Unfettered Blather

No spoilers to follow since the movie has not come out yet.

My oldest son just got done reading the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. He did not figure out who the Half-Blood Prince was until the end of the book, which is when they reveal it. The interesting thing is he was giving me the clues while he read and I think J.K. Rowling isn’t real subtle as to who the Prince is, but because you know the history of Harry Potter you can’t believe it.

I may have my issues with J.K. Rowling’s writing style, but most of it is forgiven because these are essentially kid’s books. I have to give her credit though, she can build a character. She can build a character that you are so sure of that when you find out something that goes contrary to everything you’ve learned about that character you can’t believe it could be true.

I called it in Prisoner of Azkaban when I said it was Harry who saved himself and not his father come back from the dead. I realized that because of how the world works, the possibilities go beyond what we typically imagine. Was it really harder to believe Harry somehow travelled in time than it was to believe his father had come back from the dead? Again, the clues were there all along but because of how we think we tended to ignore them.

Hello, my name is Jason and I read bad science fiction.

For the past two years I have subsisted on a regular stream of Warhammer 40,000 novels. I am not above occasionally reading a good book. For instance I’ve read anything about Scalzi’s Old Man’s War universe, including the Sagan Diaries. I paused in my glut of bad science fiction to digest Heinlen’s Glory Road. I am not so addicted to McDonald’s that I don’t occasionally want a fine meal. However, I make no excuses for my regular consumption of fast food for the brain.

I am not a Warhammer 40,000 player. I did the tabletop game in college for awhile, but the hobby is not unlike being a druggie. It’s ridiculously expensive habit and it’s self perpetuating. Your pushers are a conglomerate of Games Workshop and your local hobby retailer. Your overdose will come from inhaling too many paint or glue fumes, or perhaps you’ll finally make that one bad nick with the modeling knife when you’re in one of your hobby frenzies.

Regardless, even without my addiction, I found the setting fascinating and so I have enjoyed the novels. Let’s be honest though, most of it is crap. While you do get the occasional decent to good (at best) stories by and large it is mediocre crap that rarely strays from standard sci-fi conventions.

You name it, I have probably read it. From omnibuses, to short story collections, to individual novels. I have followed the adventures of space marines, imperial guardsmen, eldar, and even the occasional chaos plague. Granted, one sign that these books truly are crap is that they rarely stray far from stories about humans despite being in a universe populated with aliens.

I still enjoy them. I don’t read them from compulsion. I like them for the basic illogical escapism they are. However, the Warhammer 40,000 novels by and large represent fan fiction that has been packaged and sold at retail.

Take everything I said and now apply it to everything to do with the Star Wars Expanded Universe (EU).

I have met some EU fans and they can be quite rabid about their interest. I read some of the EU novels and comics, and I’m largely unimpressed. Some of it was good, at best, but most of it is by and large utter dreck. It really is the kind of thing you should only be reading if you just can’t get enough of Star Wars. There is nothing wrong with EU materials or consuming them. Get me? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! That doesn’t change the fact that these are not works of art.

Let me point out some little problems I have with EU. First of all, they killed Chewbacca. They killed him basically as a cheap emotional trick to get fans talking and sell books. There was no point to it. In a universe so utterly contrived they could have just left well enough alone, but they killed him. Now, some of these story collections like Tales from the Cantina or Tales from Jabba’s Palace is actually pretty good stuff. Except they reinforce the idea that everyone in Star Wars has some kind of relationship with everyone else. As some fans noted, no one could be at the Cantina because they wanted a drink. Everyone had some kind of agenda, some part in an overall bigger scheme. You know what, I can’t think of the last time I went into a bar for a reason other than to get a drink or meet some friends. I have never visited a bar to plot to overthrow a planetary government or the like. Maybe that’s just me. Maybe I’m weird. Just sayin’.

Then there is the technological disparity. Superweapons are practically common in EU, so you’d think this weird alien invading race they dreamed up would be no problem. Hey, galaxy killing supervillians, we’d like you to meet our mass produced Death Stars and Sun Crushers. Of course, the reason why they introduced a new antagonist organization is because the canonical movies have pretty well devastated the antagonists we have grown to know and hate.

All of this is from what little reading I’ve done in the EU materials, which comes out to maybe two dozen books. That might sound like a lot, but they have literally published hundreds of these things. Luke Skywalker is married! Gotta have a happy ending for Luke. He is of course married to every fanboi’s wet dream, Mara Jade. Boba Fett somehow escaped being eaten alive and is still out there.

Ok, I’m going to quit picking at that scab, I think my point is made. EU is crap. Feel free to enjoy it. I enjoy my crap, but I can admit it’s crap.

