Jeff Diamond’s Comments (group member since Jan 27, 2010)

Jeff Diamond’s comments from the The Expanded Universe group.

I like human guinea pigs.

I agree. I just finished Refugee, and as I look back, I can testify that after Star by Star, things really start to pick up. Especially in the later books, the Vong start to become much, much, MUCH deeper as a race. While I was reading Balance Point, I was starting to slow down. Star by Star really dragged for me, and I took the next few really slowly. But after those, the series gets a lot better. Stick with it. It's worth it. It's not just Jacen's internal conflict that you can start to see at that point. Individual books may not be as character-driven as Traitor, but the overall story arc does quite a bit, I think.

Stephen wrote: "Sorry, easy for a thread to go off on a tangent."

It happens.

I'd be interested to find out what somebody things who was actually introduced to the EU by the newer Clone Wars books.

You can also make the case that those situations are just cycles of history. The Roman republic degenerated into the Roman Empire (hmmm. . .) Kings become oppressive, so the colonists across the pond revolt and form their own government. The "Old Republic" is taken over by an evil, under-cover, Force-lightning throwing dude who has a penchant for playing both sides of a war. You can see several examples of the freedom-oppression-freedom cycle in our Terran history.

I don't know if I would say that it portrays the Jedi better than the movies or not, but it certainly does flesh out the Jedi Order and the individual Jedi quite a bit more. So I guess you're right in that respect.

I am willing to bet that they would make us wait until the end of the season.

As far as the timeline is concerned, they tend to play around with it. They will tell a story that takes place at a certain time in the war, and then they will have an episode that takes place before any of the other episodes have taken place. I agree that it is confusing. But I think they're doing it so that they can conceivably let the series last as long as they want.

In the same vein, they could be doing the same thing. They are dancing all over the timeline, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the canonical timeline is not intact. Unless they come out and say "This happened, then this happened" and it directly contradicts things.

That's my humble opinion, anyway.

Ryan wrote: "In the abstract I can see her point about not liking Jedi. I mean, they're a great fictional construct, and I love reading about them, but I wouldn't want to live in a world where they had any act..."

I kind of want to pick your brain as to why. As a fictional construct, they are the force for Justice, so I am curious . . . But I digress.

It's almost like choosing between children. I have to agree that Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith is among the best Star Wars books ever written. Not only because of the amount of depth it adds to the characters, but also due to the fact that it doesn't get so bogged down in doing that that you start to lose track of what's going on. That's the one that stands out the most in my mind, and I guess Path of Destruction. Those two seem to jump out at me.

Here is the thread I promised all of you! For reference, here is the last comment made on the other thread.

I'm noticing people either love or hate the cartoons. I wasn't too interested in them at first, but I think this season has been generally good. Tarkin was portrayed well, I thought. As long as they keep bringing in the movie characters, it works for me.

Have fun!

At this point, I am going to step in and ask everybody to please continue this discussion in the new thread "Non-book Star Wars Thread."

Thanks for the lively discussion!! It's impressive . . . most impressive.

mauve1976 wrote: ...I think it's interesting that she brings out Anakin's best traits, with none of the bad (so far).

That depends on what your definition of "good" and "bad" are. I think he is trying to teach her the Jedi philosophy of detatchment while at the same time dealing with those problems himself.

Another facet of your point is that Anakin would be portrayed the same way as the movies, by being argumentative, impatient and dare I say it, overly proud. In that way, I think that part of Anakin's character has been taken over by Ahsoka in the series, leaving Anakin to seem like the young Master who is wise beyond his years.

There are times though, when you can see little mannerisms and quirks that are constant throughought Anakin's character, up to and including Return of the Jedi.

mauve1976 wrote: "I'm trusting that Ahsoka's fate will be resolved in a way that keeps continuity with the movies."

