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I always regarded Drew as my favorite Star Wars author. The Darth Bane trilogy is priceless. Now I'm getting people on this forum ripping on him, one person even saying he's the worst. If he is the worst, then who is good? And WHY is he bad?

Revan gave me Ebola.

The Bane trilogy books are among the worst in the EU.

As repetitive as it was, I liked the Bane trilogy, though Revan was bad, and it's shame because TOR is probably my favorite era. About the author he is nothing special to me.

There are worse authors out there. He's okay.

Every single one of his novels has been trash, so probably.

"The man leapt high in the air, flipping backward to avoid the deadly
electrical conflagration."

This is why he was bad.

I'd crack open the Revan novel to post the first couple of paragraphs as well, but there is the very real chance I wouldn't survive the experience.

Now, maybe his plot and characters are cool. I haven't read enough to judge whether or not that is the case.

But his actual writing is incredibly awkward and frankly shitty. IIRC Revan had a grammatical error in like the third sentence.

He seems fine when doing a new path, but he's bad at research and handling existing characters he has less experience with.

Like how in Revan, so much was about his new character Scourge, and the Exile was so badly handled.

He is horrible. Easily one of the worst SW writers. His plots are simplistic and typically revolve around the hero "leveling up", his prose is laughably pedestrian for a novelist, and his characters are paper thin. His only decent novel was PoD but that's because he was able to draw from the far superior Jedi vs Sith comic and could take all the most badass Bane moments.

Revan sort of stained his name imo, He didn't handle characters like the exile quite well, lacked the necessary research and just retconned a great deal of KoTOR, he's not very consistent, however. It was just Revan, I'm on chapter seven of PoD and i find it completely amazing, nice character development, background, fighting scenes, it's great. Bantha has nothing but praise for the fatal alliance novel, His Mass Effect work is absolutely loved by fans of the series, not to mention he did wonders for KoTOR 1. The man is a good writer, maybe it's just me, but even from the little excerpt that I've seen on here, i feel as though he was rushed by the company and had no room for doing what he wanted to do.

He's not the worse writer in SW EU history imo, he just got pushed to release a novel by a certain date.

People can't say he's the worst writer after seeing what the Bioware peeps are doing with the new update.

Originally posted by Fated Xtasy
Revan sort of stained his name imo, He didn't handle characters like the exile quite well, lacked the necessary research and just retconned a great deal of KoTOR, he's not very consistent, however. It was just Revan, I'm on chapter seven of PoD and i find it completely amazing, nice character development, background, fighting scenes, it's great. Bantha has nothing but praise for the fatal alliance novel, His Mass Effect work is absolutely loved by fans of the series, not to mention he did wonders for KoTOR 1. The man is a good writer, maybe it's just me, but even from the little excerpt that I've seen on here, i feel as though he was rushed by the company and had no room for doing what he wanted to do.

He's not the worse writer in SW EU history imo, he just got pushed to release a novel by a certain date.
He is a good video game writer, not a novelist.

Originally posted by DarthAnt66
He is a good video game writer, not a novelist.

And to be honest, half of the plot of TOR:Revan was directly from Obsidian's dialogue in KotOR2 (Mandalore's Mask quest; Revan goes to find Ancient Sith).

Originally posted by DarthAnt66
He is a good video game writer, not a novelist.

Literally literary terrorism.

Originally posted by NemeBro
Literally literary terrorism.

SO WHO DO YOU GUYS THINK IS A GOOD AUTHOR!!!

Luceno and Stover both come to mind.

Originally posted by Darth Abonis
SO WHO DO YOU GUYS THINK IS A GOOD AUTHOR!!!

The late Aaron Allston. He was an amazing writer.

Originally posted by ares834
Luceno and Stover both come to mind.


Paul S Kemp is also a good writer, but Luceno and Stover are great.

Luceno is okay (Tarkin was horrible), Stover is great and so is Paul S. Kemp, but not Aaron Allston. He was okay.

You said good author. They are all good authors.

Timothy Zahn.

I never read Revan. But I thoroughly enjoyed the Bane trilogy and Annihilation. I don't think he is a bad author, people just wanna crucify him for Revan.

I've read those novels too. They're about the same quality. Maybe you just have bad tastes.

Actually Mr. Karpyshyn isn't bad, but he is not among the great novelists either, he is mediocre.

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Darth Bane: Path of Destruction is among the better novels of the lore but the follow-ups are mediocre.

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Revan is also not that bad as some seem to assert, it builds on the events of KoTOR and KoTOR II but it does have shortcomings that could be easily addressed with some effort. It would have been good if the author provided full account of Revan's duel with Darth Malak on Star Forge and attempted to connect this event (and Darth Malak) with shaping-up of Revan afterwards and SWTOR. It would also have been better to focus some more on developing the characters of Revan, Nyriss, and Meetra Surik apart from Scourge and Emperor. Furthermore, events of KoTOR II and their connection with SWTOR should have been explored in some detail to honor the fans of this game, I honestly believe that this would have been a good addition in the book.

In fact, I believe that it would have been better to convert Revan in to a Trilogy instead of a single novel to cover most aspects of KoTOR I and KoTOR II properly and in good detail.

I, however, believe that fans of KoTOR II are mainly butthurt about officially established superiority of Revan over Meetra Surik in power and understanding of the ways of the Force, more-so then other reasons they often present during discussions. In-fact, KoTOR II itself isn't much of a masterpiece and is responsible for promoting some shitty concepts concerning the lore. The novel actually covers up some mess created by KoTOR II but this could be done in better manner.

