Tmothy Zahn vs Kevin J Anderson


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Kensai
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Tmothy Zahn vs Kevin J Anderson

Post by Kensai »

Timothy Zahn vs KJA. Not Dune but I thought it was great to see that member of the Star Wars comunity seem to take the same side as us.

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 36&start=0
Emperor's Hand wrote: Hello! This is the first thread that I have ever started so, it's also kinda of an introduction thread as well!

Okay here is the scene;

Timothy Zahn and KJA have been given the powers to allow their thought to manifest. What ever one writes down, as in a novel, will be sorta real. They each write on the same book but on different sides. Make sense?
So who wins?

My theory:

Timothy starts off cautious, he takes great pain and care in introducing us to his characters, he makes them interesting, believable and viable. KJA ignores this and starts by introducing high ranking baddies, who we are led to believe are very competent, but gives us no proof. They attack and make a huge succes out of it, regardless of the fact that all they were doing was bombing a stone-age civilisation out of existance. They now are meant to be interpreted as infailable and the CANNOT be beaten.

Back to Tim, his vilians have also launched an attack, although not 100% succesfull, they achieve their major objectives, and the situation looks, grim. The good guys however are on the case and they begind to show some spirit and fight back, it's desperate, it's necessary and it's believable.

KJA meanwhile, his bad guys are nearly victorious, when he suddenly realises he is about to reach his word limit, so he allows the good guys to pull some trump card out of their respective areses and save the day. Thus totally negating your entire effort of reading 600 odd pages of drible just because the ending is stupid.

As a result, Tim's well crafted effort is short changed because he had the audacity to actually make this whole thing realistic.

Well that was a little bit longer than I thought it would be, but it at least shows you my view of who is the best STAR WARS EU author is...
Last edited by Kensai on 17 Jul 2010 03:30, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Tmothy Zahn vs Kevin J Anderson

Post by A Thing of Eternity »

The SW community might just hate him as much as we do. The only thing that they have to make them hate him just a little less if that theirs is already Expanded Universe, so canon had already been messed with and was accepted as such.

They judge him more on being utter garbage than violating canon (which I hear he did there as well).
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Re: Tmothy Zahn vs Kevin J Anderson

Post by lotek »

KJA meanwhile, his bad guys are nearly victorious, when he suddenly realises he is about to reach his word limit, so he allows the good guys to pull some trump card out of their respective areses and save the day. Thus totally negating your entire effort of reading 600 odd pages of drible just because the ending is stupid.
Here's another poor victim bound to the Jihad by a cherem of hate.

We think he raped Dune but from what I gather he's proper ass fucked Star Wars...
why even bother with this poll. Zhan is a skilled writer, he and Stackpole are IMHO among the best of the SW authors (well Alliston too. the X-wing books where a refreshing change from the overly political EU books of the time) KJA he's basicly just a hack writer. hell he doesn't even WRITE the things himself. he records it into a tape and gets some one to type it for him apparently.
Not an attack, but bother with this pole because don't you hate it when hack writters totally undo all the good work that good one's do? And really I think that Zahn is the best, however it saddens me to admit that KJA would probably win because he would use the old pull something ridiculous out of my arse trick at the last moment!
:lol:
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Re: Tmothy Zahn vs Kevin J Anderson

Post by lotek »

good find too :clap:

KJA pulling something ridiculous out of his arse...

Winds of Dung of course!

Hey Brian pull my finger!
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Re: Tmothy Zahn vs Kevin J Anderson

Post by Omphalos »

Well, Timothy Zahn sucks too. But hey, he has a Nebula under his belt, while Spanks only has a few Certificates of Attendance from the Nebula Award Ceremony.
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Re: Tmothy Zahn vs Kevin J Anderson

Post by Superdog »

I must say, as far as SW EU authors I'm really impressed with Karen Traviss.
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Re: Tmothy Zahn vs Kevin J Anderson

Post by Redstar »

Isn't she the one that coined the term "talifan" and deleted entire discussions criticizing her work?
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Re: Tmothy Zahn vs Kevin J Anderson

Post by Superdog »

Redstar wrote:Isn't she the one that coined the term "talifan" and deleted entire discussions criticizing her work?
Just looked it up and apparently that is true. There was a big argument about her saying in the Clone Wars the Republic had 3 million clones, which is significantly smaller than say, WW2, and thus pretty implausible.

