Archive for the ‘The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance’ Category

In this episode, Wayne and I argue over how many times can you read about the same explosion and it still be interesting as we break down Fatal Alliance by Sean Williams.  We discuss how the opening of this movie is very George Lucasesqued, how the ending gave us some nice twists, and argue just how great the middle was.  We break down characters and plot as we dive deep into this novel.

We give you the results of our Fantasy Football league where I was totally robbed by Peyton Manning’s neck.

We chase numerous sports rabbits, and most importantly we make a major announcement.

That announcment being the Star Wars Book Report Fan Fic Faceoff 2012 where we want you to submit your best fan fic piece to be judged by our audience and us.  We will post these pieces on our site for our audience to read, and we will dedicate a future podcast to announcing our winner who will receive our acclaim and a lousy tee shirt.  More details and full contest rules can be found on the link at the top of this page.  All submissions can be sent to jesse@starwarsbookreport.com, and if you have any questions you can e-mail me as well.  We hope to receive your submission soon.

So come explore the galaxy with us one page at a time.

Thanks for listening, Jesse

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This is a spoiler conscious review of Sean Williams’ The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance.

Books or Series Mentioned

The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance

Clone Wars: Wild Space

The Fate of the Jedi

I have particular writing devices, plot styles, and other storytelling nuances that I look for and love in each book I read, and let me tell you, The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance pushed all of the right buttons for me.  I absolutely loved this novel.  If you are a character driven reader as I am, you also will thoroughly enjoy this novel.  Let me tell you about my buttons.

First, as previously stated, I am a character driven reader.  I really enjoyed Clone Wars: Wild Space with its pretty basic and done before plot purely because I loved watching Obi-Wan and Bail Organa grow as characters.  I loved reading their conversations.  I was riveted because characters development was so prominent in Karen Miller’s writing style.  Well, my favorite way to develop characters is by spending time inside their heads.  I love when the author tells the story from the different perspectives.  This book bounces inside the head of 8 major characters and spends a great deal of time in five maybe six of these characters depending on if you count the time in Dao Stryver’s head as some or a great deal.  Anyway, by spending so much time in each character’s head, there is ample character development for me to develop my own emotions and connections and disgusts with each character.  It was wonderful and well done character development.  The best compliment I can give the character development of The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance is to say I would drop what I am reading now to read a Jet Nebula, Ula Vii, Shigar Konshi, or Eldon Ax novel.  I was captivated by these four characters especially and in the above order.  I loved Jet Nebula, and I want more Jet stories.  I think it is safe to say that Jet Nebula was the most fascinating character of this story, even though I really found Ula Vii captivating as well.  Ula Vii is a spy with a heart of gold which was interesting because hearts of gold usually come in pirates not in spies in Star Wars.  Shigar and his struggles on what a Jedi is and how a Jedi should act was an interesting internal struggle.  Eldon Ax having some of the same internal struggles as Shigar as a Sith was also interesting.  A Dao Styver novel would be fun as well. 

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Welcome to our Christmas spectacular!  In today’s episode we interview prolific author and veteren Star Wars writer Sean Williams, and we complete our discussion on Eragon by Christopher Paolini.

We try and ask questions of Sean Williams that he has not been asked in recent interviews.  If you want more traditional interviews or just more Sean Williams here is a link where you can find several recent interviews with Mr. Williams

http://ladnews.livejournal.com/tag/interviews

We discover from Sean Williams his passion outside of writting that almost kept him from writting novels and shor stories, whether or not his wife reads his books, what is is like having a short story turned into a play, how the dark side ending is worked in The Force Unleashed 1 and 2, and much more including his favorite meal at the moment.

Then, Wayne and I complete our discussion on Eragon, including Paolini’s gift at crafting characters, setting up of the sequel, our take on many critics’ take on this novel, and more.

So come along and explore the galaxy with us one page at a time.

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The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance by Sean Williams

Sean Williams is a very good writer.  Do not let my negative comments on The Force Unleashed be reflected at all on your opinion of Sean Williams’ writing.  He is an excellent writer.  The Force Heretic trilogy in the New Jedi Order were some of the best of that series, and I really like Sean Williams a great deal, and The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance shows me why.  The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance is a tie-in novel to the upcoming online video game that cost more that most third world countries, and if the game, lives up to this novel, it will be as successful a game as the The Force Unleashed duology, that I am sure will become a trilogy. 

I am getting close to the middle of the novel, and I have enjoyed it thoroughly.  This novel is a multi-perspectival novel.  How do you like that big word?  What I mean is that Williams tells this story through the eyes of multiple people.  You see this story from the perspective of a Sith apprentice, a Jedi apprentice, a black opp soldier, a pirate, among others.  This bouncing around from the mind of character to another character adds a richness to this story that I love.  I reminds me of Robart Jordan’s Wheel of Time series that follows dozens of characters and brings them all together, but The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance does this on a smaller scale which adds a pace to the story that The Wheel of Time series does not have. 

A couple of things has surprised me to this point about this novel.  Writing from the perspective of so many characters, I get excited knowing that these characters are going to meet at some point in the story.  I love watching these stories collide.  The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance reminds me of the story style of Crosscurrent by Paul Kemp, which is a novel I enjoyed, but there is one significant and surprising, in a good way, difference in the two novels.  In Crosscurrent, Paul Kemp waited until the end to bring all of his characters and storylines together…not Sean Williams.  Sean Williams brings his characters together much sooner with a rather lengthy battle between Jedi and Sith…then Jedi, Sith and Mando…then Jedi, Sith, Mando, and Mysterious Droids…then Jedi, Sith, Mando, Mysterious Droids, Palace Security, and Former Black Opps Agent.  As you can see this fight becomes a free for all that was very fun to read, but Williams does one really nice writing technique that made this battle from good to great. 

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