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Please check back soon. View Poll Archives Looking Back And Thinking Forward Posted By Stephen on June 29, 2007 As Paul said in his article Beyond the Horizon of the Expanded Universe, the Books staff was planning on doing something connected to the upcoming EU License Contract being awarded. That "something" is a series of essays on our thoughts regarding it. The following is the first of those essays. Soon, the Star Wars novels license will be up for renewal—a contract that according to Sue over at the Official Site, is pretty much hammered out, and just waiting for the lawyers to finish picking at it. But what does it mean for our beloved franchise? Well, there's only two possibilities here, either Del Rey retains the contract or some other publishing house gets the contract. Unfortunately, there's not really a middle ground. Now, what does it mean if Del Rey retains the contract? Again, there are two possibilities here. Either Del Rey continues producing the same types of stories that they have been, or they start producing something slightly different. Frankly, I'm of the opinion that if Del Rey retains the contract again that they will view it as justification for the way that they have pushed the story, so that means that we will continue getting the same fare that is being published today. Is that a bad thing? As in most things, my answer has to be "that depends." To define that, we need to look at what Del Rey has produced over the past few years, which translates into the contract getting won by Del Rey and then them receiving a renewal. Their first foray into Star Wars EU was the New Jedi Order. An extensive, multi—year, multi-volume storyline, spanning a total of nineteen books, five of which were hardcovers. The NJO was hailed as an effort to push the next generation of heroes into the limelight, allowing the sons and daughters of the movie characters to become the stars of the franchise. It introduced a new destructive enemy, totally devoid of, as well as being a void in (well sometimes in), the Force. This new enemy was a warlike race, who worked in strict hierarchies with an elaborate honor system which dictated their every action. They were called Klingons... wait, sorry, wrong franchise... they were called the Yuuzhan Vong. Anyways, this series started out with the death of a much beloved movie character. A sign to the fans at how things had changed with the change of publishing house. Then things in the franchise slowly fell apart. Del Rey tried to impose a sense of dread for the characters, tried to make us fear for them, through this death. They meant it as a sign that yes, these stories matter. That they're more realistic than what Bantam produced. What they managed to do, was garner death threats for poor Mr. Salvatore who they roped into writing that particular novel. Unfortunately that wasn't the only way in which Del Rey fumbled with the NJO. For the first half of the novels, they pushed at us three main characters: Anakin Solo, Jacen Solo and Jaina Solo. Anakin was the HERO in the traditional, Star Wars sense. He was the next Luke Skywalker. Jaina was her father's child, while Jacen was a pacifistic twerp, who most people did not like reading about (a fact that remained in place until the novel Traitor which focused on, and rebuilt his character). Anyways, the second major fumble was that they gave us this strong, heroic character, one which we readily identified as a Star Wars HERO, and then ripped him from the franchise in the middle of his Hero's Journey, which was running parallel to the overarching storyline of the NJO. To make this worse, by the end of the series, Del Rey was pointing at Jacen, a character as far from a traditional Star Wars Hero as one can get and saying that he was the Hero of the franchise. Then yet another fumble of the NJO, was the simple fact that the story still isn't finished. The story was never the Vong invasion. Star Wars is fantasy. It's about the reconciliation, or overcoming, of good and evil. In that framework, the story is not the war, but the fact that the Vong are not found in the Force. Again, if Anakin had lived, this is something that I believe would have been dealt with, as he clearly felt them in the Force towards the end of the NJO. Instead, we get a metaphysical band—aid, in the form of the deus ex machina, Zonoma Sekot. Additionally, as an exercise, I suggest you go re-read Traitor replacing Jacen with Anakin, and see how so often, he makes more sense in that role than his elder brother did. Then to make that lack of resolution in the NJO that much worse, they used the deus ex machina to push a change in how Luke Skywalker and his Jedi Order view the Force. One which is in direct conflict with everything he had learned before. In fact, what Jacen learned from Vergere was the exact same