Vasey wrote:However this was just an example of the overwhelming feeling I got from the book that they were building Thrawn up to be more of a threat that Palpatine or Vader. Hell there was even a line in the book where Jade said Thrawn was better at playing the Imperial court than Palpatine. What a load of horseshit, Palpy is the man that played the OR senate like a banjo for over a decade without anyone even coming close to sussing him out.
Yes that line, pissed me off too.
Carzy_Vasey wrote:Anyway have you ever read the Dark Empire sourcebook? That has to have one of the best parts ever where the DE people get their own back on Zahn
Sacralige! No I have read DE, but I didn't like it because it was nothing like what we have seen in the movies. It felt like some fanboy's wet dream.
Crazy_Vasey wrote:So instead of working with the continuity he throws it all aside because he doesn't like it. Forgive me if I don't endorse that. The characters do not belong to Zahn, they belong to LFL and he is obliged to follow their continuity with them. Creating them gives him no more rights to them than any other author especially when near two decades have passed in the timeline bewteen his works.
No, he was
serving continuity by reasoning it away. Like I said had he not deliberately de-powered Luke it wouldn't have been
any fun at all. Like he said, yes Luke can do all these things, however he learns that sometimes he doesn't need to. God why doesn't this make sense to you? It would have been a standard threat of the month, with Luke unleashing some grand new Force power at the last second to save the NR otherwise. What a cop out!
Carzy_Vasey wrote:Dark side training is virtually useless, it teaches you the opposite of everything that a Jedi should be and the fact that it's the only extended training that Jade has had sure as hell doesn't give her authority to lecture Luke.
Yes it does, because even though she was given 'dark side' traing, she never turned. She understood the line and where it was. Luke was given a few months, at best, of training just so that he could be a weapon. Again you are not understanding, or more acurately, seeing the difference.
Cazy_Vasey wrote:His interpretation of the force is also horseshit. Using the force too much turns you to the dark side HAHAHAHA. I guess the old order were all sith in disguise then.
No, that was some of the other's opinions. His interpretation is that when you draw, too much power from the Force, you start to loose it's guidence. One could argue that that was what Yoda meant when he was lecturing about arrogance to Obi-Wan.
Carzy_Vasey wrote:You know Luke having the ability to do that doesn't mean he will do it, he has these pesky things called morals and the jedi code, or whatever they use post ROTJ, to follow and I'm pretty sure that mind raping aliens without need would be a tad dark side.
Which Zahn used in the original trilogy to limit Luke, not the yslamari as some people think. And which has consequently been pissed on by other EU authors, both the morals and yslamari. He had to again introduce the moral dilema in the duology, which he did and you said is wrong. Now I don't understand, because Zahn is saying that Luke isn't using the Force as much as before, so that he can better hear it, you are claiming that Zahn is being unfair to other writters. You suggest that he just say that Luke has morals that would prevent him from turning. Which is what Zahn did in the original trilogy. Make up you mind.
And by the by didn't DE just crap all over your moral argument?
Carzy_Vasey wrote:Well my main issues are with the HoT duology, TTT was just a distinctly average set of books that I really don't care about too much. I don't care for his view of the force at all, in fact after reading interviews with him Lucas has blatantly contradicted his view in the PT. If I can find the interview I'm thinking of here I'll post a link but Zahn pretty much says that a Jedi can't do things like running at superspeed and can only handle a few blasters at once. Heh, better tell Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan that they can't do what they were doing :p
I was hoping you would bring this up, because in an interview with Zahn, he pretty much said that he just watched the movies, to see the limits of the Force. He was once again serving continuity by basing his assumptions on cannon facts, which at the time was the OT, so please kindly piss off with TPM, because obviously it overides him, however had it not come out, his interpretation is the closest to cannon.
Crazy_Vasey wrote:No. He knew about Dark Empire, he had all the info he needed to be compatible with it. Hell all he had to do was mention the emperor reborn once or twice and include Anakin Solo and it would have probably been fine. He decided to ignore it because he didn't like it; that is sheer fucking arrogance and a complete lack of professionalism.
I honestly know nothing about this, as I said all I know was that he was the first to be published. I would however like to know where you are getting all of this info from.