So I recently ordered the first novel from the Republic Commando series (Hard Contact I believe is the title). This is my first Star Wars novel ever. I've played many games, read some comics, watched movies and cartoons but never read a SW novel before.

 

So yeah, I want to hear different opinions. I've read that she's horribly bad, but also some people really like her books. I'd love to hear some constructive discussion. Should I expect something really bad? Something just fine? Something good? Something awesome?

From what I heard the RC series is good, everything after that by Karen is bad.

Oh God,

 

Too much to talk about, but I think she quit writing SW due to fan rage based on her negative portrayal of Jedi and love for anything Mandalorian.

 

Hard Contact and the subsequent Republic Commando books are supposed to be good, I only read the first 2 though...

Her first two RC books are ok. Worth a read.

 

You can skip everything else she has written or will ever write.

Edited January 30, 2012 by Kedan

From what I've read she quit because of how they ***** Mandalorian lore in The Clone Wars cartoon series.

 

edit: Seriously, they're censoring "a sexual intercourse where one person is forced against his/her will to do this"?

Edited January 30, 2012 by Artein

Well.....

 

The Republic Commando books were good, I'll give her that.

 

The problem is that eventually the books turned into a tug-of-war between Traviss and the other writers on which faction was more super kewl leet.

 

At one point, her Mandos had lightsaber immune armor and were completely immune to the Force when they wanted to be.

 

They were also portrayed as simply being absolutely perfect, that the Mandos were the absolute epitome of everything. They were the best warriors, pilots, commanders and even farmers.

I really enjoy Traviss' work. Especially her contributions to the Legacy of the Force series.

 

That said, I don't have a problem with TCW forging their own path with the Mandalorians. That's just the way it often goes with EU, and I enjoy both interpretations equally.

Well.....

 

The Republic Commando books were good, I'll give her that.

 

The problem is that eventually the books turned into a tug-of-war between Traviss and the other writers on which faction was more super kewl leet.

 

At one point, her Mandos had lightsaber immune armor and were completely immune to the Force when they wanted to be.

 

They were also portrayed as simply being absolutely perfect, that the Mandos were the absolute epitome of everything. They were the best warriors, pilots, commanders and even farmers.

 

This pretty much sums it up. When she was only vaguely familiar with the material, she made some good work out of the Republic Commando series. Then she decided to make them obnoxiously overpowered. Her LotF contributions read like fanfic, with superstrong armor, new special metals and amazing new, all-powerful spacecraft using an ultra-rare, much coveted ore found only on their planet that had never been cited anywhere before in the history of the EU.

Basically, she latched onto boba's swoop and rode it till it died permanently so to speak.

 

The fact that she takes a war hero like jaina and turns her into a weakling so she can stroke her own "fandolorian" ego pretty much sums it up.

 

If i need to defeat an extremely strong force user who do i go to a geriatric boba fett or Luke Skywalker, who by the way has already defeated this force user before.

I forgot to mention that Traviss was notoriously....protective of her work, to the point of publicly and viciously lashing out at anyone who critiqued her.

 

If you want to read some good SW books that aren't too reliant on Force Users being kickass, I recommend Timothy Zahn's work. He manages to make normal folk interesting without going too hard on making them living gods.

Largely what others in the thread have already said.

 

The game, SW: Republic Commando is a terrific game, in my opinion. And for someone who loves military sci fi and who loves Star Wars, this was the "You got chocolate in my peanut butter!" / "You got peanut butter in my chocolate!" moment I'd been waiting for since forever.

 

So when they released a novel tie-in, I was all over it. And yes, Hard Contact was grand.

 

Traviss writes good military sci fi. But she has a serious hatred of all things Jedi, and it really starts to show in the later novels in the series.

 

I'm not one of those folks who considers canon sacred, but when you're working in a shared universe, i.e. one that's not yours, you can't just start tearing everything down because you don't like the scenery. And that's largely what she started doing. So while I think she crafted some terrific characters, and she knows how to write a good firefight, just be aware of the other angles at work, here.

