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Best and worse EU authors

Posted: 2010-12-02 10:56pm
by keen320
I thought this might be interesting, because I've seen a lot of complaining about the EU, and I'm wondering which books to be interested in or avoid if I start reading it again. And I figure other people would like to know, too.

Basically, who are the best authors, why, and what are their best books. Maybe mention if they bombed a few or something. And vice versa for worst authors.

I suppose some authors might be both, if they had a few really good books and otherwise sucked, or maybe just slowly stopped writing good material. Or if they got much better, but I suspect there are few of those.

Re: Best and worse EU authors

Posted: 2010-12-02 10:59pm
by Srelex
Zahn, Stover, and Lucano are generally considered the best, with Traviss and Anderson on the other side of the spectrum. I'll let others declare their works.

Re: Best and worse EU authors

Posted: 2010-12-03 07:03am
by Talhe
Barbara Hambly is considered a poor writer; the Callista trilogy, written with Anderson, is considered fairly terrible. Michael P. Kube-McDowell is considered fairly terrible/forgettable as well; Black Fleet Crisis was essentially three story lines that had next to no interaction with each other, especially the Lando subplot.

And of course, Vonda N. McIntyre, author os what's considered the worst Star Wars novel ever, Crystal Star.

Re: Best and worse EU authors

Posted: 2010-12-03 10:29am
by Ted C
Timothy Zahn is widely considered quite good, even if he did rely heavily on the old Star Wars Role-Playing Game for source material. He at least has a healthy respect for movie continuity. He did come up with some really goofy ideas, though, like ysalamiri.

Re: Best and worse EU authors

Posted: 2010-12-03 10:58am
by Eleas
Matthew Stover, James Luceno and Timothy Zahn are generally respected as solid all-around. I am very appreciative of Aaron Allston's work; he's perhaps the most skilled of these authors in terms of evoking an emotional response, and is able to convey believable camaraderie, genuinely funny humour, or gut-wrenching tragedy as the story demands it. Brian Daley did fine work as well, and A C Crispin has written some solid novels, if not brilliant then at least serviceable.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have the literary equivalent of dog turds. While I don't like Black Fleet Crisis, I think it would be unfair to lump Michael P. Kube-McDowell among those; he's not a bad author, he just didn't get how to write Star Wars. Similarly, Michael Stackpole did not set out to ignore canon and write complete vomit, he just didn't learn how to write in the first place and trusted in his enthusiasm to make up the difference.

No, for the worst authors, we have to delve past all those honest but flawed attempts, and head straight into the penumbra. So I shall.



Let's see. First up are none others than that maverick couple of Paul and Hollace Davids. They wrote books like The Glove of Darth Vader and Zorba the Hutt's Revenge, and gave us gems like Trioculus (Palpatine's three eyed mutant son), the "Jedi Princess" Kendalina, and the inspired landmark of Mount Yoda. Before casting about for excuses that might mitigate the awfulness, consider that these delightful little tidbits are what remained after several retcon attempts. I reiterate: the things that remain are the least objectionable remnant of the true Horror.

Vonda MacIntyre was, like Michael P. Kube-McDowell, not really in tune with what made Star Wars what it was. Unlike McDowell, however, MacIntyre used this as an excuse not to add complexity but to graft a cloying fairy-tale Flash Gordon pastiche onto the Star Wars universe. Her gifts to the Star Wars universe are many and delightful: the Codru-Ji, a four armed species whose appearance is otherwise identical to that of humans. The sum total of the Codru-Ji culture revolves around kidnapping, and their children are hairy werewolves!1!!1!, sorry, "whyrwolves." MacIntyre also created a species of centaurs whose primary representative would later be run down and devoured by the Star Wars equivalent of wild dogs.

To these authors we can also Kevin J Andersson (sometimes aided and abetted by Rebecca Moesta). Like the others mentioned above, Anderson displays not the lack of writing ability, but a lack of interest in bothering to write well. "Star Wars is kid's fare," he appears to be saying, "and kids will read anything as long there's guns going pow-pow, recycled locations from the movie, and an awesome boy Marty Stuhero with Force potential to dwarf Luke Skywalker." In the Young Jedi Knights series and beyond, this statement crystallised. It literally became clear that the duo wrote Star Wars books for children as an excuse or perhaps a pre-emptive defence. The sad truth, however, isn't just that Anderson's work is juvenile pap, but that it's derivative, colourless, and uninspired; it did, however, allow him to argue that the books were intentionally made for childish minds. Good strategy, I guess.

