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The Fangirl Blog has been posting a number of long and well-thought articles on why she believes the quality of novels has declined and why apparently a number of fans have lost interest. Her latest piece is here:
http://syndicated.livejournal.com/fangirlblog/9837.html
My opinion is if they want me back as a reader, they need to toss a stick of dynamite into the post-ROTJ continuity and start over fresh. I agree with the post that the post-ROTJ continuity was supposed to bring forth the next generation of heroes and it's in my opinion they utterly failed. Fangirl thinks they can salvage it by making some changes to the existing storyline and characters. To me, they shot themselves in the foot, hit an artery, and went from "tis only a flesh wound" to being dead.
Here's where I get to the "preach it" portions of Fangirl's post:
The Powers That Be seem to have misunderstood the thematic importance of the Prequel Trilogy. It wasn’t tragedy for its own sake, or darkness for the sake of grim storytelling. Instead, the Prequel Trilogy, the tragedy of Anakin Skywalker, only works because the Original Trilogy ensures the fans of a hope-filled ending. The short-sightedness of the Powers That Be in their post-NJO storytelling decisions was in not recognizing that what comes after the darkness in Star Wars is not more darkness, but light and hope and most importantly family and friends to love.
I would add they misunderstood the thematic importance of TESB as well. I think it got stuck in Del Rey's head that everybody likes TESB or ROTS because those movies were dark and the more bad stuff that happens, the better. Good triumphing over evil? The fellowship of family and friends? Pfft, that's for suckers!
The editorial vision at Del Rey and Lucas Books wasn’t necessarily aligned at the end of the NJO, and it has been almost completely lacking since then. The NJO had a thick story bible, plot and character arcs designed from the beginning in a series of story conferences that didn’t include most of the authors who subsequently wrote the books, and a management team that coordinated the writing, editing, and later mini-story conferences among the authors. Since then, the flagship storyline has been developed by story pitches, not central planning: Dark Nest was pitched by Troy Denning; Jacen’s fall in LotF was also pitched by Denning, while the involvement of Boba Fett and the Mandalorians came from Karen Traviss; and the Skywalker “Odyssey” plot in FotJ originated with Shelly Shapiro.
This method of story design has caused real problems. For one, the pitches often contained a core premise but the other subplots never got developed thoroughly; for example, Jaina’s insignificant role for most of LotF is incongruous with her crucial role in the denouement, while the authors of FotJ seemingly have no clear idea of what Han and Leia are contributing to the story. Another problem is that the pitch-by-pitch method has caused the overall story to take a direction incrementally that it very well might not have taken if it had been planned from the start. For example, in the December issue of Star Wars Insider, Troy Denning discussed the morally gray state of Luke Skywalker’s mindset midway through FotJ. That version of Luke isn’t George Lucas’s Luke anymore, and I’m not sure that the editors would have deliberately brought Luke to that point by conscious design, particularly if they were relying on movie fans to buy those books. The OT hero is simply unrecognizable to a movie fan who picks up FotJ because they see Luke Skywalker on the cover.
Mostly a technical issue, but she's right. It may be why there aren't going to be any big multi-book series coming any time soon. And Luke morally gray? Noooooooooo....
We’ve also seen a dramatic increase in niche books – heavily skewed toward Sith plotlines and original character Jedi – that are generating little enthusiasm among the broader EU fanbase. Death Star is a perfectly fine book and I’m sure Perry and Reaves enjoyed writing it, but who exactly was the target audience for it? Or books like Kemp’s Crosscurrent or Reaves and Bohnhoff’s Shadow Games, about decade-old videogame characters Jaden Korr and Dash Rendar, respectively? I’m sure Jeff Grubb is a fine novelist, but did anyone think they’d hit big sales with a book about the Hutts? Don’t get me wrong; there’s plenty of room in the EU novels for standalones and niche books, but even those books must be a part of a broader strategy for the overall picture of the EU marketing strategy. Who are the customers, what do they want to buy, and how are we going to deliver that product to them?
Jumps up and cheers. I liked the Darth Bane books, but I think you have to have a really good writer and a really solid character to make concepts like it work. And I can't understand for the life of me why Del Rey overlooks ideas one could easily extrapolate from Clone Wars or the movies (which I've discussed before) but green lights a book about some obscurity or other.
Don’t let individual authors become too invested in their own personal ownership of their contribution to the saga, whether it’s Traviss and the Mandos, Denning and gray morality, Golden and the Lost Tribe, Miller and Knight Errant’s dark ages, or even Zahn with Mara Jade, Thrawn, and the Chiss. The saga is bigger than any one contributor, and the interests of the saga always should come first.
