Han Solo's 11, by Zahn? I'm in.
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That sounds awesome! Can't wait!
Choices Of One, Timothy Zahn.
Mild spoilers, which I'll mark.
This takes place not too long after Allegiance, so it's basically the same cast of characters - our heroes, Mara Jade, and The Hand Of Judgment. It feels almost sequel-ish. That's fine with me where The Hand Of Judgment is concerned, as they've become one of my very favorite (if not the favorite) parts of the Zahn universe.
Great story where they are concerned. I can't say enough about how much I like the depth of their characters and story. As I've said many times before, they read like a film.
Our heroes are well-written, as usual, and are separated for much of the story. Again, very Empire-like in the multiple stories. It's Luke\Han\Leia|Hand Of Judgment\Mara focused, with Vader and Thrawn playing minor roles. I thought that helped the novel. They've had plenty of the spotlight over the years. Our heroes should be primary in this, as it's their formative years. 3PO and R2 are nearly non-existent, which I prefer. Wasn't a big fan in 1977, not a fan now.
Spoiler;
My one complaint (again) is the perfection of Mara Jade as a character. I had a hard time connecting with a character who can do no wrong and has every answer to every situation. With no sense of danger, tension, or weaknesses, she's not terribly interesting. I love her in the five Thrawn novels and feel she's one of the deepest and most interesting characters ever associated with Star Wars.
In those novels, she's fallible, realistic, and complex - and because of that - very interesting. These two more recent novels lack her groundedness and her weaknesses, both as-written and as a character.
She is somewhat more grounded in this story compared to Allegiance, but not much. That comes later in her life - as it should.
I again very much like that our heroes are in the vein of 1977. They were interesting in their naivete' and unfamiliarity with each other, and themselves, both in the original 1977 film, as well as these two novels.
For me, this book is a great Hand Of Judgment story, so it ranks high in my Star Wars universe. For the coming months, I'm first taking a break fron Zahn and going to my yearly March read of Splinter Of The Mind's Eye. It coincides with Spring Training every year, so it's time. It's huge in my world and feels like an old friend. In fact, I started it last night. It's Star Wars uncontaminated by Lucas, so it's a nice way to refocus.
If Zahn doesn't have his Solo's 11 novel completed for a while, I'll probably be taking a Star Wars break for the rest of the year. If I go back to any at all, it will probably be Heir To The Empire.
Summer is also Indiana Jones time, so I have a couple of those to read first.
Glad you're finding EU that suits you Anchorhead. I haven't read some of the titles you've reviewed, but I'll try to find them since they have your endorsement. You've probably read more EU than me at this point!
I'm reading 'Darth Plagueis' right now (not sure whether this was discussed before. It's VERY good....
....Although it suffers from one flaw that effects most of the EU, which is the shoehorned references to other SW places, species, and characters at every turn. I'm about 1/3 of the way through, and most of it thus far could be called the biography of Darth Plagueis. Well, you could read biographies of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Steven Spielberg, and George Lucas....and the four of them COMBINED would drop fewer location and people's names than this thing does. The references are always so damn SHOEHORNED, ya know? Just trying too damn hard to give the impression that it's all one perfect, cohesive fictional universe.
But most of the time (not all, but most), the quality of the story and prose are greater than that persistent annoyance.
For my fan documentary, I created a CG model of the book (with bump maps, binding, back cover, and everything). I'm pretty proud of how it turned out. In animation, I think it looks a touch better.
Apart from this, I'm skimming through good ol' 'Shadows of the Empire'. Not perfect - yes, Dash Rendar was an eye-rollingly cheap imitation of Han Solo - but it's still a fun, easy read....without the slavish conformity to the messy EU leviathan that increasingly infects newer books.
I'd love to make a fan version of SotE - probably a CG cartoon. But that's way too much work, and just one little dream project of mine.
These guys have apparently been working on a free adventure game based on SotE for a while. Their sample screenshots look pretty good, actually. Apart from Joel McNeely's fantastic soundtrack, I never really checked out SotE, so I'm kinda looking forward to the release of this.
