JasperKazai > Recent Status Updates

Of course Leia just so happens to be intimately familiar with the family of the Alderaanian pirate captain. Of course! Such a small galaxy. It makes no sense that the captain answered all of Leia's questions without protest BEFORE Leia identified herself. Switch the order of that around and it makes way more sense. Everyone is so agreeable in the Star Wars universe, lol.

Back to Star Wars. This series has an interesting development story - it was supposed to be a trilogy, but the Disney buyout happened in the middle of it. Only 2 books were published before they made the EU non-canon. The 3rd book was actually retooled and published as part of the Disney canon.
Martha Wells became known due to Murderbot, but I haven't read that yet. This is the first work of hers I'll have read.

Only 2 days after my beach trip; not bad.
I liked this, but it has flaws. In the preface, he talked about disliking when authors overexplained things and didn't let their readers figure things out. I think he want TOO far in the other direction. A lot of shit in here just kind of happens with basically no explanation and it feels almost random.
Can't wait too long for the next one... Might start forgetting things.

One of my theories was that the Adjunct was actually the Empress in disguise. Kind of like Padmé in Episode I, except maybe with some kind of split personality due to magic. Really seemed like it might be the case when she started separating Lorn and the role of Adjunct. But... nope, definitely wrong, lol.
IDK man, this whole ending sequence has felt way too slapdash. So many unexplained things. It's confusing

Beach trip over. Didn't finish this, but I did get pretty close. Considering how long this is, that's notable. I definitely read more overall than I did last year, at any rate.

I wonder if Brandon Sanderson got inspiration for Nightblood from Rake's sword here. The basic concepts for them are very similar.

Book Two was much shorter. Still liking this for the most part. Random-ish thought: this novel has poems/songs/that sort of thing at the beginning of every chapter. Reminiscent of LotR. I've always thought those types of things in fantasy novels are pointless. They never do anything for me. I mostly just skim them and move on. I know that makes me uncultured or whatever but eh who cares.

Now I'm done with 'Book One' (very confusing nomenclature for the contents of a book). I'm still liking it. But it does sort of feel like he went out of his way to be obtuse and mysterious. You're allowed to explain things, you know! The whole 'oh I hate when authors spoonfeed their readers' bit from the preface is a little overblown. Explaining things is not inherently bad!

It's been engrossing me thus far. A little hard to follow, but due to the preface I know that's more or less intended. I haven't just sat down and read this much in one day in quite a long time. Felt nice

Beach trip read #2. Felt like taking a break from Star Wars. This has been on my list for awhile. Other than that it's a well-regarded series, I know nothing about this. The preface about it being obtuse followed by the comically long dramatis personae had me worried. But we'll see! Hoping for the best.

That's the end. Pretty short book. It is somewhat fascinating how the whole Vader encounter is basically fan fiction. The fact that it was written prior to TESB's revelations affects it greatly. I'm not sure I've ever read a thing in the EU that has aged quite as poorly as that. Still, it's an interesting snapshot into the past.
All in all, the book was meh. I don't think it's as bad as some people make it out to be.

This is the worst-written Darth Vader I've ever read. It sounds nothing like him. I know he only had one movie to go on, but it doesn't even match that very well!
Funny to imagine Vader coming across C3PO and R2-D2 alone. Obviously this was WAY before that connection was ever made, but still.

A primitive alien species beating the Imps in battle due to the Imps underestimating them feels like another thing Lucas may have taken from this. Very similar to the Ewok situation.

This guy is rather flippant with time passage. The trek after the crash landing took several days. After the fiasco in town, they traveled by speeder for 7 days before they wrecked. Then they traveled underground for 3 days. It all seems pretty unnecessary!
I'm glad that constantly referring to Leia as 'the Princess' didn't catch on in the EU at large. It's annoying. Her name is Leia, you weirdo.

Luke being the one to know some obscure language makes absolutely no goddamn sense, for a variety of reasons. Should've been Leia.
The fact that Luke using a lightsaber isn't something ANYONE commented or took notice of is really dumb. Even in just the original movie, they made a point of lightsabers being rare. We only see 3 of them. It SHOULD have attracted attention way more than it has thus far.

First day of beach vacation. Will I read more than 1 book this year?
Now that I've gotten a bit into this - yeah, it's pretty bad. But I've read worse. I can forgive the Luke/Leia sexual tension due to when it was written, but I do not excuse how fucking immature they are. It's dumb.

