joysweeper

Just something from X-Wing: Warrior Princess.

Plourr, the most badass expy of Anastasia ever, says that the man claiming to be her brother can't be.

( Even in paradise, there is always a touch of evil. )

So, Dark Empire.

I've read the comics, and am listening to the cassettes for the first one, Dark Empire, the Dark Side Luke one.  The script's somewhat different.  I went and transcribed the Luke-lands-on-Byss part.

Coherent stuff later.

( My father's destiny... is my own. )

Still love the Thrawn Trilogy.

If this isn't my favorite portrayal of Luke, he's damn close. Wanting to do what's right, always struggling to turn that sentiment into reality, all empathy and fragility and bigheartedness but when he stand up he stands up...  argh.

I liked him in Stover's novel too, don't get me wrong.  But that Luke was a Stover creature.  Still striving to do the right thing, but weary and kind of tired and not at all inexperienced and optimistic like Zahn's version.  I can accept Stover's Luke as an older man, but at the age he is in that novel...

Eh, that's the style.

I just reread Death Star for the... I think third time.

Still a good book.  I like the many-slices-of-life style.  These authors - I don't care for them apart.  Perry wrote Shadows of the Empire, which while entertaining and with its good parts, I thought had a serious fixation on a villain who wasn't nearly as cool as he wanted us to think, and Darth Vader was really not as monstrous as he should be.  Actually, in comparison he barely came off as villainous at all.  Reaves, meanwhile, wrote Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter and the Coruscant Nights Trilogy, neither of which struck me as terribly compelling.  And I didn't like most of the characters in either.

But together?  They've also written the Medstar Duology, which I really enjoyed.  It's incredibly detail-heavy and also involved a many-slices-of-life style, with a huge cast, though there was more of a sense that there was an actual antagonist in that one, and not just at the end.  Really promotes the idea that this is a lived-in universe, with a lot of strange things that the inhabitants take for granted.

One character carries over from the duology to Death Star, that being Kornell "Uli" Divini.  He was nineteen then, a surgical prodigy, and by this point he's been ground down and wore out over the past twenty years, never allowed to leave the service.  He's much more bitter about his circumstances, yet he's very professional with his patients and always willing to do his best on them.  Also, it seems like he's harbored a secret fascination with Bariss Offee, and he wrestles with it, and sees her in Princess Leia.  I love him.

The book is driven entirely by its characters.  Not just Uli - we have Celot Ratua Dil, a Zelosian smuggler sent to the prison planet Despayre(now there's a name); Teela Karz, a Mirilian architect also sent to Despayre as a political prisoner; Villian Dance, a Corellian pilot always looking to improve himself; Memah Roothes, a Twi'lek bartender; Rodo, her bouncer; Atour Riten, an old archivist; Tenn Graneet, the head gunner; Nova Stihl, a Force-Sensitive guard who teaches self-defense; Admiral Motti; Grand Moff Tarkin; and Darth Vader.

Those are the viewpoint charries, anyway.  I suppose it can be confusing if you can't keep everyone straight.

I dreamed that I was going to try to RP Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul, and I argued that this was possible because he was the viewpoint character in The Andalite Chronicles and in one main sequence book.  (The second part's not true.)  Then apparently I dreamed the book.  Something or other post-series, Elfangor knew what had happened and was apparently alive, and got sent back in time to posses his brother Ax.

He convinced the others of this and plans were made, where he was secretly a little intimidated by the thought that these were the Animorphs pre-strange powers.  Cassie apparently had the ability to "remember the world", for example, whatever that means.  And there was a scene in a gas station convenience store about holding off some thugs and Jake's parents learned what he was, but they "already knew".

It was a longer dream, but I can't remember now.

Also, I'm skimming parts of Legacy Of The Force.  I hate a good eighty percent of it, but.  Wedge Antilles and his daughter Syal.  I love them like burning.

For example, in "Betrayal", Wedge breaks out of an (admittedly low-security and cushy) jail using a videogame, a tumbler of water, and a rolling chair.  This is awesome.

( And a fanfic written for ladielazarus. )

Rereading "Shadows of the Empire", I found this passage from Leia's POV, when she's just woken from a dream/memory of Han getting frozen in carbonite.

She felt the emotions well, felt them threaten to spill out in tears, but she fought it.  She was Leia Organa, Princess of the Royal Family of Alderaan, elected to the Imperial Senate, a worker in the Alliance to Restore the Republic.  Alderaan was gone, destroyed by Vader and the Death Star; the Imperial Senate was disbanded; the Alliance was outmanned and outgunned ten thousand to one, but she was who she was.  She would not cry.

She would not cry.

She would get even.

I love Leia.  When she's not the damsel in distress, anyway.  I love when she's written as taking after her father more than Luke does.  Zahn writes her like that more than the others do.  She's got such righteous fury, but she keeps it controlled.

I've been contemplating my Thoughts On Michael Stackpole for a while, so I figured I'd collect them.  He is, of course, the writer of five books in the X-Wing Series, I, Jedi, two books in the NJO, some short stories, and various novels that aren't part of the Star Wars EU.  I've read all of his SWEU work and some of his originals.

( Thoughts on a writer. )

Teal deer?  Stackpole's not bad.  Allston definitely writes better, but you can read worse than Stackpole.

...I finally made an RP account, for edensphere /edensphere_log.  Or it will be, in January when I and a bunch of other newbies can sign on.  desig_survivor .

Because Wedge Antilles?  Is awesome.  Even though the only other person on the comm who is from Star Wars at all is playing Brianna/Handmaiden from K2.  And even though most of the people there are more than human.

I just hope I can play him.  The whole amnesia thing might help.  But I've never actually done an LJ RP before.  Well, we've all got to start somewhere.

What's wrong with Livejournal?  First it kept eating the spaces between each line, now it's swallowing parts of the post. I've edited this thing four times.  desig_survivor , damn it!

Sorry about the delay, gentlebeings. I was working on my NaNo. So here's the first half of The Last Command. It's illustrated by Biukovic. While his art may not be as pretty or realistic as the art for Dark Force Rising, he's much better at rendering emotions and personality. This is f-locked for minor and rather pointless nudity, but it's SFW.( We'll remind the Rebellion what war is all about. )
Next week: the conclusion.

[joysweeper]

[Link]

The Thrawn Trilogy: Dark Force Rising
" This one is constantly thinking, analyzing, strategizing. He showed no fear, but was curious, studying me in turn."
―Emperor Palpatine

Much better art now.