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Inspired by the minimalism thread.

Since Karen ”Three Million!” Traviss obviously takes the first price, who would you consider the second worst minimalist?

A brief, somewhat incomplete list of the worst offences by respective author:

*Allen: The New Republic’s entire fleet being in dry-dock during the Corellian Crisis, necessitating the loan of four cruisers from a pitiful Outer Rim world with half a billion inhabitants to send up against Corellia, a Core World. (Corellian Trilogy)

*Allston: The Empire (well, Zsinj) taking the trouble of penetrating the New Republic military network and labelling an Imperial world safe, then using the advantage to lure all of one squadron of fighters there to be destroyed; The New Republic holding Coruscant with seventeen major capital ships and the Empire’s defences at Kuat being even worse. (X-wing series “Wraith Squadron” books)

*Anderson: Sith Empire of beasts and spearmen threatening the Galactic Republic; The single Koros System threatening the Galactic Republic; Construction of a single Super Star Destroyer supposedly being close to bankrupting the Empire; Super Star Destroyer being destroyed by single TIE bomber exploding in hangar; Diversity Alliance terrorist group fielding a fleet of modified freighters capable of challenging half the New Republic’s hyperspace-capable forces. (Tales of the Jedi series, Darksaber, Young Jedi Knights)

*Macan: Ruusan battle with swords and shields; Lowering earlier established numbers for Brotherhood of Darkness by several orders of magnitude; Having a single X-wing instakill a star destroyer. (Jedi vs Sith, Vader’s Quest)

*Rusch: ‘Droids manufactured at a single plant being sabotaged as enough of a threat to cause “a holocaust unequalled in galactic history”; imbecilic Darksider demanding that the New Republic transfer power to him when his power base is all of one system; Jawas being transported across space to provide Stormtrooper armour for evil forces since they are unparalleled salvagers. (The New Rebellion)

*Stackpole: General minimalism in space battles; ultra-minimalist Coruscant defences in the order of low single-digit star destroyers/battle stations numbers; Wookiees can kill Lambda-class shuttles by throwing rocks. (X-wing books and comics)

*Tyers: Ssi-Ruuk empire with many dozens of millions of lizards on their capital planet being a major threat to the Empire; The Empire consisting of several thousand worlds; The Planetary Governor of Nowhereistan reporting directly to the Emperor; The Rebels considering Bakura, a super-unimportant planet with half a billion inhabitants, essential. (The Truce at Bakura)

*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)

*Zahn: Gross minimalism on innumerable counts, especially noteworthy being ultra-poor defences on Coruscant and the “Katana Fleet” fallacy; General incomprehension of scale on military matters and especially grand strategy/economy; Grade school boys cracking top-priority Imperial codes in two months’ time. (The Thrawn trilogy, Hand of Thrawn duology)




There are admittedly other notable minimalists around, such as the old West End Games authors, Michael Kube-McDowell who wrote the Black Fleet books, and even George Lucas himself for Return of the Jedi. The New Jedi Order is notable for at least trying (though still failing) to grasp the scale. But I think I have listed most of the worst ones here. Should I have forgotten anyone, please mention him.

Darth Hoth wrote: *Allen: The New Republic’s entire fleet being in dry-dock during the Corellian Crisis, necessitating the loan of four cruisers from a pitiful Outer Rim world with half a billion inhabitants to send up against Corellia, a Core World. (Corellian Trilogy)

Not so bad since Luke and Ackbar "semi" reveals that such an act was inspired by politics more than actual military necessity. If necessary, Task Force A could had been committed from the start as opposed to the Bakuran task force. Stupid or overwhelming arrogrant, but this IS the New Republic we're talking about.

*Allston: The Empire (well, Zsinj) taking the trouble of penetrating the New Republic military network and labelling an Imperial world safe, then using the advantage to lure all of one squadron of fighters there to be destroyed; The New Republic holding Coruscant with seventeen major capital ships and the Empire’s defences at Kuat being even worse. (X-wing series “Wraith Squadron” books)

More the focus of the novels, so...... Not that bad.

*Anderson: Sith Empire of beasts and spearmen threatening the Galactic Republic; The single Koros System threatening the Galactic Republic; Construction of a single Super Star Destroyer supposedly being close to bankrupting the Empire; Super Star Destroyer being destroyed by single TIE bomber exploding in hangar; Diversity Alliance terrorist group fielding a fleet of modified freighters capable of challenging half the New Republic’s hyperspace-capable forces. (Tales of the Jedi series, Darksaber, Young Jedi Knights)

Definitely Second Place Winner. Let's not forget a single Death star in the hands of a Hutt being another galaxy threatening castrophe. There's also the fucking myopia that KJA has on Jedi.

