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A Rant on the Post-RotJ EU

living_force and

padawanroo asked for this one.

snarkel and any other EU-lovers, I advise you not to read this :)

On the face of it, books about SW seem like a great idea. We loved the films, we want more Star wars, LFL are publishing more Star Wars, yay!
Unfortunately, it didn't work like that. I had been told that Zahn's trilogy was the best, so I started with that. Page one introduced Grand Admiral Thrawn, by having an Imperial officer muse on how much better the battle of Endor would have gone if Thrawn had been in charge. Oh, and he also has blue-black hair, blue skin and red eyes. Which would make him an alien, but in spite of the Emperor's ever-so-evil anti-alien bias, he made him a Grand admiral because he was SPESHUL. I wasn't as adept at spotting Mary Sues then as I am now, but even so I was bored and wished Zahn would hurry up and write about the characters I was really interested in.
Oh dear.
A lot of people don't write good Luke. They remove all his character and make him into Jedi automaton, or they make him a whiny wuss. It isn't just confined to the pro (or 'paid fanfic') writers. Zahn wasn't outstanding in that way.
There was Leia, who seemed to have no Vader issues any more, cheerfully running around with ~~Noggi~~ ~~Hnogri~~ Noghiri and exploiting her father's identity without even a hint of unease. There could be lots of good stuff in the concept of Leia's life being spared because of her hated heritage, but it was all thrown away.

Let's not forget Zahn's other Mary Sue, Talon Karrde, with his niftily named ship and his somehow non evil smuggling and his intelligence network--but he's nowhere near as pervasive as that other creation of Zahn's, Mara Jade. she's like the patron saint of the post-RotJ EU. She gets everywhere: the Skywalker family, the Jedi, the Imperials, the underworld, it's a wonder she's not in Rogue Squadron. She rarely makes an appearance without the adjective 'red-gold' being used somewhere. She didn't erupt into full-blown Mary Sue-ish till VotF, when she started ticking Luke off for all the mistakes he had made, while nobody mentioned her misdoings. Then she married Luke after the famous three-second courtship. Perhaps he was constrained by the small number of women in SW. Anyone less like his 'mother' Beru Lars is hard to imagine, and Leia is always nice to him, whatever she may be to Han.

He also invented the oh-so-convenient Force-kryptonite, the furry lizards with the unpronouncable name. Cop-out. It's much more interesting to give Luke problems that he can't handle with his Jedi powers, rather than simply depriving him of them and reducing him to a normal person again.

Moving on to the rest of the EU. There was the Han Solo Trilogy (Crispin's, not Daley's, which was actually good). Another red-gold Mary Sue. We wanted to read about Han, not an OC who takes up almost as much book space, and has even Winter thinking how wonderful she is.

Then there were the books featuring the Solo children. How many times were they kidnapped? You would think Han and Leia would have got some sort of security after the first time or two.

The Courtship of Princess Leia. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. The only way to explain this book is to assume that all the characters had been replaced by pod people. Leia seriously considering dumping Han for a Fabio lookalike tied to his mother's apron-strings? Luke solemnly advising her to do so. Han shooting Leia and shutting her in a smuggling compartment where she might have suffocated? The ridiculously overdone Force powers? The two, no less, matridominant, mantis-like societies?

Then there was Crystal Star. The writing skills of a Mills and Boon (drugstore) novel combined with the most improbable plot (Waru the Borg Blog, anyone?) and the most precocious 5-year-olds EVAH.

The main problem with the EU is the continEUity imposed on it, which means that every new author is stuck with the mistakes and the pet OCs of all the authors before him. and then adds a few of his own. It's like having to accompodate all of fanon into your fic. There is no overall plan and direction to it, and it ends up being inconsistent both with itself and with te films, especially as regards characterisation.

Once they decided that they should publish a long series of books with an overall story arc, written by a committee of authors to avoid inconsistencies.

We got the New Jedi Order. With aliens who were somehow disconnected from the Force, mass destruction of the GFFA, death of characters canon and EU, disorganisation and more inconsistencies.
They killed off Chewie, comparing him to 'the family dog'. *weeps* None of the EU authors ever liked Chewie or wrote him well apart from Troy Denning. All it takes is to write him from the veiwpoint of Han, who understands what he says. He's an interesting study in alien psychology, totally wasted to turn him into Han's furry, ambulatory second gun. Cop-out, again.