This is true. It's not like George Lucas will go back and change the movies based on something that he has come up with since. *cough*

As for Ahsoka, I don't really like her, but a young Jedi taking on an apprentice isn't without precedent. I like to think of it as an echo from Anakin's past. Maybe that's one reason he becomes attached to her. He sees her as a kind of avatar of himself, and he doesn't want her to fail, because it will be foreshadowing his own failure. We know what happens to him, but still.

Michael wrote: "Let just all remember...It is THEIR playground to build, destroy and modify.

I love Star Wars...ALL of it. Anything that has a Star Wars label on it, I try to enjoy. There are too many folks who t..."

Perhaps a little harsh, but a good point nonetheless. I too try to enjoy anything that is Star Wars, but there are things that just aren't very good. I feel a little out of place here because I do enjoy the new Clone Wars show. Granted, I haven't seen much lately because we have a little boy now and we tend to sleep any chance we get.

Continuity will be a problem no matter what happens with the Star Wars Universe because there are so many authors. I haven't counted, but still. . .

Also, here is a little food for thought: "You'll find that many of the truths we hold most dear depend greatly on our own point of view." A planet's culture is an amalgamation of a bajillion different things. Even within a planet, it may not be the same. American culture and Japanese culture are as different as they could possibly be. Does anybody else think that it's plausible that the same thing may happen on Mandalore? Histories are told in different ways, cultures mesh in different ways, etc?

Jonah wrote: "I don't know. I believe my first Star Wars book ever was Tales from Jabba's Palace (if you count any books), but I'm not entirely sure."

I haven't read those ones. What drew you to those?

Derrick wrote: "ahh, thanks.

Well, I really enjoyed the RC books, so when I found out that the series ended with The 501st [where it becomes the 'Imperial Commandos'] because of canon differences with the tv show..."

Which do you take as more canonical, the books or TV shows?

Pretty much all of them are fair game. I've heard that the Republic Commando books are good. I've never read them, though. The Clone War books by Traviss and Miller... I don't remember hearing about those. I may have gotten them confused with the Republic Commando ones. The kids TV show and those books are geared towards a completely different audience, though. The discussion here I think is how the Clone Wars novels (all of them) relate to the era, and how they do (or don't do) justice to the previously held vision of the era.

The purpose of this thread is to try continue a wandering (but interesting) conversation. I've made new threads for other topics when they've started to wander, but I don't want to with this one. I'd like to just allow book discussion here and see where it leads.

Stephen wrote: "I started reading this thread, and decided that I have to re-read it when my brain is functioning more properly..."

Good call.

Riquelme wrote: "Leia is a stronger character..."

Really? That's an interesting viewpoint, one that I hadn't thought of before. I'd be lying if I hadn't thought about which one would go first. But when it comes right down to it, I don't think I've been able to get over how I feel about either one. Leia is feisty and stubborn, but Han is stubborn and feisty. Maybe it would be Han's recklessness that gets him killed...

Here was the promised thread.

Last posted comment by Endor:

Kyle wrote: "Clone Wars stuff is on the back burner for me, so I'm afraid I won't be much help, but you might get more responses in that era's thread."

Thanks. I was just curious to see what people on here thought. Most of the reviews on Amazon lead me to the conclusion that everyone loves it. I, on the other hand, could not stand it.

Kudos on going back and reading all of them in order. That's a tall order, especially considering that they are coming out with new ones from all periods all the time. Have fun!

By the way, we are getting a little off-topic, so I'm going to open up a new thread about general book chat. We can continue this there.

Stephen wrote: "I have heard varying opinions of Star By Star. I, personally, loved it, but I knew a star wars fanatic who thought it was torture to read."

This is very true. If you read in the Authors thread, there are quite a few scathing comments about Denning. From what I noticed, I think he has a much more detail- and character-oriented style of writing. If you're a reader who likes that, then you probably joyously freak out when you read it. It is a little bit of a break from the fast action in that aspect. But if you like the really fast action, then it can be a torture. Or, another reason you may not like it is because it is a fairly crucial moment in the series, and you may feel like it should be fast paced throughout the book, and you are disappointed because the focus is on something else than moving the story quickly along.