I used to get mad at George Lucas for basically “wiping his ass with the Expanded Universe”, but when I step back and look at it I have to admit I understand why he generally doesn’t touch it and very rarely cherry picks a few things here and there. The other thing I have a problem with is the insistence of EU fans to fit everything into canon. From comic books, to novels, to videogames. Sorry guys, it’s just not possible. Why can’t a game just stand on its own? I’m fine with Republic Commando, I don’t need you to fit it into the canonical universe for me. I just don’t care. That is creepily obsessive.

Just enjoy your novels, your comic books, and your games. Quit taking it so damn seriously and admit why you don’t see awards being heaped on these materials.

I have heaped praise on Old Man’s War as my all time favorite science fiction novel in the past. The initial investment of the book was for the first paperback printing that took about $13 out of my bank account. Money well spent even though I breezed through the book in about two days. Technically it was supposed to make it through at least two plane flights as I was reading while travelling then but once I started reading the book I couldn’t stop and ended up having to get a new book (another $8 which may or may not count in this total) to have something else to read.

Then the second paperback version came out and I bought two more books. Why? Well, for one I had “loaned” my original copy to my Dad, fully expecting to never see it again, and I bought another for a friend that I knew was into Sci-Fi. So there went another $15, making the grand total $28 (or $36 if you count the replacement book I was forced to buy to still have something to read on my trip). This is all for one story. I had decided I would re-read Old Man’s War before I bought The Last Colony. That didn’t happen as I am reading The Last Colony now and I just gave away my second copy of Old Man’s War for someone else to read. That means I will now have to buy yet another copy for myself to re-read.

How good is a story that I have been buying extra copies just to give away to others that I know will enjoy it?

The Last Chancers Omnibus collects the novels 13th Legion, Annihilation Squad, and Kill Team into one book and also includes a prequel short story to the whole affair plus another short story to cover the events between 13th Legion and Annihilation Squad.

At about $10 it’s a steal considering the amount of material it covers and the cost of the individual books. The prequel short story is alright, though it seems to have some contradictory information and makes Kage out to be more than just another condemned prisoner. However, the second short story expounds on events only hinted at in the beginning of Annihilation Squad and gives us a great look into Kage’s motivations and how clever he is when it comes to doing what he does best.

While I have had issues with the final story, Kill Team, I still think it’s an excellent collection and worth picking up. I certainly found it easier than trying to find all three of the original novels and the included short stories are a nice bonus.

Kill Team is the third and, what is assumed, final installment of the Last Chancers trilogy. Gav Thorpe deserves some praise for not being a slave to formula as this novel, like the two before it, is written in a completely different style.

Unfortunately, Kill Team just doesn’t work as well. Though fans of the series will want to read it anyway to discover Kage’s ultimate fate, the narrative is broken down into two different styles to cover an internal conflict Kage is now having. I won’t go into details of this conflict as it would give too much away, but the way it is written is that whenever we enter this internal conflict Thorpe switches his style in two ways.

First of all he writes in italics. I don’t know if this was his decision or the publisher’s, but it doesn’t work because we have large bodies of text, sometimes pages, written in italics. It’s difficult to read and ponderous to sift through.

Second, the writing style changes to something that reads similar to a first-person self-insertion fan fiction. Not that Thorpe is inserting himself into the novel, just that the style resembles exactly like something I’d expect a college student trying the same thing to do. After establishing such an excellent tone and pace with Kage and his point of view, breaking out of his typical first-person viewpoint and narrating the internal conflict is something of a drag on the story.

A big disappointment is although we find out what Kage’s future will be, we know nothing of Colonel Schaeffer’s fate nor even some of the troopers accompanying the Last Chancers this time. Even less is given to characterization, instead more ink is devoted solely to Kage. The novels have always worked best as being about Kage and the other condemned around him. Suddenly when its all Kage all the time things just aren’t as interesting. I think there is just so much you can do with an undereducated psychopath.

If it were not for Thorpe’s rather odd conventions he’s adopted in this novel I think it would have been a better story. Thorpe tries to go for something different and it doesn’t quite work. Thorpe also seems to be channelling some of the ultra-grim undertones from his previous work, Angels of Darkness. Frankly, if I hadn’t been so fascinated by the Last Chancers concept I probably wouldn’t have given them a chance based on Thorpe’s writing in Angels of Darkness. He’s improved a lot since then, but Kill Team is a step in the wrong direction.

Fortunately if you want to find out what happens to our…er…hero you’ll probably find Kill Team to be easy reading aside from the italicized portions. The pacing is much better than Annihilation Squad though Thorpe has yet to top 13th Legion.