If i need to defeat an extremely strong force user who do i go to a geriatric boba fett or Luke Skywalker, who by the way has already defeated this force user before.

 

Actually, I think this points to a larger EU flaw not at all unique to Traviss. Namely: Luke Leia, Han, Lando, Boba, etc must all be like, what, 70-plus years old by now? Yet they're all still running around and having adventures as if they're in their 30s. Luke I can almost buy because he's a big Jedi Master and all, but one would think the biggest adventures the others could have is changing their Space-Depends.

Edited January 30, 2012 by Jmannseelo

Actually, I think this points to a larger EU flaw not at all unique to Traviss. Namely: Luke Leia, Han, Lando, Boba, etc must all be like, what, 70-plus years old by now? Yet they're all still running around and having adventures as if they're in their 30s. Luke I can almost buy because he's a big Jedi Master and all, but one would think the biggest adventures the others could have is changing their Space-Depends.

 

Having a firmly-established timeline is one of the worst decisions they ever made. When you firmly affix X years to Y event, you quickly eliminate the opportunity for any "classic" Star Wars tales when these characters were in their prime.

 

Damn you, Shadows of the Empire!

Actually, I think this points to a larger EU flaw not at all unique to Traviss. Namely: Luke Leia, Han, Lando, Boba, etc must all be like, what, 70-plus years old by now? Yet they're all still running around and having adventures as if they're in their 30s. Luke I can almost buy because he's a big Jedi Master and all, but one would think the biggest adventures the others could have is changing their Space-Depends.

 

The answer to any question asking 'who do we call to beat x' is always Kyle Katarn.

 

Actually, I think this points to a larger EU flaw not at all unique to Traviss. Namely: Luke Leia, Han, Lando, Boba, etc must all be like, what, 70-plus years old by now? Yet they're all still running around and having adventures as if they're in their 30s. Luke I can almost buy because he's a big Jedi Master and all, but one would think the biggest adventures the others could have is changing their Space-Depends.

 

I believe in the latest books he's in his mid-60s. At times it can be a bit much, but they reference often the age and how they don't work like they used to. That, and (at least for Luke) Force users can stay pretty virile forever (i.e. Dooku, Sidious, Yoda).

 

Anyway, I always wanted to hear definitively what happened to her. I knew there was a huge war between her die-hard fans and the people that couldn't stand her work. I was somewhere in the middle, leaning more towards not liking it so much. During the LotF series whenever it was her book I kind of had to eye-roll through it. She had a HUGE fetish for Mandalorians and everything about them, and it was super obvious. She also liked to point out and invent new flaws for any Jedi she came across. It seemed fairly childish after a while.

 

The only rumor I've heard is that she got an early look at what they were planning to do with the Mandalorians on the Clone Wars series (either because she was penning a new Mando book or because she had friends, I don't know). Allegedly she was incensed at what she saw, and wanted it changed to fit what had been established (mostly by her) or she was going to quit writing them. They didn't change it, so she quit.

 

I will admit, I do enjoy her vision of the Mandalorians far more than what they became on Clone Wars (faaaaar more). But I don't know if throwing a hissy fit was the right way to go about it.

I love how on the book covers the only concession to their very-advancing age is a slight streak of grey in their hair.

 

Don't get me wrong. I still enjoy the books immensely, and am happy to suspend my disbelief in the interest of a good story. But still, belief must really be suspended.

I honestly like what TCW did with the Mandalorians. It reduced them from being a Planet of Hats (Hat being mercs/warriors) into a more nuanced culture that had internal disagreements.

 

The New Mandalorians kinda had a point too, considering the Mando way of warfare was "Start strong, lose horribly once the Jedi come".

I love how on the book covers the only concession to their very-advancing age is a slight streak of grey in their hair.

 

Don't get me wrong. I still enjoy the books immensely, and am happy to suspend my disbelief in the interest of a good story. But still, belief must really be suspended.