lessons that the Shadow Academy tried to teach him during the YJK young adult novels. Of course, at the same time we were getting the NJO, we were also getting the the Prequel & Clone Wars novels. Frankly, I think Del Rey did much better on these novels than they have on their post-RotJ work. The tone of the Prequels fit more with the type of stories that Del Rey wanted to put out than the stuff set after RotJ. That overriding sense of depression and oppression made sense in those novels. After the NJO stumbled to a point where they were no longer publishing books under that imprint, Del Rey put out a trilogy entitled the Dark Nest Trilogy. DN3's purpose was to basically reset the Jedi's view of the Force. In the end, I didn't really have any problems with this trilogy, outside of the whole Joiner thing which gave me the shivers. All through this time, we had also been getting random stand alone novels which weren't part of any over series within the franchise. Things such as Tatooine Ghost and Survivor's Quest. These novels tended to be more traditional Star Wars fare than the things in the major series. Finally, we have the currently running Legacy of the Force series. It's a nine-book series, written by three authors, each with a hardcover and two paperbacks. Basically, it's another fine example of the folly of plotting by committee/editors. My biggest complaint about this series overall though, is that it is fundamentally a rehash of the Prequels. Consider, you have a Sith Lord, who works to bring about civil war within the galaxy for the dual purpose of pushing a Jedi into the role of Sith and for the Sith to conquer said galaxy. You have a scion of Skywalker becoming a Darth. You have a somewhat ineffectual Jedi Council, that is either unwilling or unable to see what is obviously right in front of their faces. Of course, it's not exactly the same, but the similarities are so many, and so close, that one cannot help but notice them. In the end, I want to wait for the entire series to be out before I give it a full review the way I discussed the NJO above, but once LotF is over, I suspect that the comparison between the Prequels and LotF will figure highly into that full review. Yet, for all that negativity about the series produced, and the direction of the EU as a whole, there are a number of things that Del Rey did right here. Conquest, Traitor, and Tatooine Ghost are just three examples of some of my favorite Star Wars literature out there. In fact both of Keyes' NJO novels are the reason why most Anakin Solo fans exist, and the same applies to Jacen's fans in the Del Rey era and Traitor. Unfortunately, the things done right during this time span, were less obvious than the fallacies, at least from my point of view. So where does that leave us? Frankly, if we're stuck with the status quo, it's something of dire straits in regards to the direction of the EU. That's not to say that Del Rey can't change things around. Of course they can. There are any number of ways to once more provide the fans with a strong hero, in the traditional Hero's Journey mold. They can once more provide escapism for their fans. Do I believe that will happen? Not really. I think that if Del Rey gets the contract for another decade, that we will get more of the same. Of course, that begs the question, can any of the other publishing houses do better? The other houses whose work I am familiar with are: DAW Books, Wizards of the Coast, TOR and Baen. DAW Books publishes a lot of fantasy novels, two of their best known authors being Mercedes Lackey and Tad Williams. The benefit here is that they do a lot of fantasy work, and Star Wars is fantasy. The bad thing here is that they are a smaller press—so I would worry over them being able to recruit a lot of the name brand talent which Del Rey is able to bring to the table. Wizards of the Coast publishes all those RPG books, which is where I am familiar with them from. Additionally, they publish the Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance and Magic: The Gathering series of novels. The good thing with this publisher is that they are primarily publishers of licensed lines, and again they are publishers of fantasy fare. The drawback is that a lot of folks view them solely from the point of view of the RPG games (and I was one of them, until doing a bit of research for this article), and I have the same concerns over their ability to recruit talent that I have for DAW. That said, I have never read, or even glanced at, the novels they publish, so I cannot honestly comment on their ability to recruit authors. Baen Books is larger than either of the previous two. It is home to Aaron Allston, Poul Anderson, David Weber and a host of others. They have the talent on hand, and the knowledge to drive the franchise forward. The only issue with them that I can see, is that they don't have a