So I finished Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Abyss the other day. While I enjoyed it, I have some majors issues about the current state of the Expanded Universe series of books. To me, the New Jedi Order series was tops. Nothing beats it. It was a fast moving series with an awesome set of villains and each book was filled to the brim with new characters and locations. In other words, it was a Star Wars book. If there was one problem with the series, it was that it ran for a few too many books, and it seemed like they almost lost hold of it. But it was still an amazing series and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
It seems like they learned their lesson though, and their new game plan is to limit series to nine books, rotating between three authors. The Legacy of the Force series did it, and now the Fate of the Jedi series is doing it. In theory this works great. It forces the writers to plan out their series from beginning to end, and proportion the amount of storytelling they get to do to end up where they need to go. Great. But the major problem with this is that their story cannot sustain nine books. With the Legacy of the Force series, they developed a great story that would make an excellent trilogy of movies, not nine books. The stories are getting too stretched out. I read Star Wars because I want a Star Wars movie in my head. I want a fun, planet hopping adventure with all the characters I know and love. But since they’ve already determined the full storyline and where they want to go, they have to limit themselves to what they do so they can last nine books. Each book has one set of characters going to one planet tops, and the other three quarters of characters haven’t left Coruscant in three books time. What’s up with that? Oh, and C3PO and R2D2 are hardly in them at all.
But what am I saying? If twenty books was too many for New Jedi Order, why is limiting it to nine a bad thing? You see, since they didn’t limit themselves to nine books, it was as if every time they wrote a book for New Jedi Order they were thinking “Okay, what can we do now?” “What is this book about?” Rather than “Okay, let me get to the next plot point.” So each book of the New Jedi Order series was it’s own movie that still pushed things along. These days it seems like they’re planning too much. Like they don’t want to get ahead of themselves. Meanwhile, pushing the story along, only serves to create more opportunities for storytelling. So I implore the writers of these books to open themselves up a bit more. Think of a storyline for your book that is fun and exciting, holds a self-contained plot, but still pushes the overall arc along.
I think series can be a bitch for both authors and readers. Often they go on longer than they should or have unnatural restrictions which ruin the story. I’m not familiar with series that are written by many different people (except for Nancy Drew) but it seems like it would be harder to force the story into a certain number of books (or drag it out) instead of letting it take it’s natural course. Hopefully they’ll listen to you Craig.
Have a great Christmas Eve. I am on a quest to go and buy dessert because I’m too unmotivated to make one.
I read two book so far this winter break and loved them both. So read The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides and The Girl in the Flammable Skirt by Aimee Bender, then review those.
And I’m on chapter 3 of The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold.
I can’t comment on the Star Wars Universe of books, but I can wish you and the Puntabufamily a very Merry Christmas!
Speaking of book series, my friend Melissa Scott is co-authoring the first in a series based on the Stargate: Atlantis show. It’s due out in the spring, I think. I never watched the show, but I’ve read some of her other novels and she’s good.
Hope y’all have a very merry holiday. David and I are off to a late matinée of Avatar in 3-D, then having dinner in.
I am really into Chuck Palahniuk at the moment! I read “Snuff” earlier this year, “Rant” last week and now I’m about halfway through “Pygmy!” Soooo goood [aka very effing out there]!
I haven’t read any of the Star Wars books. Or watched Babylon %. So I’m 2 for 2.
Craig – Merry Christmas Eve!
Everyone else – Happy whatever!
Um, Babylon 5, rather. Time to cut back on the peppermint schnapps. Wheeee!
First off, let me one again follow the orders in the header to this comment section.
Craig, you’re a massive dork!!!
Ok. With that out of the way.
Personally I’ve never gotten into spin-off novelizations. Movies made from books, good. Novelizations of movies, meh. Novelizations INSPIRED by movies? Double-meh. I think in my life I only ever read two Star Trek books (plus all the James Blish novelizations of TOC). Plus the only novelizations I think I would like to read from Star Wars are ones that figure out a way to un-ruin what George Lucas did with the 3 prequels. Ugh.
I do find myself oddly intrigued at the thought of Stargate Atlantis novelizations. I miss that show. I haven’t quite decided whether I’m going to like Stargate Univere or not.
As per usual, I love the way Josh and Enrico bop in here and talk about something completely unrelated so they can talk about something they’re interested in that isn’t science fiction
.
And with that, Merry Christmas, Craiggerslezeserslesez & to all of the extended bloggie/twittery clan
Mary Christmas?
A very Merry Mary to you too, Enrico
And to the rest of the Puntabugang 
Justin, if you’re going for books that un-ruin the prequel trilogy, Revenge of the Sith’s novelization is very very good. You should give it a shot.
Bryan – you mean they actually motivate Annakin’s conversion to the Dark Side, instead of having him essentially look psychotic? One moment “no, you can’t kill him — you have to let the Senate try him” — next moment “I think the Jedi are evil” … *ARGH*