*Rusch: ‘Droids manufactured at a single plant being sabotaged as enough of a threat to cause “a holocaust unequalled in galactic history”; imbecilic Darksider demanding that the New Republic transfer power to him when his power base is all of one system; Jawas being transported across space to provide Stormtrooper armour for evil forces since they are unparalleled salvagers. (The New Rebellion)

Stupidity is not equivalent to miminalism IMO.


How come no mention of the Crystal Star?

Well, it was a while (a long while) since I read that book; come to think of it, I only did it once. Ever. So I do not really remember what the minimalism in it was; that was not really a galactic threat, was it, merely some Dark Lord wannabe acting strange on a planet where the heroes just happened to be?

Darth Hoth wrote: *Tyers: Ssi-Ruuk empire with many dozens of millions of lizards on their capital planet being a major threat to the Empire; The Empire consisting of several thousand worlds; The Planetary Governor of Nowhereistan reporting directly to the Emperor; The Rebels considering Bakura, a super-unimportant planet with half a billion inhabitants, essential. (The Truce at Bakura)

It was essential only so that they could point at it and say "we can act as a government too" by responding to their request. The rebels only sent one ship to Bakura.

And most of the galaxy-conquering lizards scenes were from the leezard perspective, it was quite clear that they had no idea what they were getting into; Palpatine wanted their soul-transfer technology. Presumably he would have killed them right after he got it.

And the governor explictly didn't report to the Emperor, he sent a petition to the Emperor, because he was getting no attention from regional authorities. Ever heard the phrase If only the Führer knew this...? People will quite often see the ultimate leader as being above the petty idiocies of local government, same thing here. The only questionable issue is how the governor knew that Palpatine was at Endor, in order to send his probe there. I don't recall if that was addressed.


Painrack: Wasn't Crystal Star the one that had Palpatine giving out worldships as party favours? To such relative nobodies as his chief prosecutor, no less?

I have to go with Stackpole. Others are guilty of more grievous minimalism, but Stackpole is easily the most prolific EU author of the selections, which leads me to question whether or not a lot of minimalism would even exist if he hadn't set the standard for it in the first place.

Stackpole and Anderson should both be awarded 2nd worst doofus for being terrible minimalists.

NecronLord wrote:It was essential only so that they could point at it and say "we can act as a government too" by responding to their request. The rebels only sent one ship to Bakura.

They appeared to at least consider its industrial resources valuable. Then again, considering how minimal the Alliance was, I guess that would not be minimalism in and of itself...

And most of the galaxy-conquering lizards scenes were from the leezard perspective, it was quite clear that they had no idea what they were getting into; Palpatine wanted their soul-transfer technology. Presumably he would have killed them right after he got it.

The worst of it came from Dev Sibwarra, who knew at least a smattering of what the galaxy was like; in real life Europe or the USA, even a first-grader should not think that, say, there only live a couple of hundred people in his home country. And if I recall correctly, the "Ssi-Ruuk could have conquered the galaxy" fallacy was repeated in later, third-person sources (at least one Essential Guide, I believe; I shall check later).

And the governor explictly didn't report to the Emperor, he sent a petition to the Emperor, because he was getting no attention from regional authorities. Ever heard the phrase If only the Führer knew this...? People will quite often see the ultimate leader as being above the petty idiocies of local government, same thing here. The only questionable issue is how the governor knew that Palpatine was at Endor, in order to send his probe there. I don't recall if that was addressed.

It appears that was because the Endor battle group was the closest naval force to combat the invasion, which is unreasonable minimalism in and of itself, even if he did not usually report thusly. Whether this has since been ret-conned or not, that is how the novel portrays it.

Painrack: Wasn't Crystal Star the one that had Palpatine giving out worldships as party favours? To such relative nobodies as his chief prosecutor, no less?

I believe it was.

Darth Hoth wrote:The worst of it came from Dev Sibwarra, who knew at least a smattering of what the galaxy was like; in real life Europe or the USA, even a first-grader should not think that, say, there only live a couple of hundred people in his home country. And if I recall correctly, the "Ssi-Ruuk could have conquered the galaxy" fallacy was repeated in later, third-person sources (at least one Essential Guide, I believe; I shall check later).

He was also a crazy indoctrinated fucknut. There's white supremasists living in cults less than a hundred strong who really think they'll one day take over, too.

It appears that was because the Endor battle group was the closest naval force to combat the invasion, which is unreasonable minimalism in and of itself, even if he did not usually report thusly. Whether this has since been ret-conned or not, that is how the novel portrays it.

No, it's directly sent to the Emperor in the novel. Whom somehow, governor nobody knows was at Endor.

NecronLord wrote:He was also a crazy indoctrinated fucknut. There's white supremasists living in cults less than a hundred strong who really think they'll one day take over, too.