I didn't know that before my previous post, though.
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Re: Tmothy Zahn vs Kevin J Anderson

Post by Superdog »

Say what you want about Zahn, at least he comes up with memorable characters: Thrawn, Mara Jade, the Noghri, Palleon
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Re: Tmothy Zahn vs Kevin J Anderson

Post by merkin muffley »

Emperor's Hand wrote: KJA ignores this and starts by introducing high ranking baddies, who we are led to believe are very competent, but gives us no proof. They attack and make a huge succes out of it, regardless of the fact that all they were doing was bombing a stone-age civilisation out of existance. They now are meant to be interpreted as infailable and the CANNOT be beaten

...his bad guys are nearly victorious, when he suddenly realises he is about to reach his word limit, so he allows the good guys to pull some trump card out of their respective areses and save the day. Thus totally negating your entire effort of reading 600 odd pages of drible just because the ending is stupid.
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Re: Tmothy Zahn vs Kevin J Anderson

Post by Kensai »

Superdog wrote:I must say, as far as SW EU authors I'm really impressed with Karen Traviss.
She is also well known for doing the Gears of War books, which for a video game spin off book isn't as bad as the others. I had the missfortune to read some of the Halo books during my earlie teens :puke: Then again, even though they are complete shite, they did get a lot of kids I know into reading.

I thought it was funny that Karen Traviss made a big deal about actually doing some military service when actually she was in the Naval Reserve or something crap like that.
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Re: Tmothy Zahn vs Kevin J Anderson

Post by Kensai »

Emperor's Hand wrote: KJA meanwhile, his bad guys are nearly victorious, when he suddenly realises he is about to reach his word limit, so he allows the good guys to pull some trump card out of their respective areses and save the day. Thus totally negating your entire effort of reading 600 odd pages of drible just because the ending is stupid.
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Re: Tmothy Zahn vs Kevin J Anderson

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A Thing of Eternity wrote:The SW community might just hate him as much as we do.

I don't see how .... StarWars, from the first movie all the way to last week's CloneWars cartoon
is juvenile bullshit; its' best points are straight rip-offs from real science fiction works or Greek
mythology .... in the long run, StarWars is chewing gum; Spanky fits right in there, I can't see
those people being too angry .... what kind of fucking literary genius has ever written
anything with a StarWars label on it ? I thought the prereq for writing a StarWars book was
being a hack ?

on the other hand, Frank Herbert's Dune is a Classic of American Literature ...

I'm sure the Xfiles books were stupid, too, and I haven't seen DC offering another poke
at any of their properties ....

also, anybody who hits "send" on posts like this,
I just don't give a fuck about what they think ...
why even bother with this poll. Zhan is a skilled writer, he and Stackpole are IMHO among the best of the SW authors (well Alliston too. the X-wing books where a refreshing change from the overly political EU books of the time) KJA he's basicly just a hack writer. hell he doesn't even WRITE the things himself. he records it into a tape and gets some one to type it for him apparently.

Not an attack, but bother with this pole because don't you hate it when hack writters totally undo all the good work that good one's do? And really I think that Zahn is the best, however it saddens me to admit that KJA would probably win because he would use the old pull something ridiculous out of my arse trick at the last moment!
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Re: Tmothy Zahn vs Kevin J Anderson

Post by lotek »

I liked the part about kja pulling something ridiculous out of his arse though :)

Now what could that be?

A waterworm?
A batigh?
A string of gholas?
A super magical goddess that frolicks with navigators?
A new approach to arabic?
A wasted remnant of the son of a great man?
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Re: Tmothy Zahn vs Kevin J Anderson

Post by Nekhrun »

Omphalos wrote:Well, Timothy Zahn sucks too.
I was just jumping in to say that.
Omphalos wrote:But hey, he has a Nebula under his belt, while Spanks only has a few Certificates of Attendance from the Nebula Award Ceremony.
Don't forget his Certificate of Achievement from us!

The reason that we have more reason to hate kja than Star Wars fans is because they were able to get rid of him and we can't.
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Re: Tmothy Zahn vs Kevin J Anderson

Post by Kensai »

SandRider wrote:
A Thing of Eternity wrote:The SW community might just hate him as much as we do.

