113 - the old republic: deceived

 

 

Why didn't I read it first time around? This book exists solely because of a 2009 trailer for TOR that went viral, particularly amongst - and I'm really sorry to be so uncharitable so early into this project - the type of person whose concept of what Star Wars should be begins and ends with aesthetics. Like, the trailer clearly is good Star Wars, but do you really watch this and think "Malgus is a cool and interesting character who deserves a whole novel about him"? See also: people who hold Darth Maul up as an interesting character.

Ancillary reading. It's not just the novels that scrambled to put Malgus front and centre in the wake of the trailer. He's barely in TOR, beyond a rushed-feeling coda at the end of the main campaign, which I (somehow) found time to play through during paternity leave. God bless sling carriers!

===

Well, the Malgus bits are good. Paul Kemp takes the blank slate of the trailer and mines out both an interesting worldview / concept of the Force, and a satisfying tension between Malgus and the rest of the Empire. Shame that's about a third of the book, and we spend the rest following some of the most boring, forgettable characters you'll ever meet on an incredibly dull adventure.

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The book ends with Malgus concluding that the Empire is unsustainable and needs complete reform, which he undertakes to bring about. In TOR, he recruits a bunch of aliens to his cause (offscreen), launches a coup and names himself Emperor (largely offscreen), and then immediately gets killed. It's a strangely abrupt way to deal with a potentially fascinating arc.

republic issues 23-35

 Infinity's End (issues 23-26)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the one hand, you can understand why this was never collected as a trade paperback. On the other hand, it's an interesting experiment in integration with the wider EU (the story is set on Dathomir) and an early exploration of deep lore and precursor races, which late-era EU becomes increasingly fixated with.

 

Starcrash (issue 27)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The thesis of this story is "Hey, did you realise that Star Wars isn't actually science fiction, it's a fairy tale fantasy?". Erm... everyone who has watched a single Star Wars film understands this. Enitrely pointless.

 

The Hunt for Aurra Sing (issues 28-31)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The saga of the rizz-less Jedi concludes (de facto, as this is Tim Truman's last story and we won't see the Dark Woman or Aurra Sing again in this series). The Jedi in this story remain extremely sans rizz but otherwise it's actually pretty good, especially the set up on Coruscant.

 

Darkness (issues 32-35)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I remember Darkness being superior to Twilight but on a reread I think Twilight has it. Darkness doesn't move at the same clip as Twilight and has one or two supporting characters too many (issue 1: meet Tholme! issue 2: meet Zao! issue 3: meet Tr'a Saa!). Still, this is great stuff. Begins an 18 issue run of stories by John Ostrander, who will ultimately use Republic to do some of the most interesting storytelling in the EU.

PS - look at the covers for the last two TPBs. SO good.

republic issues 1-22

 Prelude to Rebellion (issues 1-6)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A list of batshit insane things Ki-Adi-Mundi does in Prelude to Rebellion:

• Actively campaigns against his homeworld joining the Republic
• Actively campaigns against the use of modern technology on his homeworld
• Has five wives and seven daughters...
• ...whom he emotionally neglects, due to his disappointment at not having a son
• Repeatedly refers to his daughter's boyfriend as a "tech rat"
• Actively entreats his government for special treatment and immunity from the law 

 

 

Outlander (issues 7-12)

 

Outlander is built around a single image, and it's a doozy: a Tusken raiding party led by a Tusken Jedi. Notable for the introduction of A'Sharad Hett, who is, erm, going places. Generally excellent.

 

Emissaries to Malastare (issues 13-18)

 

Notable for three things. One: Dark Horse realising that this series can't sustain six-part stories and bailing four parts in. Two: In a series notable for its rizz-less portrayal of the Jedi, there are some particularly rizz-less Jedi here. Three: Comedy attempts to establish significant lore about Mace Windu's home world (akk dogs appear here for the first time) while trying not to name said home world.

 

Twilight (issues 19-22)

 

Finally, some rizz! Villie and Quin both have it in spades. This series is now officially cooking.

 

  

 

112 - the old republic: fatal alliance

 

 Why didn't I read it first time around? Despite being a long-time KotOR junkie, I had no interest in playing an MMO, even one that purported to be KotOR 3. And thus, I had no interest in the tie-in books (beyond Revan). 

Ancillary reading. In a mad month before my daughter was born I, erm, played through the entire Jedi Knight campaign in The Old Republic. That's 40 hours I'll never get back.  

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Of the four Old Republic books, Fatal Alliance is the only one set contemporaneous to the events of the game. How well does it work as a tie-in? Well, on the one hand, it's entirely extraneous and, beyond Satele Shan and the general setting, has almost no overlap with TOR.

On the other hand, it takes the general premise of TOR (eight inter-woven arcs, associated with eight class archetypes) and delivers this at small scale. The characters embody the eight classes well and their stories interweave in satisfying, if predictable, ways. 

Even the stakes (weirdly high stakes and weirdly un-grounded) match those of the game, which is very obsessed with endless technological superweapons and galaxy-ending rites. 

Much like Emissary of the Void, I thought this felt like a marginally interesting tale that would've been a banging RPG campaign. Which is largely what I thought of TOR itself.

continue?

There are 153 Star Wars Expanded Universe novels and, while planning my New Jedi Order reread, I realised I'd read most of them: 73%, to be exact. And I thought, hey, why not complete the set?

You can see the "missing 42" below. There are a few other things you could add for a completionist run, though, which I'll aim to hit. Heart of the Jedi, an unpublished Bantam novel from the early 90s which leaked online. Heir to the Jedi, written as an EU book and hastily converted into a Disney novel. The Thrawn Ascendency trilogy, again published under Disney but explicitly intended by Timothy Zahn to fit with the EU. And there will be some necessary rereads where I've read some but not all of a series - most notably the first two-thirds of Fate of the Jedi. In total, I think we'll hit c. 50-60 novels. 

This may seem like a lot of books, and I do want to read some things that aren't Star Wars over the coming months and years, but I think it's possible: SW books are generally pretty easy reads; I've got a lot of time for reading on my hands right now; and for many later novels (rule of thumb - the later the book was published, the less likely I am to have read it), there are very good audiobook productions so I can combine with running or commuting. 

And this project will be far more casual than the NJO reread - I will make my way through at my own pace (they're not publishing any more of these things, so time is on my side), in an order of my choosing, and I probably won't write very much about each book - although I will post something and I will try to reflect on just why I didn't read it the first time round. And the last two missing books I read will be Crucible by Troy Denning and Star Wars by George Lucas. 

As well as completing the EU novels, I'm taking the opportunity to work through some wider works. Some of these are ancillary works (I'll read the Dawn of the Jedi comics alongside Into the Void) and some of these are just for fun and interest (you're going to see me get immediately distracted and read through the Republic run of comics).

Cards on the table - I actually began this quest earlier this year when I started listening to The Old Republic audiobooks, so the below is a little bit out of date already. I mean, technically I started this in 1998 with Tales from Jabba's Palace, so there we are.