The charcters in the NJO were all reset to their original (and I mean, ANH) types. so Han's a responsibility-dodging scoundrel, Leia's a workaholic icewoman and Mara's a hard-hearted...ahem. No notice was taken of any character development in subsequent books or films. Then, within the series, you get characterisation flip-flops as differnet authors take over. One book Luke's naive farmboy type, the next he's omniscient Jedi Master without flaws, Mara goes from mushy mummy to macho warrior woman. The young Solos develop entirely new personalities to the earlier EU.

Come on, does everything in the GFFA have to happen to Luke, Han, Leia and friends? How many adventures have they had now, 162? Give the poor things some peace. That's one reason why the X-wing books are among the few bits of EU I'll read.

What I would do to 'fix' the EU: Throw it all out and start again. With the new light of the PT, we can have more accurate books and new areas to explore. Don't have one huge story, rather a more fanon-like linking of stories, with alternative happenings and no preeminent canon. And talking of that, don't try to make out that the books have the same or better canon authority as the films.

*uses appropraiate snarky!Luke icon*

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All I can say to all of this is WORD. I hated Mary Sue ... I mean Mara Jade from the very first mention of her. To me the Zahn books are bland and boring. When they first came out I remember being bored with them and feeling flabbergasted that people actually liked them.

Strangely enough I actually don't mind the (Crispin's) Han Solo books though I suspect it's because by the time they came out my expectations were pretty low and the books held my interest as I read, unlike Zahn's books which put me to sleep. (That's not to say much because I can't remember much about them now other than Han's love interest had some sort of drug problem and was a Mary Sue ... but not as much as Mara Jade so she didn't bother me nearly as much ...)

The Courtship of Princess Leia ... *shudders* ... Horrible, horrible book. At one point I threw it across the room in frustration. I still wonder if that writer (can't remember his name now) even saw Empire for he certainly seemed to have NO clue about Han and Leia's relationship.

Brilliant rant. :)

Excellent! Thanks for sharing this.

I personally have no use for most of the EU, especially the post-RoTJ EU. In fact I won't touch those releases with a 10 foot pole. As far as I'm concerned, after I see the blue spirits and the credits come on the screen - the SW Saga is complete for me. I'll just assume the best. ;) The only EU I read is Clone Wars era, much of which I have enjoyed quite a bit.

Br*a has to be the worst EU Mary Sue. Check out

fernwithy's post about Mary Sues from a few days ago and Br*a fits the description 100%. I actually liked the way Crispin wrote Han; the problem was that frickin' Br*a got more and more Sue-ish as the series progressed. I was actually worried that Han would say something like, "Boo hoo, I'll never love anyone as much as her!"

I can accept the idea of Han having sex with women pre-Leia but true love? I think not. And shoving Leia's importance within the Alliance out of the way to make room for Br*a was the last straw.

And shoving Leia's importance within the Alliance out of the way to make room for Br*a was the last straw.

Oh yeah. I had completely forgotten about that bit. I think I just kept thinking "she's not as bad as Mara" (who I personally think is the worst Mary Sue ever in any genre or fandom because I loathe her just that much) so she just didn't bother me that much which is odd because Leia's one of my favourite characters in the whole saga. I suppose as I said above though ... I had just lost any expectations for new SW books that when I read them I was I didn't really feel any disapointment or anger over them. It was more like a "well, that was okay ... " reaction than anything else.

Which, in thinking it over, is hardly a satisfying recommendation.

I was actually worried that Han would say something like, "Boo hoo, I'll never love anyone as much as her!"

Heh. Not to mention all the cutesy stunts Crispin pulled with regards to dialogue/actions between Han and Leia: rewriting them slightly and then placing them in her books between Han and b*ia, so as to unsubtly imply that whenever Han said this or that to Leia, he was hearkening back to b*ia and his relationship with her. I believe she even puts an "I love you"/"I know" exchange between Han and b*ia, and of course, pulls the ultimate Mary Sue offense: she kills b*ia off, thus creating doubt as to whether Han would've fallen for Leia if b*ia was still alive, and also to make it appear as if he's on the rebound.