Revan does promotes Surik as a (powerful) Jedi with accolades and not an among average joe of the Jedi as one of the Jedi Masters asserted about her in KoTOR II which is ironic and often overlooked. More importantly, Revan does not depicts an anomalistic or circumstantially empowered Surik, it depicts a healed Surik. Perhaps the concept of a (Force Wound) individual does not floats well in the lore holistically with other authors.

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It shall also be noted that Mr. Karpyshyn is often criticized for mishandling characters created by other authors but is this really the case? I recall Mr. James Jackson Miller. Mr. Troy Denning, and Ms. Karen Traviss doing even worse then him in this respect.

Originally posted by S_W_LeGenD
I, however, believe that fans of KoTOR II are mainly butthurt about officially established superiority of Revan over Meetra Surik in power and understanding of the ways of the Force, more-so then other reasons they often present during discussions. In-fact, KoTOR II itself isn't much of a masterpiece and is responsible for promoting some shitty concepts concerning the lore. The novel actually covers up some mess created by KoTOR II but this could be done in better manner.
Revan>Surik is one thing that I'm sure not that many people would be butthurt enough about to trash the book.
Revan>>Nyriss>>Surik is what pisses people off.

Among the good authors, Paul S. Kamp have my vote. Deceived is a great novel, IMO.

Originally posted by S_W_LeGenD
Among the good authors, Paul S. Kamp have my vote. Deceived is a great novel, IMO.

You ought to give Crosscurrent and it's sequel(Riptide) a try. Riptide has a few mentions of the Rakata(one of them being a Major plot point), I enjoyed it, Crosscurrent is good as well, gives you a look into the cloning process that Thrawn started.

Also, Karpshyn wrote novels for Mass Effect as well and they were well received by fans and critics alike the novel was just rushed - don't get me wrong, it's not the best novel ever, but it's definitely not the worse SW novel.

Originally posted by Emperordmb
Revan>Surik is one thing that I'm sure not that many people would be butthurt enough about to trash the book.
Revan>>Nyriss>>Surik is what pisses people off.
I honestly don't care. The book has shitty writing overall honestly. Power levels come secondary.

Originally posted by Fated Xtasy
You ought to give Crosscurrent and it's sequel(Riptide) a try. Riptide has a few mentions of the Rakata(one of them being a Major plot point), I enjoyed it, Crosscurrent is good as well, gives you a look into the cloning process that Thrawn started.
Thanks for the input. Will check these out when I have time.

Originally posted by Fated Xtasy
Also, Karpshyn wrote novels for Mass Effect as well and they were well received by fans and critics alike the novel was just rushed - don't get me wrong, it's not the best novel ever, but it's definitely not the worse SW novel.

Originally posted by Fated Xtasy

Also, Karpshyn wrote novels for Mass Effect as well and they were well received by fans and critics alike the novel was just rushed - don't get me wrong, it's not the best novel ever, but it's definitely not the worse SW novel.

His ME novels were garbage too. I couldn't even get 100 pages into it before I gave up.

Originally posted by Emperordmb
Revan>Surik is one thing that I'm sure not that many people would be butthurt enough about to trash the book.
Revan>>Nyriss>>Surik is what pisses people off.
IMO, thrilling action sequences in the battles featured in Revan are unfortunately lacking. This book is really weak on the narrative front.

It would have been much better depicting Revan and Surik collapsing structures, destroying large droids and ripping opponents apart with their super-powers and this would have given fans of both some stuff to boast about in the discussions.

Surik's loss to a Dark Council member isn't such a bad thing since they are the most powerful Sith Lords in the galaxy barring Emperor and select-few specials. However, I did find Nyriss's battle really lacking in action sequences. It would have been better to depict this as a really climatic battle (containing some great action sequences) between Nyriss and the duo of Scourge and Surik with Nyriss gaining the upperhand after a prolonged struggle only to end up dead at the hands of Revan.

Originally posted by S_W_LeGenD
It would have been much better depicting Revan and Surik collapsing structures, destroying large droids and ripping opponents apart with their super-powers and this would have given fans of both some stuff to boast about in the discussions.

*orgasms*

Tim Lebbon ugh I hate him. A million times worce than any author you have read. He writes flash back sequences in present tense instead of the standard past tense and OMG it made me want to fist a newborn!

"She is a little girl, the sky seems wide and endless, and Lanoree Brock breathes in the wonders of Tython as she runs to find her brother."

^ try reading shit like that for half the book

Originally posted by S_W_LeGenD
Among the good authors, Paul S. Kamp have my vote. Deceived is a great novel, IMO.

Agreed; it was pretty good, and did a solid job of making Malgus at least a little sympathetic.

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As someone said, Karapashyn is a good game writer, but a bad novelist. His prose just doesn't flow very well. He tries too hard to be elaborate when he could be much simpler and straightforward.

At least imo.

Originally posted by S_W_LeGenD


I'm quoting only because of the sheer irony.

His prose always feels simplistic. Unlike Stover's or Luceno's. Bu the Bane books are awesome.

His Bane trilogy of which PoD was the best was merely a remake of a previous series that he had taken the plot from, RoT and DoE did not share this basis and consequently weren't as good.

Revan was an atrocity, KotOR and KotOR II were both far deeper in meaning and plot development.