StarWarsClassics

 Yes, that is the real title. In theory, this is the Lowbacca book. In practice (after getting screwed on Lost Ones ) he has to share a lot of page time with Zekk, his sister, the twins, etc.  Kashyyyk is apparently a major computer exporter. Not sure why that is, but okay.  After not really shying away in the first 4 books, there's a lot of "YA Acceptable" violence in this one. The kids are constantly knocking Stormtroopers into hazard instead of just chopping them in half. It's weird. Similarly, the kids are constantly, "Jedi Brats." I get that the Nightsisters can't call them, "you little shits!" or anything, but we couldn't have gotten a little variety? "Meddling initiates?" We do get a cool little bit of continuity, though, when they mention the Mandalorian lineage of the royal guard armor. I assume this is from the RPG, but it's never mentioned in the novels before. Eventually, we would see Mando armor in that style.

 Slowly but surely, this series continues to improve. It's still not good  by any stretch of the imagination. Luke is still the worst teacher ever (Why is he personally ferrying the kids around in his stealth shuttle? Why doesn't he send Tionne after Jacen after he almost accidentally kills Tenel Ka), consistency and development are iffy (Jacen made a big deal about getting a lightsaber for about half a book, but it pretty much got dropped for the whole last one), everyone is kind of a moron, but at least there's a plot now. The series could probably have safely cut about 90% of book one and 1/2 of books two and three, but this one is pretty filler minimal. Tenel Ka is finally in play (and marginally better at talking) and the Shadow Academy students are marginally interesting. The little vignettes of the kids putting together their sabers are passable. Short summary: 1. Luke decides the kids need lightsaber training 2. They all go build them 3. Tenel Ka's breaks during...

 YJK continues to be bad. Book 3 is The Lost Ones . Rather than continuously whining about Moesta and Anderson's writing, here's the short version: Brakiss, Tamith Kaii, and the other Shadow Academy characters are back. I never got past Shadow Academy  as a kid, so I assumed they were one offs. Apparently the main villains for this arc (or maybe even the whole series?) are approximately as competent as the anime version of Team Rocket. Not nearly as funny though. "The Lost Ones" are a gang of Coruscant street urchins. They show up for maybe 10 pages in the whole book, but somehow get the whole thing named after them. They get recruited by the Shadow Academy, along with Jaina's friend Zekk. Brakiss calls the leader of the new Second Imperium and we find out it's Palpatine. I'm 99% sure he's for-real-for-real dead at this point. Hologram? Imposter?   Again... sigh... One thing that is kind of interesting is that (at least in Anderson-Moesta's take on...

 Working my way through YJK 3. It's bad, but like, a little less bad. I think this is the first canonical "The Empire did nothing wrong!" rant. We've had people support the Empire before, but not in such internet-edgelord detail. “No you don’t,” Brakiss assured him. “Your friends have told you to hate the Empire, but you never witnessed any of it firsthand. You’ve only seen their version of history. You realize, of course, that whichever government is in charge always makes the defeated enemy look like a monster. I will tell you the truth. The Empire had very little political chaos. Every person had opportunities. There were no gangs running wild through the streets of Coruscant. Everyone had a task to do, and they did it willingly.” He could totally fit in on Reddit. Probably finish the book tomorrow. Yub nub! 

 Hey, I accidentally posted about Doom on here yesterday. Or clever cross promotion for the other blog . Whichever. So, let's finish complaining about this book. 1. The Academy is "cool and dank" again. At least it's not comfy and humid or whatever, but this is a phrase they've used before. There's a lot of stock description in these books. 2. This is also the second time someone has stolen Luke's lightsaber (or maybe first, I'm reading these series out of sync). Either way, he should really lock it up. 3. Lando shows up and takes the twins to his latest get rich quick scheme, Gemdiver Station. It's harvesting SUPER SPACE DIAMONDS from Yavin. Jacen asks if he can see one, and Lando has to think for a minute before he says yes. What was your plan, Lando? That's like going on the Hershey tour and not getting a candy bar at the end. 4. Trolling is not the same word as Trawling. Sigh. 5. The Nightsisters are back. They're even "well traine...

 SIGIL is the first of the add-ons to the Switch port of Doom that I'm looking at. It's not even a little bit classic (just over 5 years old). The Doom "official" timeline in the real world is kind of interesting: December 10, 1993: Doom (Eps 1-3, ftp/bbs download and mail away) October 10, 1994: Doom 2 (That's an impressive amount of work to get done in 10 months, especially while they were also supporting ports of Doom 1 and other Doom engine games.) April 30, 1995: Ultimate Doom (box releases of Doom, plus episode 4) December 26, 1995: Master Levels (A collection of 20 high quality levels by people outside of iD. And a couple thousand that are mostly crap. Happy boxing day!) June 17, 1996: Final Doom (It took them longer to publish 2 levels sets by other people than it did to make Doom 2!) So, from 1996 to 2010 (almost 15 years) that was it. 2 "real" games and 4 "expansions." Doom 3 came out, but it was mostly its own thing. Doom 64 was made...