I don't see how .... StarWars, from the first movie all the way to last week's CloneWars cartoon
is juvenile bullshit; its' best points are straight rip-offs from real science fiction works or Greek
mythology .... in the long run, StarWars is chewing gum; Spanky fits right in there, I can't see
those people being too angry .... what kind of fucking literary genius has ever written
anything with a StarWars label on it ? I thought the prereq for writing a StarWars book was
being a hack ?

on the other hand, Frank Herbert's Dune is a Classic of American Literature ...

I'm sure the Xfiles books were stupid, too, and I haven't seen DC offering another poke
at any of their properties ....

also, anybody who hits "send" on posts like this,
I just don't give a fuck about what they think ...
why even bother with this poll. Zhan is a skilled writer, he and Stackpole are IMHO among the best of the SW authors (well Alliston too. the X-wing books where a refreshing change from the overly political EU books of the time) KJA he's basicly just a hack writer. hell he doesn't even WRITE the things himself. he records it into a tape and gets some one to type it for him apparently.

Not an attack, but bother with this pole because don't you hate it when hack writters totally undo all the good work that good one's do? And really I think that Zahn is the best, however it saddens me to admit that KJA would probably win because he would use the old pull something ridiculous out of my arse trick at the last moment!
I totally agree. Ironically George Lucas and KJA have a lot in common, I just thought it was nice that even Star Wats fans thought he was a hack.

"also, anybody who hits "send" on posts like this,
I just don't give a fuck about what they think ..."-
yet you post your opinion here.
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Re: Tmothy Zahn vs Kevin J Anderson

Post by SadisticCynic »

Superdog wrote:I must say, as far as SW EU authors I'm really impressed with Karen Traviss.
Actually I agree, Traviss is one of the better SW EU authors. I really enjoyed her Gears of War books as well (she's actually the writer for Gears 3 too).
Superdog wrote:There was a big argument about her saying in the Clone Wars the Republic had 3 million clones, which is significantly smaller than say, WW2, and thus pretty implausible.
I hadn't heard that part either. Criticism makes a little more sense now.

I've said it before but it's safe to say it again, KJA doesn't even understand Star Wars, cf. Jedi Academy Trilogy.
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Re: Tmothy Zahn vs Kevin J Anderson

Post by TheDukester »

Karen Traviss can eat a big plate of shit and choke on it.

She's the female KJA: she's a hack franchise writer, thinks she's never wrong, has elected to be combative with SW fans, and generally manages to act pretty much like Anderhack every chance she gets.

Beyond all that, she can never be forgiven for "Talifan." That's simply offensive on every imaginable level.
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Re: Tmothy Zahn vs Kevin J Anderson

Post by Superdog »

TheDukester wrote:Karen Traviss can eat a big plate of shit and choke on it.

She's the female KJA: she's a hack franchise writer, thinks she's never wrong, has elected to be combative with SW fans, and generally manages to act pretty much like Anderhack every chance she gets.

Beyond all that, she can never be forgiven for "Talifan." That's simply offensive on every imaginable level.
See I never heard anything of her fan interaction, I was just impressed with the level of plausibility she brought to the star wars novels. People drink coffee, watch the news stuff like that.
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Re: Tmothy Zahn vs Kevin J Anderson

Post by Kojiro »

Superdog wrote:
TheDukester wrote:Karen Traviss can eat a big plate of shit and choke on it.

She's the female KJA: she's a hack franchise writer, thinks she's never wrong, has elected to be combative with SW fans, and generally manages to act pretty much like Anderhack every chance she gets.

Beyond all that, she can never be forgiven for "Talifan." That's simply offensive on every imaginable level.
See I never heard anything of her fan interaction, I was just impressed with the level of plausibility she brought to the star wars novels. People drink coffee, watch the news stuff like that.
And yet 3 million clones to patrol the galaxy is not plausible.