Finally, we may add Kristin Kathryn Rush, whose novel wasn't just stupid, but rested on the premise that the entire galaxy was stupid, the heroes in particular. She may not deserve to be lumped in with MacIntyre, Davids and Anderson, but given the turgid mess that was the New Rebellion, I honestly can't bring myself to care.

Re: Best and worse EU authors

Posted: 2010-12-03 01:29pm
by Talhe
Vonda MacIntyre was, like Michael P. Kube-McDowell, not really in tune with what made Star Wars what it was. Unlike McDowell, however, MacIntyre used this as an excuse not to add complexity but to graft a cloying fairy-tale Flash Gordon pastiche onto the Star Wars universe. Her gifts to the Star Wars universe are many and delightful: the Codru-Ji, a four armed species whose appearance is otherwise identical to that of humans. The sum total of the Codru-Ji culture revolves around kidnapping, and their children are hairy werewolves!1!!1!, sorry, "whyrwolves." MacIntyre also created a species of centaurs whose primary representative would later be run down and devoured by the Star Wars equivalent of wild dogs.
How can you forget...

WARU!

Re: Best and worse EU authors

Posted: 2010-12-03 01:43pm
by Eleas
Talhe wrote:How can you forget...

WARU!
After extensive counselling and a battery of custom drugs, I almost managed to. Then you had to ruin it.

Why, you bastard? Whyyyyyyyyyy?!

Re: Best and worse EU authors

Posted: 2010-12-03 02:31pm
by Ghost Rider
I won't do best, because it well worn and sadly is not going to change, SW EU being what it is.

Worst(not worse) has been bandied about and on many I agree, but Traviss takes the lead for only one reason. She used her writings to propogate her personal views of SW. The other idiots? Sure they had certain ideas of how things should work, but they followed a skeletal structure of what the SW universe entailed, none of them tried to put forward

1. Galaxy spanning war as a series of minor brushfire battles with no explaintion of the independent stories that say otherwise.

2. Jedi were in league with Palpatine the entire time, with only the Mando Commandos being smart/saavy enough to realize the dastardly truth! I do not want to try to imagine her vision of what Order 66 was, both the novel and subsequent tales afterwards.

3. Uplift a minor section of an off noted addition to a minor character's background as the third (with vast possiblities as greater) greatest power in the galaxy. Though with this one I will give if someone goes Xizor is pretty much the same idea and that this is not all Traviss, with much of Anderson's Old Republic/Sith War material providing the foundation for this. She can be blamed for the fact she uplifted them to this exalted state after they were reduced to a backwater dumbfuck society.

4. She(as a writer) is right and Lucas is wrong. To this one you have to see many of her minor insert characters claiming that the movies had it wrong(in terms of everything to amount of troopers to size of conflicts to Jedi and Sith actions being different then what was expressed and told to the audience) and that the actions that happened were in fact smokescreens at best, fantasies at worst.

Re: Best and worse EU authors

Posted: 2010-12-03 02:38pm
by Thanas
However - Xizor was only presented in his own opinion as such a great power. He was easily outmaneuvered by Vader and pretty much every other High-Ranking Imperial. He was a glorified mafioso - nothing more.

Re: Best and worse EU authors

Posted: 2010-12-03 06:54pm
by keen320
Eleas wrote: Brian Daley did fine work as well, and A C Crispin has written some solid novels, if not brilliant then at least serviceable.
Hmmmm... I don't know about Daley, but I have to disagree about Crispin. While she may not be really really bad, I thought the Han Solo Trilogy just oozed blandness. The plot wasn't bad, but all the details were kind of mediocre. Of course, I'll concede I haven't read most of the really bad authors, so maybe I'm just spoiled.

Re: Best and worse EU authors

Posted: 2010-12-04 01:50pm
by Baffalo
Ghost Rider wrote:I won't do best, because it well worn and sadly is not going to change, SW EU being what it is.

Worst(not worse) has been bandied about and on many I agree, but Traviss takes the lead for only one reason. She used her writings to propogate her personal views of SW. The other idiots? Sure they had certain ideas of how things should work, but they followed a skeletal structure of what the SW universe entailed, none of them tried to put forward

1. Galaxy spanning war as a series of minor brushfire battles with no explaintion of the independent stories that say otherwise.