Crispin has since told anyone who would listen that she wants to write Leia's backstory if/when the assignment comes up. It's pretty obvious that what she really wants to do is write more about b*ia, and she's already set the stage to insert b*ia into every corner of Leia's life just like she did Han's. I can see the cutesy stuff she'd do already: b*ia teaches Leia how to fire a blaster. b*ia teaches Leia how to withstand interrogation. Leia is as bowled over by b*ia's beauty and strength as everyone else is, and decides to join the Rebellion solely because b*ia founded it. Oh, and just about every piece of dialogue Leia utters in the movies will be "explained": b*ia throws away some trash and says, "Into the garbage chute, flyboy"; b*ia fobs off an Imperial who makes a pass at her by saying, "Officer, being held by you isn't quite enough to get me excited" -- Leia overhears and thinks they're great lines. And for good measure: b*ia will tell Leia about her first love (not mentioning his name, of course), and Leia will think, "He is so lucky to have loved her. He'll never love another woman so deeply again. How could he?"

Last fall I got to work dragoncon, and I was afraid of being cornered by A.C. Crispin. I'd heard horror stories.

snarkel was kind enough to point me to a picture, and while I already knew she had red hair, I was totally creeped out by these:

What the firetruck is going on here? That's just creepy. Ow.
-

Last fall I got to work dragoncon, and I was afraid of being cornered by A.C. Crispin. I'd heard horror stories.

Crispin is a classless, narcissistic bitch with a creepy fixation on both Han Solo and her Mary Sue b*ia, through whom she lives out her fantasies of sleeping with Han. From what I've seen/heard of her, she is as sweet as sugar pie as long as you are kissing her ass. But the moment you say something against her books, the claws come out. She also takes any criticism of b*ia as a personal attack on her, which is yet another sign of Mary Sue-ism.

She has curly red hair just like b*ia. What a shocker. Not.

I don't read EU, but your assessment sounds exactly like that of all the other anti-EUers. Did you ever read Darth Holliday's EUpisode II and other works over at the JC? Hi-larious!

Then there was Crystal Star. The writing skills of a Mills and Boon (drugstore) novel combined with the most improbable plot (Waru the Borg Blog, anyone?) and the most precocious 5-year-olds EVAH.

Yup, yup, yup. I've heard some story about how the author was only given three months to write the book, but it has to be one of the most terribly written sci-fi books of all time.

I don't think I've ever seen another book where the POV was equally split between adults and five year olds.

Wee, rant!

I like your ideas about how to fix the EU. In fact, I might ask over on my own lj for general responses to the "how to fix the EU" question. might turn up some interesting answers.

Someday I should go through exactly what I liked about the EU and respond to all the EU haters. I would have done them much differently and admittedly I got so fed up with the NJO that I stopped reading any of them, but I actually really enjoyed reading many of them. They were far from great literature, but like I always told my mom, that's not why I read them. I read them because I liked to.

I actually don't hate ALL of EU.

NJO, yes. NJO can die a slow, painful death by sarlaac digestion. NJO makes the Forgotten Realms novels look like The Lord of the Rings.

My primary issue, actually, is the forced continuity. These books are essentially comic books without pictures, and when a new author comes into a comic book melieu and decided zie doesn't like what hir predecessors have done, zie puts a different word in the title and ignores older 'cannon' at hir leisure. This is what Star Wars EU ought to be. It would be much the better for it.

...oh, and the shmeerps (made-up words for things that already have english words). The wrist chronometers and 'refreshment units' can go keep NJO company in the Sarlaac pit, because any good scifi author will tell you not to throw around buzzwords unless you're indicating something for which there is no english word, and besides that, they sound dumb.

any good scifi author will tell you not to throw around buzzwords unless you're indicating something for which there is no english word, and besides that, they sound dumb.

I have a major knee-jerk hate reaction to any sci-fi that throws around shmeerps (I've never heard that term before, but I love it!). It's distracting and pretentious, and did I mention I hate them? ;)

it is exactly that: distracting and pretentious.

James Blish coined the term Shmeerp.

Lightsaber, Jedi, Muja Fruit, et al aren't Shmeerps because they are actually different from swords, samurai, pasionfruit, etc. But if it looks like a watch and ticks like a watch, in the name of all things holy, don't call it a wrist chronometer.

Shmeerp has been hereby added to my vocabulary ;).

