CRUCIBLE

This post has been edited by Darth Lex on Aug 13 2012, 02:02 PM

Roqoo Depot spotted some interesting additions to the RH catalogue.

Trying to emphasize this book is passing the torch...

It says it's the first book after the Fate of the Jedi series... isn't that Mercy Kill?

Also this part made me laugh:

They promise they won't take it back this time. No, really. For reals and everything.

Oh, Cubicle.

I think we need to make Cubicle the new cantina comic...

I remember this line. They promoted NJO this way when it started.

They promise they won't take it back this time. No, really. For reals and everything.

*Sigh* One of these days, I really hope that statement turns out to be true. I want the Big Three to remain in the mix, in the background, involved somehow - but not the centerpieces they've been for more than a generation. C'mon...

OOH! OOH! Can I do that? I LOVE that idea!

This post has been edited by oldjedinurse on Jul 18 2012, 05:57 AM

My favorite claim is this one:

Apocalypse
Vortex
Allies
Abyss
Outcast
Inferno
Exile
The Swarm War
The Unseen Queen
The Joiner King
The Unifying Force
Force Heretic Remnant
Destiny's Way
Rebel Stand
Star By Star
EOV Rebirth
Recovery ---- (looking more than a little bit like Crucible)
Balance Point ---- (ditto)
AOC Jedi Eclipse ---- (think that is Han)
AOC Hero's Trial ---- (ditto)
Vector Prime ---- (technically the 90s)

Yeah because these don't count since ALL three weren't together?

Specs

This post has been edited by jaynasolofel on Jul 18 2012, 09:57 AM

I remember this line. They promoted NJO this way when it started.

They tried, but the fans wouldn't have it. I think it was a panel a few years ago where someone asked why the Big Three weren't retired, and pretty sure it was Shelly who said they did try it with NJO but the fans protested. I don't think the fans were ready after NJO, but I think they're ready now. I know I am.

Anyway, I like the setup of the new big three being Jaina, Jag and Ben.

Well Shelly's response about the fans wanting the Big Three has been one of the key points I have stressed from the start with Fangirl. She was only listening to an extremely small sliver of the fandom. If she were right on her judgment calls Star Wars books with the Big Three should be NYTBSL #1, which the books used to be. To top that off Shelly admitted on Fictional Frontiers recently that she doesn't really listen to fans but creates books she'd like to read. From a storytelling perspective it makes no sense to regurgitate heroes over and over; that's why comics end up rebooting. Characters can only be taking so far until they end in a characterization vortex and the fandom reaches an apocalypse.

Well, I agree with you on that. I think the Big Three should have been eased back into Heroes Emeritus status a long time ago. But then A Certain Series screwed things up so badly and the cleanup job was needed. Now, they're in a perfect position to do that.

Although, I will say I saw a lot of chatter on forums after NJO where people did not want the Big Three to retire. Now that's hardly scientific, but it was when discussion forums where way more active than now. The majority of posts I saw were about keeping Han, Leia & Luke active.

I hope Crucible is a great adventure. The Big Three deserve to retire with a bang. They've earned it.

Shelly has about as much credibility in her read on what the fans wanted from the EU as the CEO of Eastman Kodak has about the market for cameras. Sales speak for themselves.

I agree that the landscape was very different in 2003 than it was in 2008 or 2012. For example, killing Luke in Vector Prime would've been a huge mistake -- at that point, there were only about 20 novels with Luke in a starring role. Now, there are over 60. How many more times can you go back to that well before it's completely dry?

Along similar lines, there have been a lot of bad inferences drawn from fan feedback over the last ten years. For example, when fans said that LOTF had been "too dark" they didn't only mean "no Solo-Skywalker deaths" -- but that's how it got interpreted, and we ended up with Luke in exile, ten thousand Sith, a Hellspawn villain unleashing volcanic eruptions on Coruscant, a Sith girlfriend for Ben Skywalker, Jedi Masters killing each other in political squabbles, a completely pointless one-book J/J breakup... But hey, no one in the clan died!