2. Jedi were in league with Palpatine the entire time, with only the Mando Commandos being smart/saavy enough to realize the dastardly truth! I do not want to try to imagine her vision of what Order 66 was, both the novel and subsequent tales afterwards.

3. Uplift a minor section of an off noted addition to a minor character's background as the third (with vast possiblities as greater) greatest power in the galaxy. Though with this one I will give if someone goes Xizor is pretty much the same idea and that this is not all Traviss, with much of Anderson's Old Republic/Sith War material providing the foundation for this. She can be blamed for the fact she uplifted them to this exalted state after they were reduced to a backwater dumbfuck society.

4. She(as a writer) is right and Lucas is wrong. To this one you have to see many of her minor insert characters claiming that the movies had it wrong(in terms of everything to amount of troopers to size of conflicts to Jedi and Sith actions being different then what was expressed and told to the audience) and that the actions that happened were in fact smokescreens at best, fantasies at worst.
I will admit that, for a time, I enjoyed some of her work. That is, for about one book. The first book can partially be forgiven in that when things got started, I imagine it was a few minor skirmishes here and there as battlelines were being drawn out. That's how I justified it to myself anyway while sitting in the corner with a bottle of bleach and a funnel trying to get the horrible story out of my head.

So after chlorinating my mind a few times, I thought I was ready for book two. This had the effect of making me want to end my life, but sanity and chlorine poisoning prevented that. Instead, I finished the book and got ahold of her third book. That's why I sometimes post infrequently, for as a ghost I have trouble typing from time to time. Anyway, yes, I certainly agree that some of this shit should be locked in a vault and sealed right next to the piles of radioactive waste they keep somewhere out in Arizona, to discourage anyone from ever finding them and allowing the earth to slowly consume it back into oblivion.

Traviss is the one who made me realize that I must be a masochist to endure reading her drivel, but even I have limits in that I haven't picked up any of her recent books.

Re: Best and worse EU authors

Posted: 2010-12-04 02:02pm
by TOSDOC
I was surprised not to see Kathy Tyers mentioned--I enjoyed The Truce at Bakura. Although a bit cliche and sometimes spread a little too thin, I found the villians engaging (especially the Imperials) and also some nice bits from the supporting cast like Wedge.

Zahn's novels were great, and the Tales series of short stories were good for night table reading too.

Re: Best and worse EU authors

Posted: 2010-12-04 02:16pm
by Talhe
I was surprised not to see Kathy Tyers mentioned--I enjoyed The Truce at Bakura. Although a bit cliche and sometimes spread a little too thin, I found the villians engaging (especially the Imperials) and also some nice bits from the supporting cast like Wedge.
Tyers is a odd case in my opinion. She can write decently enough and can make engaging characters, but her plots are kind of screwy and have holes in them.

Baffalo, you have my sympathy. I was only able to read one of her books, Bloodlines, which was completely terrible. I was unable to finish Sacrifice due to the sheer inanity and idiocy of the plots and plans, and I didn't even attempt to read Revelations.

Re: Best and worse EU authors

Posted: 2010-12-04 02:32pm
by Darth Nostril
I started reading the EU books beginning with the Thrawn Trilogy as they were released (yes I am that old), then avidly buying each new book as it was published.

Dark Saber and Crystal Star ended all that.
After reading those two piles of turgid dog shit I just completely gave up on the EU altogether, I couldn't believe that Lucasarts/film/whatever had given the utter shite that was Crystal Star the stamp of approval.

After reading here that it actually got worse I'm rather glad that I did give up before I insulted my brain even further.

Re: Best and worse EU authors

Posted: 2010-12-04 04:57pm
by Eleas
TOSDOC wrote:I was surprised not to see Kathy Tyers mentioned--I enjoyed The Truce at Bakura. Although a bit cliche and sometimes spread a little too thin, I found the villians engaging (especially the Imperials) and also some nice bits from the supporting cast like Wedge.