Wow, that's very impressive stuff there! Thanks for the link, FrederikOlsen. I'll make sure to leave a comment praising his work.
zombie84 said:
Glad you're finding EU that suits you Anchorhead. I haven't read some of the titles you've reviewed, but I'll try to find them since they have your endorsement. You've probably read more EU than me at this point!
Man, I can't even imagine. Truthfully, you were one of the big pushers of the EU for me (knowing what I do and don't follow). If my reviews end up helping, it's just me returning the favor.
doubleofive said:
Han Solo's 11, by Zahn? I'm in.
Sounds great! As long as they introduce a prophecy, a new faction of the Sith we've never heard of before, and lots of talking about the Force, I'm all over it!
^LOL
DavidBrennan said:
I'm reading 'Darth Plagueis' right now (not sure whether this was discussed before. It's VERY good....
Why is the Emperor kneeling to a giant mad pickle?
That's no pickle! It's....
Where were you in '77?
TheBoost said:
DavidBrennan said:
I'm reading 'Darth Plagueis' right now (not sure whether this was discussed before. It's VERY good....
Why is the Emperor kneeling to a giant mad pickle?
The same reason Vader kneels to a giant made prune:
....And the same reason American men pretend to cry and bow their heads in prostration when the military is being shown at sporting event Jumbo-trons: as a gesture of subservience and inferiority.
No, actually, Darth Plagueis is of the "Muun" species (as seen by the Banking Clan character in AOTC and ROTS). But I have no idea what the deal is with the scale of his head in that painting. It is definitely weird.
Just watched The Clone Wars episodes with Darth Maul.
I'm still not totally hot on Maul being back, but if he had to come back, that episode on the garbage planet was really really cool. really.
I like the idea of the Emperor moving his consciousness from clone to clone, or potentially another individual. It fits in with the dark side philosophy of defying the force (using the force in a very Daoist sense). Obi-wan tells Luke in the beginning of Heir that he has already stayed too long. The Jedi accept death as part of life.
DISCLAIMER: Holy shit! I just realized that what I wrote above could be used by prequel lovers to justify some of the horrible ROTS dialogue! I do not, in any way, condone ROTS dialogue. END DISCLAIMER
I also like the Sith saying "May The Force serve you well" that was introduced in KOTOR as a nice expression of their philosophy and counter to the more familiar Jedi refrain. Disappointing that this was never uttered in the prequels.
“It is only through interaction, through decision and choice, through confrontation, physical or mental, that the Force can grow within you.”
-Kreia, Jedi Master and Sith Lord
theprequelsrule said:
I like the idea of the Emperor moving his consciousness from clone to clone, or potentially another individual. It fits in with the dark side philosophy of defying the force (using the force in a very Daoist sense). Obi-wan tells Luke in the beginning of Heir that he has already stayed too long. The Jedi accept death as part of life.
DISCLAIMER: Holy shit! I just realized that what I wrote above could be used by prequel lovers to justify some of the horrible ROTS dialogue! I do not, in any way, condone ROTS dialogue. END DISCLAIMER
I also like the Sith saying "May The Force serve you well" that was introduced in KOTOR as a nice expression of their philosophy and counter to the more familiar Jedi refrain. Disappointing that this was never uttered in the prequels.
I agree. I wrote my Death and the Force and the dark side stuff here:
http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/The-Emperors-New-Clones/topic/11008/
(especially post 5)
IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!
"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005
"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM
"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.
theprequelsrule said:
Obi-wan tells Luke in the beginning of Heir that he has already stayed too long. The Jedi accept death as part of life.
DISCLAIMER: Holy shit! I just realized that what I wrote above could be used by prequel lovers to justify some of the horrible ROTS dialogue! I do not, in any way, condone ROTS dialogue. END DISCLAIMER
I really enjoyed the Star Wars Tales comics. There was one in particular, post TPM but before AOTC came out, that took place in the Dark Times. It had Quinlan Vos dodging some bounty hunters and a young Han Solo looking for treasure. Turns out that treasure is Quin's lightsaber and he nearly gets killed by the bounty hunters but somehow Han saves his ass.
I know such a story would clash with a lot of people here, representing a miniaturizing of the SW universe, but personally I thought it was really cool. Do take note that this story was done in an era before the EU started making everyone connected to everyone to absurd levels like they do today.
