The Worst SW Novel Awards!!!

[BadSamaritan]

Ladies and Gentleman, welcome to the first, and hopefully only, Worst Star Wars Novel Awards!! Tonight, we will discover which Star Wars novels not only are horrible reads, but possibly should never have been written in the first place!

 

First and foremost, let me tell you that making this list was far from easy! With so many books out there to read, there were many contenders. But We have whittled them down to the six worst books and/or trilogies. And here they are!!

 

CHILDREN OF THE JEDI by Barbara Hambly - Some consider this to be a very good book at first, but in the end, it turns into just another "Imperial superweapon threatens the galaxy" book. Thats all this book even needed to make the list.

 

THE CRYSTAL STAR by Vonda N. McIntyre - Talk about confusing. We have creatures from alternate universes, former Emperors hands' on mobile planets, and old lovers from Hans past. between all of these, this book blazed its way onto the contentin list.

 

THE NEW REBELLION by Kristine Kathryn Rusch - Fallen jedi apprentice? Check. Luke Skywalker in trouble? Check. Warfleet preparing to cause problems? Check. Making the worst SW Novel ever list? Check check check!!!

 

DARKSABER by Kevin J. Anderson - Look folks, more superweapons!! This time under the command of Dorja the Hutt!! The only thing that comes close to trying to save this book is Admiral Daala re-uniting the Empire. And even that gets a little out of hand. To the list with you!!

 

18) PLANET OF TWILIGHT by Barbara Hambly - Planet that enhances force users abilities? ok, I can belive that, kinda. Little critters that cause an uncureable plague if they make it off said planet? Ummmm...... Imperial warlord has plans to use sencient rocks to retake the galaxy? What the hell? Ok, thats to much. Welcome to the contention list!

 

The Black Fleet Crisis Trilogy by Michael P. Kube-McDowell - Two factors led to this trilogy making the list. One, Luke searching for his mother. The whole "White current" thing was to much. Way to much. Add in Lando and the Teljkon Vegabond, and you have the ruination of what could have been an excellent trilogy.

 

 

 

Ok folks, theres the list!! Now get to voting!! Lets see who the biggest loser really is!!

[Skynxnex]

There are simply just way way way too many novels for me to pick from in order to choose the worst one.

 

Hmmmmm....

 

In the end I think the Black Fleet Crisis. We have Luke on a search for his mom which never concludes, instead he meets someone else and this weird current thing. I think Lando is also chasing some weird ship around too.

[Mad78]

Crystal Star was one of the worse ever. That with all the ones you mention above. Books to be avoided.

[the_mask]

Err, you left out the Bounty Hunters trilogy

 

This is my personal #1 and I only bought the other two books, since I'm collecting them all. But the first one was all barve here, barve there

 

Crystal Star is my second choice

[Paul]

I actually liked Darksaber- but only because of Admiral Daala. The ending did suck though (a SSD destroyed by one woman-GIVE ME A BREAK) so I understand why you did not like it. Haven't read the rest so I abstain from voting.-Grand Moff Conway

[Krytos]

Wow, that is a hard choice

 

Well, first off - I liked the Black Fleet Crisis series. Granted the search for Luke's mum was boring and didn't get there (but that's better than him finding his mum only to have it contradict the movies ), and Lando trip on the Vangaurd was just confusing to read. But it was nice to see him and Lobot doing something - and the rest of the series pretty good . . . except there was no huge battle between the 5th and the Yventha's fleet.

 

Darksaber had it's upsides - though a lot of downsides . . . like the Darksaber

It was a pretty dismail novel except for some of the more unique events like the two Republic fleets that were training, a huge Victory SD fleet, etc. but had a really bad case of the good guys must win.

 

Planet of Twilight has an awesome front cover! I mean, look at it! But, it's VERY true in this case that you can't judge a book by it's cover - shame really, such a waste.

I liked the author's writting style, but got bored crapless early on in the book and gave up on it.

The same happened for The Crystal Star, and I never read Children of the Jedi - for good reason.

