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YJK13: Trouble on Cloud City

 YJK13: Trouble on Cloud City Upgrading from the previous book by actually  being based on Cloud City for most of it. Has the same problem as (a lot of) the books where nothing really happens and the (too many) characters are just there to narrate the plot. Also shares AM's love of obscure deep dives to things like the Jedi Prince books. Lando is trying to get Cloud City up and running (again) as a theme park this time. He takes the twins and co. with him to let him know if the rides are fun for teenagers or something. Then the other guy doing the project with him gets hucked into the clouds, and they spend the rest of the book not really figuring out what happened to him. Spoiler: It was the Black Sun. I guess bringing them back is better than doing another Imperial Remnant Super Weapon plot. The real issue here is how little the twins (or their friends) actually do to move the plot along. Jacen gets dropped into the clouds (out of the same or a similar one to the one Luke fe...
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YKJ12: Return to Ord Mantell

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  Return to Ord Mantell I was going to make fun of this cover, but the more I looked at it the worse it go. WTF is up with literally everything. I don't know if I'm just getting used to it, or if the writing is actually improving. I highlighted a lot fewer "wtf how can you write this?" moments in this one. AM continue with the obscure deep cuts by introducing Anja Gallandro, daughter of Gallandro, who appeared in two of the Han Solo Corp Sec novels. Most of the EU treats everything pre-Thrawn with a light touch, but we're all in on it here, along with a sprinkling of Jedi Prince series references, and even one to the Ord Mantell audio drama. Beyond that, this is 'Nam/Civil War in Star Wars, with Han and the kids not actually helping to negotiate a truce on a planet that is not Ord Mantell. They're only on/around Ord Mantell for maybe a third of the book. I'm not really sure why it's in the title, it's not like it's famous for marketing or a...
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Closing out Emperor's Plague

Oh boy, let's talk about racism. This whole arc (book 7 Shards of Alderaan  to 11 Emperor's Plague ) is about a group of villains who are trying to oppress and/or genocide humans in the same way that aliens were under the Empire. I said this half jokingly before, but I don't think there's any chance modern Disney-Wars goes there, and I think a lot of major publishers would shy away from it in general. I'm going to land firmly on the side of "yes, you can still discriminate against majority groups" and "yes, that's still wrong", but not write a whole essay about it. What I am going to talk about is the complete failure by AM to actually do their minority (mostly Wookie) characters justice. The main characters of the series as a whole are (roughly in order of importance): Jaina, Jacen, Tenel Ka, Lowbacca. Zekk claws his way inbetween Jacen and Tenel Ka around book 4, and Raynar is also working his way up, though still below the Solos and Zekk. ...
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YJK11: Emperor's Plague Pt 2

 Apparently I'm pseudo live blogging this one. Wouldn't you know it, less than 20 pages after those conversations they don't actually matter because: 1. Jaina finishes her girl's trip with Tenel Ka and does her best Han impression to save Zekk and co. 2. Bornan's nav computer is almost instantly remote sliced, so not-Boba-Fett get the location of the plague warehouse anyway. Good thing we got to read all those awkward conversations so they could be rendered instantly pointless.
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YJK11: The Emperor's Plague Part 1?

 I'm only just started on this, and it's the end of the arc, so I might two part it. For tonight, I want to whine about something that pops up twice early in the book. It's a common mistake I see with new writers, but Anderson can't really use that excuse (Moesta, as far as I can tell, has zero credits besides these novels, so maybe she gets a pass). Basically, you realize your plot/characters are dumb. Someone has to go somewhere they have no business being, to do something they have no business doing, in a way that doesn't make sense. How do you handle it? The bad/Anderson way is to let the characters ramble on about it for half a page or so before not actually resolving it. Aryn’s shoulders drooped. “That sounds like your father-but why didn’t he simply destroy the module, or bring the information here to Coruscant?” Why indeed? Raynar explains the fear that he might not be able to successfully get the information to New Republic. A traitor/disguised Diversity Al...
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YJK10: Jedi Bounty

 It's a shame both blogs are tied up in sloggy series right now. But I'm so close to the end of both that I'm trying to push through. I guess it's been a while since I did a summary, and I think I need one to make my complaints for this book make sense. The current story arc revolves around "The Diversity Alliance" an alien supremacist group who have convinced Lowbacca's friend to join them. Zekk has decided to become a bounty hunter, rather than joining the Academy. His first big bounty is Raynar's dad, who is currently on the run, trying to hide the location of an Imperial bioweapons storehouse. The twins, Tenel Ka, and (sometimes) Lowie are also looking for him, so their paths occasionally intersect.  Raaba (who had been vaguely alluded to the early books, and is now promoted to a full character) convinced Lowie to come check things out with her new cult/terrorist cell, so he zips of the Ryloth with her. The Twins and co. go to get him back.  I'...
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Man, it sucked to be a Star Wars Reader in 1995 (Year in Review)

 1995's release consist of: The Cornellian Trilogy: Ambush at Corellia , Assault on Selonia , and Showdown at Centerpoint The start of Young Jedi Knights: Heirs to the Force , Shadow Academy , and Lost Ones The first two Tales of...: Mos Eisley Cantina  and Jabba's Palace The first Junior Jedi Knights: The Golden Globe The first two Callista books:  Children of the Jedi and  Darksaber That's one trilogy that doesn't need to exist, three below average novels (even by the standards of the poor series they're in), two meh short story collections, one decent kiddy novel, one unfollowable fever dream, and THE HIGHLIGHT OF THE YEAR a vaguely entertaining, slightly continuity advancing, novel about Hutts trying to build a Death Star. 1994's books sucked, but at least they moved the universe along. Any one of them did almost as much as the entire line up for this year. I'm predicted this however many posts ago, but man was 1995 bad.
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