Also it was made during that space of time where barely any Jedi survived Order 66. The only story I know of besides this one that had surviving Jedi was the one with the Dark Woman getting killed by Darth Vader. But then after ROTS came out, it seemed like every EU Jedi except the one's killed in the movie survived.
Too many stragglers for my taste, though I did really enjoy the story where Darth Vader takes on like 10 Jedi all at the same on Kessel, it was so great to see Vader using strategy since he receives quite the beatdown taking them all on.
My favorite moment in that story is when he get's his arm cut off, which was holding a cortosis blade (cortosis short circuits/disables lightsabers) and since his lightsaber is still disabled, he uses the Force to impale another Jedi with the aforementioned sword arm.
http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20081017044516/starwars/images/thumb/3/3a/Arana_Death.jpg/537px-Arana_Death.jpg
Akwat Kbrana said:
From Timothy Zahn's facebook page:
Timothy Zahn said:
While most of the details (including the title) will have to wait until an official announcement is made (which I'm told will be sometime next month), I *have* been authorized to release a few tidbits concerning my now-officially-approved upcoming Star Wars novel.
First, it will be be set in the classic movie era.
Second, it will be an Ocean's Eleven-type heist caper.
And third, it will star everyone's favorite smuggler, Han Solo.
Sounds great! I like the idea of a non-"epic" heist type novel set in the Star Wars universe. With any luck, it'll exclude any Sith lords/Death Stars/space battles/etc. Also, here's hoping it won't include Thrawn or Mara; as much as I love those characters and as much of a Zahn fan as I am, nevertheless I feel that he tends to go overboard on including them wherever possible.
Gee, I wonder where they got that idea from? ;)
Where were you in '77?
Finished my yearly reading of Splinter Of The Mind's Eye. Still dig it. Always love to go back to the simpler days. Thinking I was through with Zahn EU, I decided to go on to some Star Trek while I wait for Solo's 11.
Looking through my books, I noticed I'd somehow skipped over Survivor's Quest. For the life of me, I can not fathom a reason why I would have done that. ?? What the Hell, man? I completely forgot about it. Anyway, I went right to it.
No Spoilers.
I'd mentioned in my last two reviews how much I really dug the Hand Of Judgment characters, as well as how uninteresting Mara Jade is as a 20-year-old. Zahn does a great job with her as a young woman, if you dig a Pixeleen sort of girl. I do not. At all.
She's way too perfect and awesome. As a 20-year-old, with no flaws and no sense of danger, she comes across as very shallow. I gave her a pass because the rest of the story from Allegiance and Choices Of One was so well done.
Survivor's Quest, however, takes place several years after the Thrawn novels and deals solely with Luke and Mara after they've been married a while. Mara as a 40-year-old is infinitely more interesting than Mara as a 20-year-old. Honestly, I'm shocked at just how different Zahn writes her, considering it's the same person - a person he invented, no less.
Anyway, I'm several chapters in and really liking it. It's a Luke and Mara story, with the rest of the original Star Wars characters getting little more than a brief mention. That's very refreshing to me because Zahn really has room to stretch his Luke & Mara muscles.
They're both done really well and I'm very glad to be able to get back to deep and interesting adult Mara. Full review in a week or so.
I always enjoy your reviews, Anchorhead. They make me want to find more time to really read Zahn. I'm also glad you got to enjoy SOTME once again. That book really has a fascinating nostalgic quality to it...things were different back then.
I read more about Zahn's next "Scoundrels" (Han's 11). Him, Chewie, Lando, and a bunch of new people. Awesome.
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What I like about the EU? For starters, that it gives Star Wars an opportunity to go on and on! Also like my username says one of my favorite characters is Exar Kun. Personally I like the big book series like the New Jedi Order, LOTF and FOTJ, though many people dont like the 9 book series but I kinda like them! it gives the main story a good time to evolve also its like a good rpg with alot of side stories.
New But Fresh to the Force!
Exar Kun was relatively well done. Especially in light of everything that has come since. :)
IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!
"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005
"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM
"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.
I like Kun, as well. He was a little 2-dimensional, though.