 

Heheh, yeah, I love how much better Leia has aged vs Carrie Fisher.

I love the RC novel but I love Timothy Zhan(sp?) Work better, I mean Grand admiral Thrawn is one of my favorite along Mara Jade. The only i started to hate Karen Traviss bias toward the Jedi is when in the RC book were the ARC start to mock Obi wan Kenobi, I could understand trashing Quilan Vos, but not Yoda or Obi Wan. I love Mandalorian i mean Canderous and Rohlan Dyr are my favorite and I kinda like the TCW take on it since it could still exist alone the pacifist mando view of Satine.

In my opinion:

 

The Republic Commando books were pretty good reads, even though they did make the Mandalorians out to be ******es. But isn’t this why a Mandalorian would’ve been chosen to be the template for a clone army to begin with? And what’s wrong with a group of people in these books to look at Jedi like they were heartless scum? Is it so outlandish for a group or culture to look at another group or culture and have prejudices against them? The Mandalorians, and especially the clones, had reasons to view the Jedi this way. Over the top and irrational? Maybe. But since when is prejudice rational? They hate Kaminoans as well, but nobody seems to bring that up and it’s essentially the same thing.

 

I do agree, however, that in the Legacy of the Jedi books, Traviss wrote Boba Fett and the Mandalorians into a story that didn’t need them and had nothing to do with them. Seriously, Boba Fett has to be like 70 by then. Come on. Retire these old characters already and let the newer, younger characters shine. But she added this whole subplot *SPOILER ALERT FOR THE REST OF THIS PARAGRAPH* of the Mandalorians and trying to get someone to lead them and their discovery of new Beskar mines (that magical, lightsaber-resistant metal), and their production of their new superships, Boba Fett’s granddaughter hunting him down to kill him but then helping him find a cure for his disease and then finding Boba’s wife in a slab of carbonite… that was all filler junk and had nothing to do with the main story. The only relevant part of the story was Jaina Solo getting special training from Boba Fett. Which really could’ve been substituted by any other ****** character in the star wars galaxy.

 

As to the reason Karen stopped writing star wars books… a lot of people here are speculating. Some are close to the mark. But from what I’ve read (including from her online blog, if I recall correctly) is that basically, when she was writing her last novel -- the sequel to Imperial Commando, which followed the story and characters started in Republic Commando -- the Clone Wars cartoon started messing around with the Mandalorians’ planet and history and culture. She basically had the story and characters and everything laid out (much of the groundwork was done in the first IC book) but then they changed a bunch of stuff in the cartoon and so a lot of her story just wasn’t going to fit. It wouldn’t make sense. At that point she had three options:

 

1) She could just finish her story as it was. The problem with this is that she’d have to ignore the changes to the Mandalorian culture they made in the Clone Wars cartoon, so her story would be going against canon. So basically, it wouldn’t be approved by licensing or whatever. So this wasn’t really an option at all.

 

2) She could change her story to fit the new direction they were taking the Mandalorians in. To do this, she would basically have to write the new book in a way that took new continuity into account and would have to disregard anything that was no longer canon, which included a bunch of stuff she had already established in the previous 4 or 5 books. And in the Legacy of the Jedi books. It would be a lot of work and somebody reading that book would suddenly find themselves going, “What the hell happened? I thought that was like this? Did I miss a book in between that explained all this stuff?” And there was no way to bridge any gaps to compromise and explain a bunch of stuff away, since the Clone Wars cartoon and the Republic Commando books all take place during that same tiny three year period that is the clone wars, and they would have to somehow realign so that it would all still make sense in the “future” during the Legacy of the Jedi books, which were already written based off of what was established in the Commando books. Basically, it was an impossible task.

 

3) She could just not finish writing that last book.

 

She went with 3. And in doing so, I’m sure the publishers didn’t like it very much. But she couldn’t do what she wanted, couldn’t do what they wanted, and she had no guarantee that whatever she did moving forward wouldn’t get changed again on a whim from the cartoon’s producers.