Yes, but do they think the country is as smallish in numbers as they themselves? I am not talking about his vast overstatements of Ssi-Ruuvi power, but of his vast understatements considering the size of the Empire ("a dozen thousand worlds" or somesuch, I believe).

No, it's directly sent to the Emperor in the novel. Whom somehow, governor nobody knows was at Endor.

Perhaps I was wrong, then. I shall have to re-read the details carefully.

Darth Hoth wrote: Yes, but do they think the country is as smallish in numbers as they themselves? I am not talking about his vast overstatements of Ssi-Ruuvi power, but of his vast understatements considering the size of the Empire ("a dozen thousand worlds" or somesuch, I believe).

So he's seen pictures of the senate, and thinks one senator = one system. It's not that hard to get that impression, in universe, if you're sufficiently sheltered.

Perhaps I was wrong, then. I shall have to re-read the details carefully.

The Knight Hammer wasn't destroyed by a single TIE bomber exploding in its hanger, it was destroyed by ALL the fighters in a hangar detonating their bombloads against the rear wall, which was apparently pretty close to a reactor.

CaptainChewbacca wrote:The Knight Hammer wasn't destroyed by a single TIE bomber exploding in its hanger, it was destroyed by ALL the fighters in a hangar detonating their bombloads against the rear wall, which was apparently pretty close to a reactor.

Apparently the Imperial Remnant engineers had taken lessons from Trade Federation engineers.

And despite my intense dislike of The Crystal Star, it isn't too bad on minimalism scale: the Emperor had awarded a relatively useless and weak "public official" a worldship as a gift and the book avoided the clichéd problem of New Republic inefficiency and weakness and focused on a rather small group on both sides. It was my impression that Lord Hethrir and his goons knew that the instant when Republic would learn of them they would be crushed.

My own vote goes to Kristine Rusch and the idiotic Kueller Crisis.

Anderson, by far. (Of course, I also blame him in large part for making it seem as if every Imperial officer is either retarded or ultra bigoted, but that's got nothing to do with minimalism.)

Desdinova wrote:Anderson, by far. (Of course, I also blame him in large part for making it seem as if every Imperial officer is either retarded or ultra bigoted, but that's got nothing to do with minimalism.)

"Either or"? He usually made it both...

My money's on the Kueller gal, or whoever thought the Darksaber would be a credible threat. If its just a giant flying superlaser, did it occur to the huts that someone might shoot at it FROM BEHIND?

Roger McBride Allen. I think there's a reason he hasn't done any more novels after the Corellian Trilogy.

Centerpoint Station was a pinnacle of stupidity for reasons all its own.

There is minimalism, and then there is minimalism wankery. While other authors have devised stupidly low numbers for their stories, only Michael Hackpole does it in order to make Mary Sue Squadron the most respected twelve fighter jocks in the galaxy with "Bacta War" being the pinnacle abomination.

I would say KJA has far more greivous literary abortions, but he is not the chief minimalist.

Not that he's anywhere as close to Saxton is when it comes to sensible numbers, but Wolverton is a lot better than the rest of these guys. In The Courtship of Princess Leia, Han thought that the one ISD he was given to settle a planetary dispute was nothing. If that were Zahn, Stackpole, etc. that one ISD would have been treated as this super-battleship. Later in the same novel, Zsinj reinforces his fleet at Dathomir by casually calling in dozens of ISDs.

"minimalist" is a term more applicable to fans than authors. In practice, if one has actually read a vast majority of Sw novels (including those mentioned) they'll know that you'll always find good things as well as bad (minimalist) things. Zahn has some very minimalist work in h is nvoels, but in the past I've found a good many useful tidbits as well, and for the most part (aside frrom his mary sueing his characters, and he's hardly the only SW author to do that.).

Stackpole's chief problem was he decided to litearlly translate the Rogue Squadron novels into space combat, ,verbatim. Yes, Corran "I'm not dead yet!" Horn was a horribly written and contrived character, but no worse than Thrawn or Kyp Durron, and in a way the Rogue Squadron novels were fun from a "pulp/soft-sci fi" perspective.

MacBride Allen. Tyers, Wolverton and KKR aren't so much bad or minimalist authors as they're kinda bland and unermarkable. I'll throw Vonda McIntyre in as well. There were elements that were good, elements that were bad.

I will ad that MacBride Allen did have a number of interesting technical tidbits in his novels that I found interesting and useful, so I tend to forgive him some for the bland execution of what coul dhave been a promising story (And some of it was downright WACKY - KJA Wacky.)

And I have to admit I actually Liked courtship. It had alot of elements you could associate with Star Wars. It wasnt the BEST novels, but I love the characterization of Han Solo and there are parts of the novel that actually made me chuckle (C3P0 making up Han Solo songs and trying to help him court Leia, his uncovering Han's past as bineg part of a pirate murderer, etc.)