But my vote goes for Crystal Star and the ulternate universe character

[DarkForces]

I'm going to go out on a limb here, and say that the worst Star Wars trilogy ever written is in my humble opinion the Jedi Academy Trilogy. I'm sorry, but as is posted regarding Darksaber, another Kevin J. flatback, he's obsessed w/ super weapons. And the stupid ship he designs, well, it does cool things, but its invincible.

 

Don't get me wrong. I love Daala (I do! my fiance even looks like her!!!). On the whole, however, I must say that that trilogy is terrible.

 

(and yes, I've read the others so I speak not from ignorance )

[Mad78]

The Bounty Humter Trilogy was just boring and confusing. You start reading a chapter and then at the next it happens ten years later only to come back twenty years after three pages.

[Grand_Admiral_Thrawn]

You know, I enjoyed most of those novels. I read two kinds of novels: the first are the ones I read for the challenge, deep plot, good characters etc. This would include any novels I've read by Patrick O'Brian or Steven Erikson. Then there are the novels I describe as "brain candy". There isn't much to them, they're not very original, and they're simple enough that a twelve-year-old could read them. Star Wars novels fall into this category. If you ignore any stupid ideas in the way of supwerweapons and whatnot, you find that all-in-all the novel was entertaining.

 

Of the Star Wars novels I've read, the Black Fleet Crisis was the only one I didn't enjoy. I know, the others were really bad when it comes to contributing to the Star Wars galaxy, but they were fun.

 

Books like Planet of Twilight, Crystal Star and [/i]Children ofthe Jedi[/i], I didn't mind the slow pace. Most good novels are slow paced, keeping the reader entertained with a good plot, not constant action. I think these novels did that well (I do have to remember that most of our members rae young, so they might not have migrated to the more complex novels yet (no offense)).

 

In the end I had to vote for the Black Fleet Crisis as it was the only trilogy I've ever been able to accidentally skip the second book and not notice .

[Mad78]

In the end I had to vote for the Black Fleet Crisis as it was the only trilogy I've ever been able to accidentally skip the second book and not notice .

My dad did that with a film once.

[BadSamaritan]

I almost included the Jedi Acedemy Trilogy, but I just couldnt do it. It was a major turning point in the EU, and I just cant bring myself to hate the second coolest Imperial Admiral ever written about.

[Skynxnex]

I almost included the Jedi Acedemy Trilogy, but I just couldnt do it. It was a major turning point in the EU, and I just cant bring myself to hate the second coolest Imperial Admiral ever written about.

 

 

Personally I didnt find Daala all that exciting. If anything maybe they should have expanded some more on Warlord Zsinj. I didnt like the way he died at Dathomir.

[Mad78]

Zsinj was already talked about quite a bit in the X-Wing series.

 

I figured that such a title needed a descent trophee.

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a359/Mad78/TheWorstStarWarsNovelAward.jpg

[Skynxnex]

Zsinj was already talked about quite a bit in the X-Wing series.

 

I figured that such a title needed a descent trophee.

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a359/Mad78/TheWorstStarWarsNovelAward.jpg

 

 

Thats true Zsing was mentioned more in the X-wing books but nevertheless he made for a more interesting character than Daala did. All Daala accomplished was losing the Maw Installation, losing all of her Star Destroyers (in darksaber it was mentioned she lost her last ship) and in general being an incompetent leader. I hate KJA's books with a passion.

[Mad78]

I frankly find that the incompetence of Daala is more often due to the incompetence of the author of the book.

[Skynxnex]

I frankly find that the incompetence of Daala is more often due to the incompetence of the author of the book.

 

I definitely agree with the part about the author.

[BadSamaritan]

I always thought that the whole "Good guys must win" stream of thought waswhat made Daala lose all the time. In Darksaber, there was no way that one powerless jedi could have taken out a SSD, especially since there are no hanger bays near the engines to land a TIE bomber in.

 

In all reality, an armada of Vic Stars would have been able to wipe out whatever the NR had at Yavin (Remember, they only brought enough vessels to take on the Knight Hammer), and the acedemy should have been blasted out of existance.

 

And besides. she re-united the empire. That ffeat alone makes her an better-than average Admiral.

 

As for Zsinj, yah, they should have written more about him. His death at Dothamir was retarded. No one who can take a third of the galaxy from the NR and the Empire (Something Thrawn himself never managed) should ever die is such a pitiful way.