 

So, yes, the Republic Commando books were good. They’re worth reading and come to a decent conclusion. But don’t start reading the Imperial Commando book. Sure, it’s the continuation of RC, but it started a bunch of new plots and threads that are never going to become realized.

Lots of people hate Traviss. I don't mind her, especially because I RP using her language, tenets, and culture for the Mandalorians.

 

People don't like her because they don't like seeing Jedi and Sith actually killed by anyone expect each other... Sure, they were overpowered, but that doesn't mean everything she writes is complete BS.

 

For all the haters, play the BH Storyline and enjoy BioWare's implementation of Mando'a in TOR.

I can't find the exact quote, but I remember when a lot of this was new, and someone posted a quote from her blog or something, her answering why she seems to have it in for Jedi. She basically says that she finds Jedi arrogant, absurd, and basically deserving of destruction, except for when she creates a Jedi character, where she can give them, I think she said something like "more positive personality traits." But for any Jedi not created by her, she loves to show them up with Mandalorians, who really are the better individuals.

 

Basically, it was a long, convoluted, and very insulting way of saying that anything not written by her sucks and it's her duty as the only decent author in the Star Wars universe to tear apart what everyone else wrote.

 

And then she ragequits when Lucas decides that what she wrote doesn't fit in with his vision of what the Mandalorians should be in the story he wants to tell. Go figure.

 

I remember being at a Star Wars writing panel at GenCon MANY years ago, I think Episode I had just come out. And someone on the panel was talking about the liason between LucasFilm and Bantam Books, the liason telling the authors that "You're playing in George's driveway, with his toys, and you're adding some of your toys to the pile. When he backs up the truck that is that first movie, he's going to run over a lot of your toys." The point being that George Lucas wasn't beholden to any EU author to abide by their established canon. For instance, Timothy Zhan named the capital world of the New Republic, Empire before that, and Old Republic before that Coruscant. George Lucas liked the name well enough to let it stick, but he could just as easily renamed it Abbical, Zynif, Lot-irack, or Bob. As it turns out, George ran over a lot of Timothy Zhan's continuity with the prequels, specifically the timing of the Clone Wars and the talk of the "early clones the fleet faced" and "clonemasters." Does Zhan complain and quit writing for Star Wars? Nope.

 

What I see when I look at the information about who Traviss is as a writer is that she's just as arrogant and self-centered as she accuses the Jedi of being. She has to have things her way, has to make things fit what she wants them to be, irregardless of how anyone else, EVEN THE CREATOR OF THE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY SHE'S WRITING FOR, wants them.

 

And all this can be summed up by her "pet name" for any Star Wars fan who criticizes her work. What does she call the people who don't like her writing style, writing choices, characterization, treatments of other characters, or who basically doesn't proclaim her work to be flawless perfection of the highest order, inflating her own ego?

 

Talifans. You know, like Talibans?

So I recently ordered the first novel from the Republic Commando series (Hard Contact I believe is the title). This is my first Star Wars novel ever. I've played many games, read some comics, watched movies and cartoons but never read a SW novel before.

 

So yeah, I want to hear different opinions. I've read that she's horribly bad, but also some people really like her books. I'd love to hear some constructive discussion. Should I expect something really bad? Something just fine? Something good? Something awesome?

 

She is the Fandalore of the Fandalorians!

I really liked her Republic Commando novels (and Imperial Commando), but didn't care much for her entries in Legacy of the Force. While I liked the heavy Mandalorian focus in the RC novels where it made sense, it felt incredibly forced when inserted into the LOTF story.

Actually, I think this points to a larger EU flaw not at all unique to Traviss. Namely: Luke Leia, Han, Lando, Boba, etc must all be like, what, 70-plus years old by now? Yet they're all still running around and having adventures as if they're in their 30s. Luke I can almost buy because he's a big Jedi Master and all, but one would think the biggest adventures the others could have is changing their Space-Depends.

