Undead-bitchface!Jacen Solo is my hero.

[skywalker]

The Star Wars Extended Universe is actually a big competition to see who can get the stupidest shit published.

- Heir to the Empire: clone named Luuke Skywalker.

- Dark Empire: the Emperor comes back to life in clone bodies and turns Luke evil.

- The Crystal Star: blob creature from another universe that tries to eat Luke.

- New Jedi Order: a sentient planet that uses the Force and pretends to be Anakin Skywalker.

- Dark Nest Trilogy: time travel.

- Betrayal: kid brought back to life in a robot body.

- Legacy comics: bringing people who just died back to life. Also, "Bantha Rawk Skywalker."

- Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor: the book is actually fanfic written in-universe.

- Omen: teleportation.

- Abyss: people who hibernate forever called "Mind Walkers" who abandon their bodies floating between two black holes... and the phrase "IT'S NOT MY TENTACLE FRIEND." Visiting the world of the dead.

I look forward to the Fate of the Jedi round robin team coming up with even crazier shit as the series progresses. After all, twelve in-universe years and twenty books since Star-by-Star, Troy Denning is still wants to bring Anakin Solo back to life via time travel...

Comments

[eisen]

"IT'S NOT MY TENTACLE FRIEND."

The description of official tie-in novels as "paid fanfic" has never been more apropos.

[polychromatic]

I actually liked "The Crystal Star" :x

... of course that's probably because I was in my "Young Jedi Knights" phase and I thought the twins (and Anakin? Was he in that book too? I can't remember :/) were kind of adorable. I skimmed through/entirely skipped all the parts about the plot with Luke and Han and Valerii or whatever her name was.

[skywalker]

Yeah so when the crazy aliens who are invisible in the Force came to attack the galaxy and started hunting down Force-sensitives, the Jedi sent all their kids to hide in the middle of a crazy cluster of black holes. In this book, Luke finds out that the sentient persona of the black holes was touching all the kids with spiritual tentacles.

... and then Her Awesome Kickass Mary Sue-ness Vestara Khai, Fabulous Sith Apprentice and Obviously Luke's Kid's Future Love Interest (I fucking love this girl. Vestara is the best new character in a long time), gets stuck on a planet with the sentient persona of the black holes and goes HOLY SHIT IT'S A WOMAN WITH TENTACLE ARMS FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF.

[skywalker]

Dude.

Dude, The Crystal Star had a lot of cute stuff with the Solo kids, but that book was hella trippy. And yeah Anakin was in it.

Also, I was really happy in this book that the novel referenced the YJK period. Ever since R.A. Salvatore steamrollered the Solo kids' personalities at the start of NJO, I feel like only a handful of authors (Keyes, Stover, Denning) even remember that YJK exists. But this book, Leia sees Jacen's daughter with a pet and goes "just like little jacen :((((" and later Jaina disassembles a robot and her mom walks in and goes "hahaha it's like you're twelve again!" Love iiiiiiit. YJK is my childhood, too.

[polychromatic]

I vaguely remember Luke being all "I must go into this giant golden blob thing" while everyone else kind of screamed "COME BACK TO USSSS!!!!!" But yeah, I was totally in it for cute Solo kids using their skillz to escape Big Bad.... Force-Elitist people? Oh my god it's been so long since I read that book.

Yeah, I never made it to NJO because my Star Wars fanatic friend moved to Hawaii and took her large allowance, book collection, and recommendations with her. I can't make any judgements having not read any of them, but hearing about what happened to Chewie and Anakin just made me go "... yeah screw that". But d'awww those little callbacks to the YJK days ;o; I just really loved the Solo kids. One of my favourite scenes was from a book that I didn't even finish where they were trying to make themselves their own nanny-bot that exploded or something X3

[skywalker]

I remember that The Crystal Star was the first book I read that used the word "sweetmeats."

NJO's quality varies. Vector Prime was terrible. But the Edge of Victory duology (which treats Anakin and Tahiri SO WELL. Also, Ikrit from Junior Jedi Knights is in there, rofl), Star-by-Star, The Final Prophecy, and The Unifying Force were all pretty good... and Traitor is probably the best-written, most beautiful book in the SW EU. IIRC, you can skip all the paperbacks and just get the plot from the hardcovers (Vector Prime, Balance Point, Star-by-Star, Destiny's Way, Final Prophecy, Unifying Force). If you're ever interested, drop me a line and I'll hook you up with ebooks.