Zahn's novels were great, and the Tales series of short stories were good for night table reading too.
TOSDOC, have you read her Tinian stories? I suspect enjoy them. I did - Tyers is much better when writing about her own characters.
Ghost Rider wrote:Worst(not worse) has been bandied about and on many I agree, but Traviss takes the lead for only one reason.
Now I was about to post something glib about how Traviss doesn't even qualify as an author, but the truth of the matter is that I forgot her entirely. Having never read her books, only seen her tantrums, she doesn't strike me as quite real, I suppose.

Re: Best and worse EU authors

Posted: 2010-12-04 05:16pm
by Darth Yan
Luceno, Zahn, Stover are the greatest I've seen, and I'll throw in John Jackson Miller. The guy who did Destiny's way was also fairly good. Anderson's....unusual. When he worked with Tom Vietch on Tales of the Jedi, the story was cheesy, but ultimately compelling. The way he designed Ulic as the delusional fucker who is unaware of just how bad he's fucking things up until he murders his brother was fairly good, and Exar Kun was also fairly engaging. The Maw Installation was a pretty clever device (I mean, a top secret weapons lab hidden in a black hole? That's actually kind of cool.) In short, he does have some genuinely good ideas, but he executes them rather badly. Kyp Durron was somewhat better when removed from Anderson's grasp. Rusch and McDowell are similar in that the ideas they made did have potential, but weren't really executed well (Kueller should have stayed a reasonably sympathetic well intentioned extremist rather then a meglomaniacal mustache twirling bond villian.)

Stackpole is also wierd. He has good moments (Wedge's confrontation with Loka Hask aka the man who killed his parents) but also really crap ones (I swear reading the love lines between Avan and Feylis still makes me want to stick needles into my eyes.)

Salvatore was actaully enjoyable up till the "Mezicanny's wave" bullshit. I could never get through that part without dropping my mouth in sheer shock at the stupidity. and I didn't know jack about physics.

Believe it or not I actually really like Troy Denning. He can take the most vile dogshit and make it somewhat swallowable (Invincible and Inferno). Christie Golden's fate of the jedi books are also good.

Traviss: Even when I was an apolgist for her work it was literarally painful to read her books. Hard Contact is the exception.

Most of them are simply passable in the end; a select few are great, and a select few suck donkey balls.

Re: Best and worse EU authors

Posted: 2010-12-04 08:03pm
by Thanas
Kathy Tyers work is excellent, I always liked it - especially as there were no dumb villains.

Re: Best and worse EU authors

Posted: 2010-12-04 10:24pm
by Talhe
Roger MacBride Allen was fairly terrible, giving us the Corellian Trilogy. Even as a kid, I was dumbfounded at the minimalism and rolled my eyes at the thought of yet another super-weapon that was more powerful then the Death Star. And the main villain? A Han Solo look-alike with a beard. One of the only things Traviss did right was killing the bastard.

Re: Best and worse EU authors

Posted: 2010-12-04 11:04pm
by JME2
Thanas wrote:Kathy Tyers work is excellent, I always liked it - especially as there were no dumb villains.
I always felt she did a great job of nailing the Big 3 and continuing their character arcs where ROTJ left off, especially Leia's confrontation with Anakin's ghost.

Re: Best and worse EU authors

Posted: 2010-12-05 09:10pm
by Ugolino
Even if Tinian's a bit too perfect...

Re: Best and worse EU authors

Posted: 2010-12-06 05:32am
by Darth Hoth
Best author:

Michael Stackpole. Yes, everyone will keep telling me I am insane, and I will keep telling them I, Jedi was awesome. (And, incidentally, it fixed several leftover plotholes from the KJA Jedi Academy books.) It could be called "deeper" writing than most other EU, although this is a highly relative qualifier, and is certainly more entertaining than most.

His X-Wing books were not awesome, but not exactly awful either.

After him, Allston's works are rather good, for all the reasons others have mentioned.

(Both of these authors belong the extreme end of the school of what was known as "minimalism" on this board, back when people still cared about the VS Debate. I am, however, leaving that out of my assessment, here, and judging them merely by their literary merits.)

Matthew Stover wrote an excellent novelisation of the last of the prequels, easily one of the best SW works, period. Vastly better than the film itself. On the other hand, he also wrote the awful Traitor, so his authorship seems to be somewhat hit-and-miss. Or perhaps he was not responsible for most of the plot of that one, seeing how the NJO was (supposedly, at least) written as a collaboration.