 

You forget how technologically advanced Star Wars is. You're talking about a society that has sufficiently advanced technology as to be virtually magical. Leia even says in one of the novels when Han is 50 that if he starts taking care of himself he can expect to live to be 120 before he starts developing medical issues from his old age, this makes 120yo the equivalent of 60-70 for humans. At seventy years old Han would still be about as healthy and capable as any of us are, were, or will be at thirty-five.

 

As for Karen Traviss' novels I would recommend Hard Contact to young readers, around ten or so. It's not well written, but it's not bad, and the prose is simplistic and repetitive. After Hard Contact I can't recommend any of her books, since as the editors give her more freedom her soap-box ******** gets worse and worse until they ultimately wind up with one of her mouthpiece Jedi jumping in front of a padawan's lightsaber meant for a clone who was trying to kill the padawan and his friends in Order 66 to protect the clone. No it's stupid and as moronic as it sounds.

Anyway, I always wanted to hear definitively what happened to her. I knew there was a huge war between her die-hard fans and the people that couldn't stand her work. -snip- The only rumor I've heard is that she got an early look at what they were planning to do with the Mandalorians on the Clone Wars series (either because she was penning a new Mando book or because she had friends, I don't know). Allegedly she was incensed at what she saw, and wanted it changed to fit what had been established (mostly by her) or she was going to quit writing them. They didn't change it, so she quit.

What happened was Karen Traviss was contracted to write Star Wars novels for the Republic commando series where she did some detailing of the Mandalorians (really stupid detailing), she then went on to retcon a number of other authors' materials in her works, then when The Clone Wars came out they represented the Mandalorians as three different factions rather than two and had the homeworld be a desert instead of a forest-world. Karen Traviss threw a fit that anyone would dare retcon her work like a true hypocrite. She also had a penchant for referring to fans that didn't like her work as terrorists and fans of the Jedi as neo-nazis. I'm not even joking, this is taken literally from her blog:

 

'I'm sure you think you're a nice decent person who's kind to animals, recycles faithfully, and fills in tax returns honestly. Maybe you believe in God, too. But to me, you're someone who harbours a vile and degrading belief in the concept of Untermensch - the idea that some humans aren't human at all, and we can do as we like with them, for whatever arbitrary value we put on the words "real human." You're looking for ways to sift your kind of human from the humans who don't matter, and who can be consigned to the fate of animals. In fact, if you use the phrase "real humans" at all, my case is proven.

 

That belief in a league table of humans - and the casual acceptance of it by nice people who were kind to animals and filled in their tax forms on time - led to the enslavement and murder of millions.

 

It's slave-owner-think: it's Nazi-think. And yes, I bloody well hate it, and all those who think it.

 

It's not about Jedi - who don't even exist. It's about you.'

 

I will admit, I do enjoy her vision of the Mandalorians far more than what they became on Clone Wars (faaaaar more). But I don't know if throwing a hissy fit was the right way to go about it.

Why? The Clone Wars ones actually make *********** sense. In Karen Traviss' world the Mandalorians are a bunch of self-sufficient farmer-raiders.

 

1. In the new canon they're from a desert world. Which makes sense? Would the vikings have taken up the extremely dangerous profession of raiding coastal towns if they had everything they needed year round? No.

 

2. Karen Traviss' "Man'doa" 'language', according to her, did not have a method of expressing time until offworlders insisted on it. English has literally over a dozen methods of expressing units of time because our ancestors were a bunch of horse-raiders who needed precise means of expressing time for the purpose of coordination. This is another point that makes no sense.

 

3. According to Karen Traviss the Mandalorians are capable of fabricating a superior metal to a Galaxy-spanning civilization. This would be like the island nation of Anguilla being able to produce working power armor but the combined efforts of every other UN nation couldn't.

Edited January 31, 2012 by DarthMoord