Anyway, any author that's a jerk to the fans doesn't deserve any sort of adoration. Hell, that's why some authors are completely reviled; because they're complete and utter douchebags. Take Terry Goodkind, for example... the guy thinks everything he's written is golden, yet it's the most cliche filled fantasy schlock in the universe and quite a bit of it looked like it was ripped from Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time. And yet:
Haddonfield, NJ: Second Question - I've noticed similarities between your Sword of Truth series and Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series...(Black Sisterhood vs. Black Ajah; The Order vs. The Seanchan; Richard vs. Rand both discovering their powers, both have Nameless evil Gods...etc.) I've often voiced my suspicion that these two series might be occurring on the same world...how crazy am I?

Terry Goodkind: If you notice a similarity, then you probably aren't old enough to read my books.
I probably hate that guy almost as much as I hate KJA....
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Re: Tmothy Zahn vs Kevin J Anderson

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TheDukester wrote:Karen Traviss can eat a big plate of shit and choke on it.

She's the female KJA: she's a hack franchise writer, thinks she's never wrong, has elected to be combative with SW fans, and generally manages to act pretty much like Anderhack every chance she gets.

Beyond all that, she can never be forgiven for "Talifan." That's simply offensive on every imaginable level.
Agreed.

The only two SW authors worth their water are Michael Stackpole and Matthew Stover.
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Re: Tmothy Zahn vs Kevin J Anderson

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"also, anybody who hits "send" on posts like this,
I just don't give a fuck about what they think ..."- yet you post your opinion here.

reading is fundamental .... my obvious intent was that if a moron cannot take the time to
construct a somewhat grammatically correct post, the chances are that his opinion is worthless ...

related to Pretard Rule #1; if you've read KJA and didn't immediately recognize talentless hackery,
you're an idiot and all your opinions are suspect ... in the same way, attempting to toss Star Wars
into a discussion of serious literature raises the Red ShitHeel Flag .... and if the post is riddled with
simple spelling errors and reads like a preteen's text to her BFF, I'm not going to listen to you ...
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Re: Tmothy Zahn vs Kevin J Anderson

Post by Kensai »

SandRider wrote:
"also, anybody who hits "send" on posts like this,
I just don't give a fuck about what they think ..."- yet you post your opinion here.

reading is fundamental .... my obvious intent was that if a moron cannot take the time to
construct a somewhat grammatically correct post, the chances are that his opinion is worthless ...

related to Pretard Rule #1; if you've read KJA and didn't immediately recognize talentless hackery,
you're an idiot and all your opinions are suspect ... in the same way, attempting to toss Star Wars
into a discussion of serious literature raises the Red ShitHeel Flag .... and if the post is riddled with
simple spelling errors and reads like a preteen's text to her BFF, I'm not going to listen to you ...
I get what you mean. I'm not a member of that forum by the way. I'm not really sure if they were trying to compaire SW to genuine literary acheivements (forgive me if I am wrong) but just that even in a universe which is rather pulp (i.e. based on actions not words, and the few words being cliches and broad archtype diologue). I mean no book written in the Star Wars universe will be compairable to Dune or the works of Mark Twain, but if your going to write a book in that universe you could at least add a little depth (which some few EUSW authors have) to it. KJA can't because he is a pulp hack. He is like George Lucas, he wrote to the lowest common denominators writing what is "kewl" not thought provokeing or unique.
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Re: Tmothy Zahn vs Kevin J Anderson

Post by A Thing of Eternity »

SandRider wrote:
A Thing of Eternity wrote:The SW community might just hate him as much as we do.

I don't see how .... StarWars, from the first movie all the way to last week's CloneWars cartoon
is juvenile bullshit; its' best points are straight rip-offs from real science fiction works or Greek
mythology .... in the long run, StarWars is chewing gum; Spanky fits right in there, I can't see
those people being too angry .... what kind of fucking literary genius has ever written
anything with a StarWars label on it ? I thought the prereq for writing a StarWars book was
being a hack ?
I agree with you about SW, but that has nothing to do with how much SW's fans are capable of hating someone who fucks up their universe (though it was already fucked, but whatever). Just because it's pulp doesn't mean they can't get just about as angry as we can. Dumber people are ruled more by emotion, and dumber people like pulp (not that smart people can't like it too), so they have plenty of capacity.
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Re: Tmothy Zahn vs Kevin J Anderson

Post by SandRider »

oh, sure they can hate him and rant all they want, I'm just saying their bitches are really
not justified as compared to the OH ...
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