Several DAYS later? What?! Did he just casually skip ahead one week in the span of one sentence?!

Haven't made much headway yet because my beach trip starts tomorrow, where I might be reading a lot more. So I'm pacing myself.
Luke's crash landing on Mimban is very similar to his crash landing on Dagobah. This was written before TESB. I wonder if Lucas copied the idea from here. Certainly possible.
Mimban has 2 names and I always wonder why authors do that. You are creating it! Just give it 1 name! Why confusion?!

Wow, Luke being obsessed about Leia is immediately apparent. I had heard about how this book is laughable in retrospect because of it, but I didn't know it was going to be THAT blatant and THAT early. I guess Foster really thought Luke should be the one with Leia, not Han.

The first piece of SW content ever produced that wasn't directly related to a movie. I've never read this, but I do remember seeing it on shelves. I avoided it due to knowing it was old, lol.
I love how the cover boasts an intro from Lucas, and it's like 2 paragraphs long. His disdain for anything SW that he didn't write is so evident. He didn't mind making money from it, but he never regarded it as 'real.'

This was a mixed bag. I was so damn confused for the last third or so. I thought Odo was Thrawn, but then it turns out that no it's the villain instead. And then that had me wondering if we were supposed to have that line of thought, or if I had just gotten mixed up and read into something I shouldn't have. I truly have no clue. That confusion marred my enjoyment.
But it was fine overall. Filler and fanservice, sure.

A few pages away from finishing, but as I was checking what's next, noticed something weird. Wookieepedia has a timeline of books and another one for ALL media. They are slightly different. Books says the next 3 are Honor Among Thieves, Splinter of the Mind's Eye, Razor's Edge. Media says the order is Splinter, Razor, Honor. I think I'll go with the latter since that is publication order. Doesn't really matter TBH.

The moment-to-moment happenings are easy to follow, but I still have absolutely no idea what the overarching plot is. I'm so lost. It's getting close enough to the end here that I'm starting to wonder if there IS no big thing, and I'm overcomplicating it. I truly don't know.
Was thinking how I had this Zahn block, but after this there's nothing from him until the Thrawn trilogy, which is waaaaaay later. Will miss it

For awhile, I've assumed that warlord Nuso Esva is Thrawn, and this is all some ploy of his. Seems like it might be heading that way. But I have no idea to what end. Trying to play the Rebels and Imps off of each other, I guess. But why here and now?

Figured a twist with Axlon like that was coming up. He wouldn't invent a random new Rebel character to lead negotiations if they weren't going to have a reveal like that. Otherwise you'd just use an established character. Besides, the name Axlon sounds villainous as hell, lol.
As much bitching nitpicking I've done, I am enjoying this. Definitely better than some of the other things I've read this year.

Zahn trying to make Mara not come across as pure evil continues to make her seem toothless. Circumstances arise where she's basically now working with Axlon, and she tells him that once all of this is settled, she'll give the Rebels 2 hours to leave the system. Hunting down Rebels would be her NUMBER 1 mission! She was about to EXECUTE a Rebel earlier! Why would she just let them leave?! But she can't be a bad guy.

Mara strolls up to Axlon and demands that the guards let her escort him. They resist but then relent when she presses the issue. Then she follows Axlon into the meeting and demands he leaves. He resists but then he relents. Everyone in Zahn's books are too damn agreeable! Everyone pretends to resist initially, but then they immediately fold upon the slightest bit of continued pressure. It's so damn lazy.

Returning back to this after a slight porn book detour. Forgot I hadn't updated yet.
Telling Luke fuckin' Skywalker of all people 'tomorrow, you will see the Rebellion begin the path to victory' is so arrogant. He blew up the Death Star, you dick!

The Meredith dream shit was dumb the whole time. Telling Ethan that she used to dream about Cayden picking her up like that is not the romantic gesture the author seems to think. In other words, she's telling him that she used to dream about another man doing that to her. Who wants to hear that?! Lmao
Anyways, yeah, this was shit. Fun little diversion I guess, but shit.

Oh god, that fourth wall breaking joke about Ethan writing Bikini Days was so cringey. It also doesn't make much sense, seeing as these books have multiple PoVs... is he really going to write chapters from the girls' perspectives? I find that hard to believe. It would be insanely weird for someone to do that about people they actually know...