THANK YOU!! Sure, I've enjoyed some of these books/authors but sometimes they are so much in love with their own little niche, it ends up all you read about. I liked Karen Traviss, but the Mandalorians in her LOTF novels were just there for the sake of being there and every one of her later books came with Jedi bashing at no extra charge. I don't think Tim Zahn has ever written anything that didn't bring in the Emperor's Hands, Mara Jade, Talon Karrde, or anything else he originally created.
http://syndicated.livejournal.com/fangirlblog/9837.html
My opinion is if they want me back as a reader, they need to toss a stick of dynamite into the post-ROTJ continuity and start over fresh. I agree with the post that the post-ROTJ continuity was supposed to bring forth the next generation of heroes and it's in my opinion they utterly failed. Fangirl thinks they can salvage it by making some changes to the existing storyline and characters. To me, they shot themselves in the foot, hit an artery, and went from "tis only a flesh wound" to being dead.
Here's where I get to the "preach it" portions of Fangirl's post:
The Powers That Be seem to have misunderstood the thematic importance of the Prequel Trilogy. It wasn’t tragedy for its own sake, or darkness for the sake of grim storytelling. Instead, the Prequel Trilogy, the tragedy of Anakin Skywalker, only works because the Original Trilogy ensures the fans of a hope-filled ending. The short-sightedness of the Powers That Be in their post-NJO storytelling decisions was in not recognizing that what comes after the darkness in Star Wars is not more darkness, but light and hope and most importantly family and friends to love.
I would add they misunderstood the thematic importance of TESB as well. I think it got stuck in Del Rey's head that everybody likes TESB or ROTS because those movies were dark and the more bad stuff that happens, the better. Good triumphing over evil? The fellowship of family and friends? Pfft, that's for suckers!
The editorial vision at Del Rey and Lucas Books wasn’t necessarily aligned at the end of the NJO, and it has been almost completely lacking since then. The NJO had a thick story bible, plot and character arcs designed from the beginning in a series of story conferences that didn’t include most of the authors who subsequently wrote the books, and a management team that coordinated the writing, editing, and later mini-story conferences among the authors. Since then, the flagship storyline has been developed by story pitches, not central planning: Dark Nest was pitched by Troy Denning; Jacen’s fall in LotF was also pitched by Denning, while the involvement of Boba Fett and the Mandalorians came from Karen Traviss; and the Skywalker “Odyssey” plot in FotJ originated with Shelly Shapiro.
This method of story design has caused real problems. For one, the pitches often contained a core premise but the other subplots never got developed thoroughly; for example, Jaina’s insignificant role for most of LotF is incongruous with her crucial role in the denouement, while the authors of FotJ seemingly have no clear idea of what Han and Leia are contributing to the story. Another problem is that the pitch-by-pitch method has caused the overall story to take a direction incrementally that it very well might not have taken if it had been planned from the start. For example, in the December issue of Star Wars Insider, Troy Denning discussed the morally gray state of Luke Skywalker’s mindset midway through FotJ. That version of Luke isn’t George Lucas’s Luke anymore, and I’m not sure that the editors would have deliberately brought Luke to that point by conscious design, particularly if they were relying on movie fans to buy those books. The OT hero is simply unrecognizable to a movie fan who picks up FotJ because they see Luke Skywalker on the cover.
Mostly a technical issue, but she's right. It may be why there aren't going to be any big multi-book series coming any time soon. And Luke morally gray? Noooooooooo....
We’ve also seen a dramatic increase in niche books – heavily skewed toward Sith plotlines and original character Jedi – that are generating little enthusiasm among the broader EU fanbase. Death Star is a perfectly fine book and I’m sure Perry and Reaves enjoyed writing it, but who exactly was the target audience for it? Or books like Kemp’s Crosscurrent or Reaves and Bohnhoff’s Shadow Games, about decade-old videogame characters Jaden Korr and Dash Rendar, respectively? I’m sure Jeff Grubb is a fine novelist, but did anyone think they’d hit big sales with a book about the Hutts? Don’t get me wrong; there’s plenty of room in the EU novels for standalones and niche books, but even those books must be a part of a broader strategy for the overall picture of the EU marketing strategy. Who are the customers, what do they want to buy, and how are we going to deliver that product to them?
Jumps up and cheers. I liked the Darth Bane books, but I think you have to have a really good writer and a really solid character to make concepts like it work. And I can't understand for the life of me why Del Rey overlooks ideas one could easily extrapolate from Clone Wars or the movies (which I've discussed before) but green lights a book about some obscurity or other.
Don’t let individual authors become too invested in their own personal ownership of their contribution to the saga, whether it’s Traviss and the Mandos, Denning and gray morality, Golden and the Lost Tribe, Miller and Knight Errant’s dark ages, or even Zahn with Mara Jade, Thrawn, and the Chiss. The saga is bigger than any one contributor, and the interests of the saga always should come first.
THANK YOU!! Sure, I've enjoyed some of these books/authors but sometimes they are so much in love with their own little niche, it ends up all you read about. I liked Karen Traviss, but the Mandalorians in her LOTF novels were just there for the sake of being there and every one of her later books came with Jedi bashing at no extra charge. I don't think Tim Zahn has ever written anything that didn't bring in the Emperor's Hands, Mara Jade, Talon Karrde, or anything else he originally created.
