KJA's best work is the Young Jedi Knights stuff he made with his wife, followed by his Short Stories, followed by Darksaber & the Illustrated Guide, followed by his Jedi Academy stuff.
I would say this story is very special because you can see what happened to those place seeing in Empire and it was kinda touching how Dagobah reclaimed Yoda's hut back to the swamp. Besides like a good star wars novel it has to have character deaths in unique fashions.
I think the A plot with the Darksaber itself should have remained a pure comedy. No heroes should have died in it. The B plot with the Imperials was good other than the Knight Hammer getting totally wiped out and maybe not quite explaining how everyone in Pellaeon's fleet wasn't reduced to jelly by the acceleration from that forcepush (Maybe it threw them inot hyperspace?) and how the space battles felt really bad. Ackbar's tiny fleet and MC90 standing up against dozens of Victories and an Executor class was comical.
This wasn't the greatest follow up to Children of the Jedi - it did have some really good points, but what amounted to a travelogue of worlds in the Star Wars universe kinda distracted from the overall plot.. Speaking of which, one other contribution to the EU by Kevin J Anderson was The Illustrated Star Wars Universe that he produced with Ralph McQuarrie - now, *that* was a good read!
I may have enjoyed this book more than others did or it was just refreshing to get a break from Barbera Hambly. To me it seemed like everytime Anderson did a SW book it got just a little better than the last. Looks like your about to finish the Calista trilogy with Planet of Twilight. 🥂
There are two ways at looking at the collective “legends books” Its much the same way I suggest people watch the star wars (and the MCU) movies and series) first consume it the way it was released, then after a break go back and read it according to the official time line….. sometimes these books read differently the second time around and when having discussions about them between “generations” i think there is sometimes a disconnect between people like yourself who are reading them NOW versus those of us who were reading them as they first came out….. often with a huge gap…. Take for example the first books released in legends the thrawn trilogy…. It was a whole year between books …. I might have read book 1 three times before book 2 came out …. …. Repeating that cycle with book two…… and book three….. expanding the cycle when the academy trilogy came out…… But books like darksaber and Crystal star? These were books one only reread because you felt you HAD to ……. Its was with great relief that the details of these books rarely were brought back in subsequent books About the ONLY aspect of note in this book was the fact that Tuskens are telling a story that MIGHT be anikan’s attack on the tribe that killed his mother, though this is unlikely as this story appears to be ancient
5:04 By release order this is the FIRST time we see Hutts as badguys, this book came out before the Crispin Han trilogy.
KJA's best work is the Young Jedi Knights stuff he made with his wife, followed by his Short Stories, followed by Darksaber & the Illustrated Guide, followed by his Jedi Academy stuff.
I really liked the Bevel chapters had some good flashbacks, and he's basically Rodney Dangerfield.
I would say this story is very special because you can see what happened to those place seeing in Empire and it was kinda touching how Dagobah reclaimed Yoda's hut back to the swamp. Besides like a good star wars novel it has to have character deaths in unique fashions.
I think the A plot with the Darksaber itself should have remained a pure comedy. No heroes should have died in it. The B plot with the Imperials was good other than the Knight Hammer getting totally wiped out and maybe not quite explaining how everyone in Pellaeon's fleet wasn't reduced to jelly by the acceleration from that forcepush (Maybe it threw them inot hyperspace?) and how the space battles felt really bad. Ackbar's tiny fleet and MC90 standing up against dozens of Victories and an Executor class was comical.
This wasn't the greatest follow up to Children of the Jedi - it did have some really good points, but what amounted to a travelogue of worlds in the Star Wars universe kinda distracted from the overall plot..
Speaking of which, one other contribution to the EU by Kevin J Anderson was The Illustrated Star Wars Universe that he produced with Ralph McQuarrie - now, *that* was a good read!
@@andrewhelm2813 I'll have to check that out
I may have enjoyed this book more than others did or it was just refreshing to get a break from Barbera Hambly. To me it seemed like everytime Anderson did a SW book it got just a little better than the last. Looks like your about to finish the Calista trilogy with Planet of Twilight. 🥂
@@animalmother8037 yep I'm over half way through it
There are two ways at looking at the collective “legends books”
Its much the same way I suggest people watch the star wars (and the MCU) movies and series) first consume it the way it was released, then after a break go back and read it according to the official time line….. sometimes these books read differently the second time around and when having discussions about them between “generations” i think there is sometimes a disconnect between people like yourself who are reading them NOW versus those of us who were reading them as they first came out….. often with a huge gap….
Take for example the first books released in legends the thrawn trilogy…. It was a whole year between books …. I might have read book 1 three times before book 2 came out …. …. Repeating that cycle with book two…… and book three….. expanding the cycle when the academy trilogy came out……
But books like darksaber and Crystal star? These were books one only reread because you felt you HAD to ……. Its was with great relief that the details of these books rarely were brought back in subsequent books
About the ONLY aspect of note in this book was the fact that Tuskens are telling a story that MIGHT be anikan’s attack on the tribe that killed his mother, though this is unlikely as this story appears to be ancient
I lean towards Jerdi Search as the best of the Academy trilogy but otherwis eys a general upwards trajectory.
Way better story than what actually ended up happening in the sequel trilogy IMHO