I'll put some commonly-used terms in the SW lit in my fan fic ("chronometer") but it used to drive me NUTS to see people use "shmeerps" for every damn thing in their stories. There was one fan fic author who couldn't call dinner "dinner." It had to be "evenmeal." Couples never went on honeymoons, they went on "festas." Luke never put salt on his food, he put "tsal" or something like that. This was in all of her fan fics and once when she tried to edit one of my stories, she tried to get me to use a shmeerp instead of an "Earth" term. I refused.

Actually, in a fic I once used 'vanity compact' and 'lipstick' instead of shmeerps, and lots of my readers complained that I had broken the 4th wall and they felt like they were in a pharmacy.

well it's a fine line. They clearly have lipstick and makeup in the GFFA (unless we're to believe that Leia and Mon Mothma are naturally colored that way, which would be creepy), and since things are being translated into English anyway, I wouldn't have a problem with words like vanity compact or make-up. Lipstick is a little trickier because it's sort of like saying kleenex-- it's not the actual name of the product, but a slang term associated with it. Lip color, on the other hand, would have flown right under my radar.

Basically what it comes down to is that if you're relying on foreign-sounding words to make your setting seem alien, it's going to backfire.

Yay. I so agree. Love most of the Rogue Squadron novels and that's about it. Hate the NJO. Nicely ranted.

Great rant! While I think some of the EU is entertaining, I don't consider any of it to be part of the SW story. Much of it is anathema to everything SW represents, and turns a wonderful, rich modern myth into bland, repetitive sci-fi.

Thankfully, Lucas trounced a lot of EU with the prequels, and continues to do so. And despite what many EUniks bleat, it is perfectly within his rights. The EU authors are privileged to be in his playground, not the other way around. Too bad that so many of them fail to recognize that and do his story/characters justice, instead twisting/perverting them to live out their various fantasies, or else consider their work to be above his. Crispin actively dissed Lucas to various message boards, saying stuff like, "George, hire ME to do your prequels. I can write dialogue a hell of a lot better than you can...but then a ten-year-old could."

Nonetheless, like I said before, I do find some of the EU entertaining. Not surprisingly, I liked "Tatooine Ghost" -- Han and Leia were well-written and in-character, and most of the damage done to them with the horrid COPL was repaired. TG said that Leia never had feelings for Prince Fabio and was only thinking of how the marriage would benefit the New Republic. That wasn't how COPL presented it, but I didn't mind. I've seen worse retconning/rewriting in the EU, plus I was glad to see it benefit Leia for a change, instead of benefitting Mara like it usually does.

Oh, and speaking of Mara...she was nowhere in TG, since it took place before she met the gang! Oh, what a relief it was to read a book that she didn't permeate like skunk stink. The absence of Mara lessened the nausea I felt when Thrawn made a not-quite-appearance in the book, and when mention was made of Zahn's Outbound Flight Project.

Crispin said that? Yikes! One shudders at the Mother of Br*a! She'll have 3x the number of midichlorians as Yoda, be the #1 padawan at the Temple, end up in bed with Anakin, and of course figure out that Palpatine is Sidious long before everyone else. She will of course be way more beautiful than Padmé and we will be reminded of this over and over.

There is some redeeming EU, though it's hard to say what I'd enjoy now since most of these books came out pre-TPM. Tatooine Ghost aside, I think the prequel EU for the most part is better than the post-ROTJ stuff.

Crispin said that? Yikes! One shudders at the Mother of Br*a! She'll have 3x the number of midichlorians as Yoda, be the #1 padawan at the Temple, end up in bed with Anakin, and of course figure out that Palpatine is Sidious long before everyone else. She will of course be way more beautiful than Padmé and we will be reminded of this over and over.

Hehe! I recall someone saying that it will turn out that b*ia is the daughter of Anakin's real first love "Pria," who is so much better, smarter, more beautiful, etc. than Padmé.

*is a good little non-trouble causing completist and doesn't read* :p

::snort:: Like I can't take an EU rant? Bitch, please. ;) Why do you think I even HAVE this icon?

I agree with most of what you say, although I'm rather fond of Mara, if not her NJO 'characterization.' (It gave me plot bunnies, though. If the EU was good, I would have no bunnies.)