[Mad78]

So who shall we give the trophee to?

[Skynxnex]

I always thought that the whole "Good guys must win" stream of thought waswhat made Daala lose all the time. In Darksaber, there was no way that one powerless jedi could have taken out a SSD, especially since there are no hanger bays near the engines to land a TIE bomber in.

 

In all reality, an armada of Vic Stars would have been able to wipe out whatever the NR had at Yavin (Remember, they only brought enough vessels to take on the Knight Hammer), and the acedemy should have been blasted out of existance.

 

And besides. she re-united the empire. That ffeat alone makes her an better-than average Admiral.

 

As for Zsinj, yah, they should have written more about him. His death at Dothamir was retarded. No one who can take a third of the galaxy from the NR and the Empire (Something Thrawn himself never managed) should ever die is such a pitiful way.

 

 

 

Actually since you mentioned the good guys thing, I wanted to add this idea. It is clear that Palpatine is evil yes, but is he even more evil than the Vong? I mean really, if the Empire had been allowed to stay in existence would as many planets and people have been killed off under the empire than had happened under the Vong?

[Grand_Admiral_Thrawn]

Had the Emperor still been in power when the Vong attacked, I am confident that they would have been stopped at their point of entry into the galaxy. While there were many advances made during the rule of the New Republic, they didn't place as strong a focus on the military.The Empire would have had more ships of greater power, in addition to whatever super-weapons they would have created (they would already have the second Death Star). Add to that the ability to use offensive powers from the Force, I think the Vong would have found themselves with quite the can of mynocks.

[Paul]

Like GA Thrawn, I am sure the Empire would have devestated the Vong. The ability to counter evil with evil alone would make the difference. An Imperial Captain or Admiral wouldn't think twice about killing hostages the Vong might have taken. As Thrawn also mentioned the huge difference in defense spending alone would come into play. The Emperors ability to constantly guide his vast military would also come into play. - Grand Moff Conway

[Skynxnex]

Cool. Thats more or less the conclusion I arrived.

 

As a bit of a philosophical idea regarding the government of the SW galaxy...does anyone think that the Empire was better for the galaxy than the Vong?

 

In my opinion despite it being an 'Empire' it did in fact bring for the most part peace. The Empire stopped many of the injustices that the Old Republic had allowed. I know some would argue that Palpatine orchestrated the whole thing but it has been mentioned in novels and so on that the Republic was very corrupt and that the Senators, the vast majority of them had been only interested in their own power base. I think in the case of the SW galaxy that the Empire was needed to maintain the peace. There literally was just way way too many systems/planets/etc for them to all be governed by a body of elected representatives. One thing everyone should keep in mind is that in a democracy there is a lot of talk that goes on before making decisions...in a galaxy of millions of systems where time is of great importance one cant afford to be debating about raising taxes in a sector when you have a whole galaxy to govern. I think overall the Empire was a needed 'evil' and as the Vong have shown us had the Empire been in existence then Ithor and Coruscant for example would not have been devastated, not including the other worlds the Vong destroyed.

[BadSamaritan]

Yah, the Empire would have done much better than the NR/GFFA did in that war. They wouldnt have argued about wether or not they were a threat, they would have attacked immediatly, and gone straight for the throat with no remorse about it. Forget talk about peace or surrender, the Emperor would have sooner married a jedi than let that talk make it anywhere. And hostages? What about them? Kill them all, let their gods sort them all out.

 

And yes, the Imperial warfleet was insanely larger than anything the NR ever even dreamed of feilding in that war, which would have helped a lot. (The most common number put out is 25 thousand Star Destroyers, plus hundreds of thousands of support ships, and trillions of ground troops at the empires peak.)

[bofkentucky]

You're forgeting Bakura, the Ssi-ruvii could have made mincemeat of the Empire if they had been able to get a few seed worlds out on the rim.

 

The empire was not all powerfull by any means, the emperor's cockyness cost them 2 DS and his life.

[Mad78]

Come on. The Empire could have beat the Ssi-ruvii. Imagine what Thrawn could have done. In an hour or two their wouldn't be any Ssi-Ruvii left to talk about