lot of experience with licensed materials. Sure, they have a number of series in their catalog, but those series are entirely creations of the authors, as opposed to licensed fare (except for certain short-story anthologies), which of course are two distinctly different concepts and way to run things. TOR is related somehow to Baen, as they share a lot of the same authors (at least according to their website), but TOR also has additional authors such as veteran Star Wars author, Kevin J. Anderson. Additionally, TOR has been around a long time, and has a lot of experience with licensed projects, including other space operas such as Battlestar Galactica, Andromeda and the Dune series. Truthfully, I would like to see TOR get this franchise, and see what they could do with it. Especially, if they convinced some of their existing authors to give it a go (and I'm looking at John Scalzi's novels as I write that line). With Sue's announcement that the new contract is imminent, now is the time to be considering just where we, as a fandom, would like the franchise to go. How we think it should go forward, or more accurately, how we hope that the franchise goes forward. My ultimate hope is that Star Wars once more rediscovers its mythological roots, taking up the mantle of space opera once again, becoming a hopeful story again, and leaving behind this insistence on realism, fatalism and an almost dystopic vision of the Galaxy Far, Far Away. Given, all the options for the upcoming contract, I can't help but hope that it will get delivered to TOR. Of course, being a realist, I have to believe that the status quo will be upheld, giving us another decade of the same types of stories, lacking as they are in the hope which I always associated with Star Wars both in the Original Trilogy and the books written during the Bantam era. email this story discuss in forums Select Date 2009, November 2009, October 2009, September 2009, August 2009, July 2009, June 2009, May 2009, April 2009, March 2009, February 2009, January 2008, December 2008, November 2008, October 2008, September 2008, August 2008, July 2008, June 2008, May 2008, April 2008, March 2008, February 2008, January 2007, December 2007, November 2007, October 2007, September 2007, August 2007, July 2007, June 2007, May 2007, April 2007, March 2007, February 2007, January 2006, December 2006, November 2006, October 2006, September 2006, August 2006, July 2006, June 2006, May 2006, April 2006, March 2006, February 2006, January 2005, December 2005, November 2005, October 2005, September 2005, August 2005, July 2005, June 2005, May 2005, April 2005, March 2005, February 2005, January 2004, December 2004, November 2004, October 2004, September 2004, August 2004, July 2004, June 2004, May 2004, April 2004, March 2004, February 2004, January 2003, December 2003, November 2003, October 2003, September 2003, August 2003, July 2003, June 2003, May 2003, April 2003, March 2003, February 2003, January 2002, December 2002, November 2002, October 2002, September 2002, August 2002, July 2002, June 2002, May 2002, April 2002, March 2002, February 2002, January 2001, December 2001, November 2001, October 2001, September 2001, August 2001, July 2001, June 2001, May 2001, April 2001, March 2001, February 2001, January 2000, December 2000, November 2000, October 2000, September 2000, August 2000, July 2000, June 2000, May 2000, April 2000, March 2000, February 2000, January 1999, December 1999, November 1999, October 1999, September 1999, August 1999, July 1999, June 1999, May 1999, April 1999, March 1999, February 1999, January 1998, December 1998, November 1998, October 1998, July 1998, June Joe Schreiber Signing In Tulsa, OK Posted By Mike on November 7, 2009: One more stop on the Death Troopers Tour New Release Date For The Complete Vader Posted By Mike on November 7, 2009: Those printing errors created quite the delay Karpyshyn Blogs On Bane & More Posted By Mike on November 7, 2009: Dynasty of Evil comes out next month! 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Posted By Paul on September 10, 2009: A transmission from the prison barge Purge... SW: TCW Character Enclyclopedia? Posted By Mike on September 9, 2009: Well, its listed on Amazon... First Death Troopers Review Up At Fangoria Posted By Mike on September 8, 2009: Horror site reviews a horror Star Wars novel Death Troopers Soundtrack Posted By Justin on September 6, 2009: Well... if it DID have a soundtrack Dragon*Con EU Panel Report Posted By Mike on September 6, 2009: Kevin J. Anderson resentful of Star Wars? Jedi Journal Books: Other Releases Posted By Jay on September 6, 2009: This week had a whole mess of new books! Enter Email Address: Find Out More... AllPosters.com Search For Posters, Cardboard Stand-Ups & T-Shirts! THEFORCE.NET IS NOT ENDORSED BY LUCASFILM, LTD. PLEASE READ OUR DISCLAIMER. © 2009 COPYRIGHT TF.N, LLC