Starfleet Jedi

Okay. Imagine if Karen Traviss and Kevin J. Anderson had to work on a novel together. The plot of the novel is that Billy Bob Skywalker has to complete his Jedi training, while Mandalorians are running everywhere and Darth What's-His-Face (actual name) is on the rise. The question here is not if the novel would suck, but how badly would it suck.

Hypothesis: KJA writes bad Star Wars.

Experiment: Check how his books are reviewed. Within Star Wars, KJA is responsible for:

• Young Jedi Knights series (the various books of which are all rated 4-5 stars on Amazon.com, coauthored with his wife.)
• With numerous others, the Dark Horse Tales of the Jedi series, whose individual components range from 3-3.5 stars on Amazon. The omnibus is rated 4 stars.
• Star Wars: Jedi Academy, the first three by himself (3.5-4 stars) and a fourth with numerous co-authors (3 stars).
• Darksaber (3.5 stars)
• Editor of the well-regarded Tales from Jabba's Palace (4 stars), Tales from Mos Eisley Cantina (4.5 stars), and Tales of the Bounty Hunters (4 stars), which worked to fill in the stories behind the minor characters in the movies.

Run a search on KJA by review ratings, and you'll find that while KJA isn't regarded as excellent, he's certainly no worse than the typical SW author. There are 84(!) book listings on Amazon.com with "Kevin J. Anderson" as the author rated 4 stars or higher.

KT:

• Republic Commando - 3.5-4.5 stars.
• 501st: Imperial Commando - 4 stars
• The Clone Wars - both 4 stars
• 3 Legacy of the Force books - 3-3.5 stars.

Karen Traviss is the typical SW author. Her efforts range from well-received to mediocre, but it's typical for the franchise.

If they had to work together... well, they have pretty different styles of going about things. Contrast the Young Jedi Knight and Jedi Academy books to the Republic Commando books. They have about two things in common:

1.) They used to write for Star Wars, but have stopped, and are now busy with other projects.
2.) They piss some of the same people off (i.e., Saxtonites, Talifans).

They're both pretty professional authors with a respectable output, but I'd note two things: (A) Huge creative differences in their respective interpretations of Star Wars. (B) None of KT's books list a co-author, and the one project that she had to work more closely with others (LotF) is the one in which her work is rated the worst. KJA's most recent Star Wars book was with several co-authors, and came out badly.

And that leaves aside the fact that (C) neither one of them writes Star Wars any more.

Now, on the flip side, if you managed to entice them to work together, and if KT has a hidden talent for collaborative novel-writing and they actually can manage to complete the project together amicably, then maybe it would combine their strengths as authors. Love her or hate her, KT knows how to sell clone soldiers to the public, and unlike KT, KJA can actually write something in the style of space opera.

But still. Seems pretty unlikely to me.

It's more of a "what if..." scenario. And while I personally haven't read Traviss, or any of Anderson's Star Wars novels, I did read his StarCraft novel "Shadow of the Xel'Naga". Portrayed Mengsk and Duke WAY out of character, and overall gave mediocre a new meaning. And of pissing off Saxtonites, I thought that they pissed off most fans in general. Guess I was mistaken, even though I saw posts from people here about their ineptitude.

Khas wrote:It's more of a "what if..." scenario. And while I personally haven't read Traviss, or any of Anderson's Star Wars novels, I did read his StarCraft novel "Shadow of the Xel'Naga". Portrayed Mengsk and Duke WAY out of character, and overall gave mediocre a new meaning.

He may have written that one under a pseudonym for a good reason.

For reference to what I wrote above, that one got 2.5 stars on Amazon. Really, with respect to Star Wars, KJA is viewed pretty well on the whole; a little better than average, perhaps, though we should remember that he's generally been writing to the teen/young adult market (esp. with the Young Jedi Knight series) more than the "serious" adult market.

The only people who really froth at the mouth about KJA within SW are the Saxtonites, so far as I've noticed, and some of the old school Dune fans, who've decided to blame him (rather than, say, Brian Herbert) for the quality of the sequels.

His original "Saga of the Seven Suns" series, you might notice, garners good reviews. I have a positive impression of him as an author, personally, from what I have read of his work (there's a lot out there). His writing is generally lively, light, and moves quickly. In terms of building the universe up, his books fit in very nicely with the X-Wing books that were contemporary with them (which also make Saxtonites froth at the mouth, since they show starfighters having a major effect on things. See also TPM, ROTS, ANH, and ROTJ).

Darksaber probably gives us the single lowest estimate of the yield of a Super Star Destroyer's weapons within the EU; full-power turbolaser blasts barely do anything to the surface of Yavin. For that, and his friendly treatment of fighters, Saxtonites will detest him forever.

And of pissing off Saxtonites, I thought that they pissed off most fans in general. Guess I was mistaken, even though I saw posts from people here about their ineptitude.

Traviss got wrapped up in drama personally with some of the fans. She made the mistake of engaging too closely with some Saxtonites, and seems to be a bit of a drama magnet. As an author... very typical of authors writing Star Wars books, and she definitely has fans.

I'm not going to say she's a literary genius, and she can be a little heavy-handed (like Saxton, she decided to reinforce her views of the online fan debates about Star Wars in the literature, and "preachy" isn't good in a Star Wars story), but she also isn't nearly as bad as her most vociferous critics claim.

And frankly, there wouldn't be a Karen Traviss hate club, except for two reasons:

1.) She inspired the Fandalorians. Having a distinct fan group gets you enemies. Of course, with Traviss leaving the EU over Mandalorian continuity issues, the Fandalorians' days might be numbered.

2.) She said there weren't that many clones. And then actually replied to the Saxtonite outrage that resulted from that. (Ryan Kaufman, her co-author on that article, kept his head down. Ever heard of him?)

Neither of those have anything to do with how well she writes.