Saturday 12 September 2015

Star Wars: Aftermath (Book Review)


The subject of the new canon in Star Wars has been met with both hope and derision. Many old fans still are understandably irate at having everything they cared about deemed to have never mattered and starting over. At the same time, more optimistic views hope that this could overcome some old failings, and should be given the chance to stand on its own and prove itself. Aftermath manages to thoroughly demolish any remnants of goodwill after the author practically drops his britches and starts defecating on the Thrawn trilogy in the first chapter; not only taking the time to mock one of the trilogy’s most famous moments, but pick out every single little problem the author had with it. Things rapidly proceed to go downhill from there.

7 comments:

  1. I do get that you're mad, but I'm sorry to point out that there seem to be some words missing from your sentences in the article. Here's some examples, starting with this: "Of course there are a few times where exceptions to such a presented style" and it seems to me it should be "Of course a few times [there are/had] exceptions to such a presented style".
    You also say "He" but don't mention the authors name prior to this, so in effect you're referring to nobody. Yes their name is in the title, and in the header, but you need to mention it at least once in the review prior to this to draw focus to the "author".
    There's also this odd sentence when you mention Easter Eggs and you accidentally put a possibility after something definitive: "There is certainly nothing wrong with ideally, plenty of tales have offered brief asides or moments while telling a story".
    It seems like it should read: "Ideally there is nothing wrong with [easter eggs/callbacks], plenty of tales have offered brief asides or moments while telling a story".

    I do get why mistakes like this are made though, it's hard for anybody to keep focussed when they try to review (or even talk about) a giant piece of shit that has first-time fanfiction level writing.

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    1. Yeah, will definitely go over this and start fixing it then. There's definitely far too many issues here, more than there ever should be for such a work, and I don't have much of an excuse. Well, actually I do but it's not a very good one. The act of reading this drove me to drink in order to get though this shitstain of a novel. By the end I was even less focused than usual.

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    2. Wait, wait, wait... it's actually so bad you had to get hammered before you could finish it?

      That's... wow. Just wow.

      Well, let's just hope J.J. "Lensflare" Abrams can hit it out of the park with his movie... *curls into fetal position, cries*

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    3. No, thankfully didn't have to get truly drunk, but still went through a good three bottles of Bulmers before I was done. Yes, not exactly professional but given just how horribly depressing the knowledge of what was wiped away in favour of this was, I needed it.

      After this, I think I understand how Mark Gruenwald,felt upon seeing what Rob Liefeld had done to Captain America.

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  2. Out of interest, what exactly was the thing it nitpicked from the Thrawn trilogy and what about it did Wendig nitpick?

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    1. The famous moment where the Falcon fires several torpedoes up a tractor beam after it's being held by a Star Destroyer. In that book it threw off the operator, damaged the ship, and the Falcon was able to break free with some damage.

      In this one it sets it up bit by bit to try and hammer into the reader's head that this would never work. The SD detects that Wedge's ship has a torpedo launcher, the Admiral contacts him and informs him of this fact. Then the book goes into a two page breakdown of how the Star Destroyer could instantly destroy the ship now it's caught, even at long range, that he could never escape and that even trying is pointless. It's apparently so convincing that Wedge more or less gives up there and then on trying to fly away. Yes, Wedge Antilles AKA the single greatest fighter ace in the galaxy who in the EU survived and escaped from infinitely worse situations, just gives up at this. This is the problem, the book is mountains upon mountains of stupidity, building up bit by bit with a writing style which (and I do not joke here) warrants comparisons with Fifty Shades of Grey.

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    2. But the whole point of that bit in the Thrawn books is that they didn't know the Falcon could fire torpedoes at them and as such were unprepared for when it happened.

      It doesn't matter if the SD is capable of detecting it or destroying the ship and torpedoes (and from everything I read they should be incapable of learning a ship can fire torpedoes until they actually see it happen), if they don't use this ability because they're trying to catch a fleeing ship and it's in the heat of the moment then the author's point is moot.

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