Same problem at the end of the NJO. In fact, I'd be on board for saying the Big Three shouldn't have been "retired" at that point if it meant "only ever appear on a handful of pages in each book ever again." But "passing the torch" doesn't mean that. It means give age-appropriate plotlines to 70 year olds. If Luke were in a wise old Yoda role, Leia were in a wise former statesman role, and Han was a crafty old grandpa, they could still have major roles in the books -- they just wouldn't be carrying the story. Especially not in the action sequences.

The best-selling books in the EU in the last few years have had the Big Three nowhere in sight -- TFU tie-ins, TOR tie-ins, and Plagueis.

^This. And I can't tell you how much it's irks me to see some fans interpreting passing the torch to be killing them off (a lot of things on discussion forums irk me these days lol). They don't need to be killed off any more than Yoda needed to be killed off in ROTS.

And I totally agree with you, Lex, on how misinterpreted the fans outcry over killing off characters was. LOTF amply demonstrated how much it was misinterpreted, but all in all I really enjoyed FOTJ. I've got no issues with how it ended.

TOR tie-ins: I'm not even going to go there lol. I've spent too much time on the SWTOR forums, reading too many posts that said the Bane Trilogy or Defiance were the best books evah! Um, go read the ROTS novelization by Matt Stover or the Thrawn Trilogy and get back to me.

This post has been edited by Synlah on Jul 18 2012, 04:18 PM

Shelly has about as much credibility in her read on what the fans wanted from the EU as the CEO of Eastman Kodak has about the market for cameras.

As I am starting to get used to my Kindle I just gave Zahn and Allston a nice chunk of money this afternoon. Stackpole got a bit too. Figured it's worth mentioning since these are all my second copies, the physical versions are all in storage and I miss them enough to buy them again digitally.

All the other authors can kiss my arse, I regret buying most of their books the first time. Crucible isn't going to get touched with a ten foot pole and Denning will never see another dime of my money. I didn't buy the so-called J/J wedding book, I'm sure as hell not going to fall for anything else ever again.

Well said, Lex. And I think they could have written books with the Big Three as 70 year old mentors and of course Luke could go all-Yoda-in-AotC, which was one of the most mind-blowing moments ever. You know, lull us into forgetting that he was so awesome then spank some bad guy bootie in a climactic scene.

Synlah, I remember the chatter and the problem as I saw it was that it wasn't representative. TPTB never looked at fanfic discussions - and the two didn't really intersect or agree. Nor did that take into consideration fans who just aren't obsessive enough to get on a fanboard in the first place, which there have to be plenty of. A lot more people just read boards than ever participate too.

So of those who have read the Bane trilogy and declared it the bomb, how many do you think have read anything outside of that? Hands down RotS, Traitor and HttE beat Bane. Not even in the same league. I'm curious because I don't go to SWTOR threads that often.

Well, it is the SWTOR forums and they are all pretty much gamers so yeah. I'm just pointing out that there are a lot of fans who entered the EU via the Bane or TOR books and think they are just the bomb. The difference between fans introduced via games and fans who started out with the movies and then started reading the EU is this; the gamers are used to outrageous godmod powerplayers with little character development. So for them the Bane trilogy is super fantastic literature <insert eyeroll here>. Honestly, half of me thinks the games should not be canon at all. I mean, you get something like the Emperor as a character, and then you get gamers who don't get how awful a bamf 9 year old Sith lord canon character is for the EU.

This post has been edited by Synlah on Jul 18 2012, 07:01 PM

If someone pitched a movie about some 60/70/80-somethings going on an adventure that changes everything... you'd have The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

I agree though that passing the torch does not have to mean killing the Big Three off. It also doesn't mean that they shouldn't be in books at all or relegating to an one-page mention. I would love to see the wise-Yoda-Luke. And Han and Leia are two of my favorite characters. I definitely want to see them still playing a part in stories.

Honestly, half of me thinks the games should not be canon at all. I mean, you get something like the Emperor as a character, and then you get gamers who don't get how awful a bamf 9 year old Sith lord canon character is for the EU.

Crossing over for a moment here, I've noticed gamers aren't the best literary critics. They get stuff in the world they play in with the characters they are involved with and they love it, the actual quality of writing/plot/characterization doesn't matter much.