Crispin's trilogy, Crystal Star, and Courtship? Horrid. Although personally I don't really despise them as much as most EU fans because I view them as fairly irrelevant in the scheme of things that matter to me.

I also agree that keeping up with 'continuity' harms the books more than it helps. That's honestly one of the things that pissed me off about the NJO. I thought that they should have just ignored anything but the bare necessities of the Bantam line, like Jacen and Jaina's existance. But no, instead they threw in random references to the Yetheva (From the Black Fleet Crisis trilogy - which I had totally forgotten about at that point) and all the YJK hangers-on who just can't shake their innate KJAness. Yawn.

And, oh lord, the Vong. I can fanwank the ysalmiri but I can't even bring myself to care to explain the damn Vong. Their worst sin in my eyes? They were BORING. I was completely disinterested in them and although I'm glad it provided the writers with an excuse to get rid of the Jedi Academy on Yavin (Burn it down and salt the earth. Fucking KJA) I was otherwise... disinterested. And the Vong also wiped out the ysalmiri, for what it's worth.

You know, I had totally forgotten the BFC. And the multiple aliens-from-outside-the-GFFA-invade plots. Thank you so much for reminding me :-p

Sorry. :D

Hey, it could be worse. You could own most of them. ;)

I had to comment, that was wonderful.

The only way to explain this book is to assume that all the characters had been replaced by pod people.

Pod people. *g*

So very true. That book is just odd. I will never look at that novel the same way again, Leia the Pod Person.

I have read most of the EU, with the exception of NJO. I read up to when Chewie died, Han loses it and then all hell breaks loose between he and Anakin Solo.

The Thrawn trilogy was okay. There were some good parts, I guess I liked them the best. But the EU is very odd.

I love the OT, and all the characters. I have been a SW fan for many long years, but I am starting to like the PT just a bit more. The novels written during that time frame are a bit more fun for me. But then I have always been fascinated by the Jedi.

Sorry to pop into your journal, but it was a great post :)

I've been working so much I'm soooooooo out of the loop on LJ. Yanks once made this HILARIOUS post on the JC about how Han and Leia hired impersonators for COPL so they could enjoy a nice long honeymoon. I'll buy that over 99% of the EU.

There was Leia, who seemed to have no Vader issues any more, cheerfully running around with Noggi Hnogri Noghiri and exploiting her father's identity without even a hint of unease.

The only book I've read that seems to mirror Leia's OT inner turmoil over the revelation is "The Truce at Bakura." Subsequent books just seem to either gloss over or dismiss Leia's earlier shame over her father's identity. Plot convenience?

A lot of people don't write good Luke ... One book Luke's naive farmboy type, the next he's omniscient Jedi Master without flaws, Mara goes from mushy mummy to macho warrior woman. The young Solos develop entirely new personalities to the earlier EU.

Dude, that is so an understatement that it's not even funny. In the New Jedi Order series, Luke does absolutely nothing except lecture in 5 minute cameos, and they're not even enlightening lectures, either! It always seems as if he just goes on and on about finding the inner peace and all that shit. You're right about his character seeming to fluctuate. One moment he's all vulnerable and devastated over Mara and the alien invasion, and then in the next novel, he's made of steel. I swear, some people should be forbidden from writing Luke - they make him so detached from the universe around him that he borders on being patronizing at times. Do none of these authors see the humour that the OT Luke possesses?

I actually happen to like Mara. Or, at the very least, she doesn't make me want to stab her with a pointy pencil the way Gaeriel and Callista do. She has spunk, and that in turn brings out Luke's spunk. They were, in my opinion, actually a fine couple until they were turned over into the hands of the NJO writers, who can't seem to write Mara any better than they can write Luke. (See a pattern going on here? o_O)

The authors of NJO relegate Luke and all the characters of the OT to the side in favour of having the Solo children take center stage; something that I cannot stand, as I have no affinity for neither the Solo twins nor Anakin (Solo). (I doubt anybody did a celebratory dance to match mine after Anakin was killed off in "Star by Star.") My God, one would think that Luke was the most boring, patronizing, celibate old man in existence from reading the NJO series.

I don't know about you, but I'm not really all that excited by the release of new Star Wars EU books, anymore, not if they're just going to continue down the path set by the New Jedi Order series.

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A Rant on the Post-RotJ EU

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Coming in super late

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