Brian Daley's Han Solo books had their moments of awesome, and were more typical poorly defined "soft sci-fi" (in a good way, or so I think) than the rest of the EU. Being very early stories, they are closer to the original film (Star Wars, later also labelled Episode IV: A New Hope) than the EU, or indeed in some ways the sequels themselves. Swashbuckling adventure for the win.

I will add the much-hated (?) Dave Wolverton to this list also. I can understand perfectly why some people dislike The Courtship of Princess Leia thematically, but I found it excellent.

Interestingly, comic books generally seem better than novels. Dark Empire (not, for the most part, its sequels) and much of Tales of the Jedi are often awesome, as well.



Then, other authors were more average, but not bad.

Kube-McDowell is probably my favourite among these, although he suffers from some EU brainbugs. About half of his books were total crap, but those concerned with the "main plotline" were fairly good, and he shows that he actually did some research and has some knowledge about what he is talking about when he describes militaries. (Less so with some other things, but whatever.)

Timothy Zahn's early books are technically good writing as such, but his cluelessness about political and military matters irritates me. (Unrelated to his famous minimalism, in this case; rather, realism issues on how these kinds of organisations work and interact.) Then again, he is hugely praised by others, so perhaps I hold too high a standard in this regard.

His later works tend increasingly towards Mary Sue of/for his pet characters, tendencies of which were already apparent earlier, but forgiveable.

Anne Crispin writes tolerably, some stupid plot devices aside, but caricatures the Empire as dysfunctional super-Nazis. Then again, that is not exactly uncommon in the EU.



As for really bad authors, it would be the usual list already supplied. I would, however, add the infamous (?) Lando Calrissian trilogy by L. Neil Smith. It reads like it was written on drugs, introduces some of the most ridiculous stupidities in the EU (Waru is fairly benign by comparison), and - for me, at least - just feels unreal when read.

As a concluding commentary, I must bewail the lost potential in the "Jedi Prince" books which Eleas referred to. If only those plot lines had not been written out for eight-year-olds, but taken seriously, they would have been utterly awesome. Imagine the visions: A brilliant, charismatic, Force-sensitive evil prince of the Empire - an anti-Luke, essentially - chasing Leia's heart. An insane son of Palpatine locked up in a hidden asylum on a quarantined world, dreaming dark dreams. Luke finding old Jedi relics. An order of Dark Side magi secretly conspiring to assume power, then launching a grand crusade to purify the galaxy, led by a visionary prophet.

Instead it was plothax KJA could only dream about with an utterly vile Gary Sue ten-year-old "Jedi Prince" as the main character, Imperials who make anime villains look smart, and all the OT characters dumbed down to this level. :cry: :banghead: :finger:

Re: Best and worse EU authors

Posted: 2010-12-06 09:38am
by TOSDOC
Eleas wrote:
TOSDOC wrote:I was surprised not to see Kathy Tyers mentioned--I enjoyed The Truce at Bakura. Although a bit cliche and sometimes spread a little too thin, I found the villians engaging (especially the Imperials) and also some nice bits from the supporting cast like Wedge.

Zahn's novels were great, and the Tales series of short stories were good for night table reading too.
Eleas wrote:TOSDOC, have you read her Tinian stories? I suspect enjoy them. I did - Tyers is much better when writing about her own characters.
No, I haven't, but thank you for the tip. I'll have to look them up. :)

Re: Best and worse EU authors

Posted: 2010-12-06 11:39am
by Darth Yan
i have to confess that i liked traitor. dark journey was....ok. It wasn't a masterpiece but it was readable.

Re: Best and worse EU authors

Posted: 2010-12-06 12:05pm
by JME2
Darth Yan wrote:i have to confess that i liked traitor.
Matt Stover wrote it; there's nothing wrong with liking it. :wink:

For me, the top 3 who's style and attention to detail are the best are Luceno, Stover, and Zahn.

Re: Best and worse EU authors

Posted: 2010-12-06 03:17pm
by Darth Yan
I like JJ miller because his work feels like star was. It's light hearted, the protaganist is actually a good guy, and has villians who are scary rather then one note (case in point, chantique, who mindrapes the protaganist, forces him to fight his friend in a battle to the death and mocks him when his friend kills himself, buries her classmates alive, and leaves the protaganist alive purely to drive his friend away, where the protaganist doesn't realized he's been played until it's too late to make ammends. Easily one of the most depressing scenes in the EU in recent memory.)