Alston's worst crime, IMHO, was that he started out like STackpole, copycatting the X-wing/TIe Fighter games, although his later novels (esp the NJO ones) made up for that. Even his LOTF work isn't really *bad* - he writes well, but even a good writer will fail if you give him shit to work with. Same with Denning (Again some people hated Dark Nest, but I liked it. Not his BEST work, SBS and TG are that, but its cecrtainly quite good.)

KJA is horrible from a writing perspective, bar none. His stories were bland, his dialogue was cringe-worthy, and his execution was mostly lousy. Darksbare was better than the JAT, but not really by much. On the other hand, he also had some interesting technical tidbits in his novels (not the Sun Crusher, mind.) And his work with the YJK series was in some ways quite passable.

Kube-McDowell shoudl be on the list if you want to include "minimalism" - he made a New Republic of a mere 11,000 worlds, which is a total BLIP in a galactic scale, and he plagued us with that horrid "Luke finds his mother" story. That said, he had some interesting technical aspects to his book, ,and the other two stories were rather enjoyable (I liked the Lando subplot, for example.)

Even Traviss, despite her egotism, blustering, dishonesty ,and Mando-wanking has provided some interesting tidbits in his writing, even post HArd Contact. Its not fair to the author to ignore that just because she proves to be an arrogant twit most of the time.

The poitn being, if you look hard enough you'll always find some "flaw" with an author's wirting that will qualify as "minimlaism" or something abusrd. I frankly don't even like all the stuff Curtis decided to cram into his books to be perfectly blunt, ,but if the author is acceptable (or in my mind, even passable) I can tolerate it. I rather dislike the idea that we condemn an author just because he might have not gotten everything we think should be in Star wars exactly right.

I'd have to say Zahn, precisely because of them all his writing tends to be the best, therefor people tend to more readily accept what he says since it seems to jive well with the overall story. His minimalism seems more ignorant than intentional, so there isn't an instinctive sense of "wrong" when reading his works. It isn't until you put the book down and think, "Wait a minute; two hundred fucking obsolete Dreadnoughts can turn the tide of Galactic War? WTF?"

Darth Hoth wrote:

NecronLord wrote:No, it's directly sent to the Emperor in the novel. Whom somehow, governor nobody knows was at Endor.

Perhaps I was wrong, then. I shall have to re-read the details carefully.

Upon checking, the novel appears to at least strongly imply that there are no other Imperial forces closer to Bakura than the Endor flotilla.

Truce at Bakura paperback p. 15 wrote:"Evidently the Empire didn't anticipate any competition for Bakura." Leia's voice sounded disdainful. "But now there's no Imperial fleet to help there. It will take the Imperials weeks to reassemble, and by then this Bakura could fall to the invasion force"

Connor MacLeod wrote:Kube-McDowell shoudl be on the list if you want to include "minimalism" - he made a New Republic of a mere 11,000 worlds, which is a total BLIP in a galactic scale, and he plagued us with that horrid "Luke finds his mother" story. That said, he had some interesting technical aspects to his book, ,and the other two stories were rather enjoyable (I liked the Lando subplot, for example.)

Ugh. I had completely forgotten about that. But you are right, he should have been an option of his own.

Even Traviss, despite her egotism, blustering, dishonesty ,and Mando-wanking has provided some interesting tidbits in his writing, even post HArd Contact. Its not fair to the author to ignore that just because she proves to be an arrogant twit most of the time.

The poitn being, if you look hard enough you'll always find some "flaw" with an author's wirting that will qualify as "minimlaism" or something abusrd. I frankly don't even like all the stuff Curtis decided to cram into his books to be perfectly blunt, ,but if the author is acceptable (or in my mind, even passable) I can tolerate it. I rather dislike the idea that we condemn an author just because he might have not gotten everything we think should be in Star wars exactly right.

Well, yes. Few of the books are all bad, and the worst ones are not so for purely minimalist reasons. Although I would consider your assessment of some authors a little generous, I essentially agree. But some instances of minimalism are still worse than others.

The Crystal Star miminalism was suggesting that Hethir and Watto combined could somehow make a galactic impact OTHER than the kidnapping of Leia children?

PainRack wrote:The Crystal Star miminalism was suggesting that Hethir and Watto combined could somehow make a galactic impact OTHER than the kidnapping of Leia children?

Were they supposed to? Admittedly, I have never re-read the book, but my understanding of it was that Hethrir simply intended to sacrifice the Solo children so that Waru would grant him extradimensional powers.

Zahn's overcome some of his minimalist tendencies in his later works.

It was a tie up between Stackpole and Anderson, but I called out Stackpole for his fighter wank (I would have put in Allston, but he sort of shaped up with Legacy of the Force). I still hate the Paolini level hack Anderson more.