|
|
 |
Hello, you are not signed on.
|
sign on |
 |
![[ Message Boards ]](/skin/default/img/msgboards_title.gif)
|
 |
|
|
Books, Comics, & Television VIPs - 9952 replies | 664 pages |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Date Posted: Apr 20, 2009 08:00 PM
Length doesn't truly bother me as it does some. As long as it's quality over quantity, I'm fine with it. Which I've no doubt Abyss will be.
It only bothers me if I feel like the story had more to tell. That was definitely the case with Invincible, in my opinion, as the wrap up of the war seemed to have been glossed over.
Also -- I thought we were comparing both Omen and Abyss's manuscripts, I didn't see that Omen amounted to 260 and that it had already been converted to hardback.
Ah, OK. Just a misunderstanding. 
|
|
|
|
|
|
S1th'ari
Total Posts: 5138
Member Since: 09/08
|
|
Date Posted: Apr 20, 2009 08:02 PM
I agree, Invincible probably could have been longer; not necessarily to add an entirely separate battle, but maybe a chapter within the prologue or before it to sum up what became of Niathal's forces, the Confederacy and a few others.
|
|
|
|
|
Date Posted: Apr 20, 2009 08:08 PM
Exactly. It felt like there was no REAL reason why the war ended. It just kinda did. All of the sudden everyone stopped fighting.
Granted it's been almost a year since I read it, so I could be forgetting some key parts of it, but I recall thinking at the time... um, that's it?
|
|
|
|
|
|
S1th'ari
Total Posts: 5138
Member Since: 09/08
|
|
Date Posted: Apr 20, 2009 08:11 PM
This message was edited by S1th'ari on Apr 20, 2009 08:11 PM
I felt the same way about the beginning of the war -- I felt it was a bit artificial, I couldn't get invested in it emotionally as I could the Clone Wars. It ended the same way, too.
No, it's not just you -- I read it a few days ago and felt the same. Granted, I loved the Caedus/Jaina parts, but I felt Ben's plot was a tad boring as well as most of the starfighter actions.
|
|
|
|
|
Date Posted: Apr 20, 2009 08:41 PM
This message was edited by The Broox on Apr 20, 2009 08:55 PM
Speaking of endings that didn't feel like endings, I'd been wondering:
MILLENNIUM FALCON SPOILERS
"Millennium Falcon" by James Luceno ends with, for lack of a better term, the entire novel having been a red herring, or a "wild Bantha chase," as Obi-Wan might say. They spend the entire novel learning a lot of great information about the Falcon's history (really intriguing stuff), but they are all chasing the MacGuffin (the "treasure" of the Republic Group).
However, it turns out that the "treasure" is more symbolic than of monetary value, except to a collector of Republicana. Moreover, even the symbolic and collector value is completely wiped out because the object is a forgery anyway, with the real symbol somewhere out there in the galaxy with little hint as to where it might actually be.
To many readers, we had a great novel that lead up to an ending that felt like it "just ended" with the feeling that the entire adventure had been entirely pointless.
The question then is:
I'm assuming the idea of making the "treasure" symbolic and then a forgery was the choice of the author, James Luceno, but was there any point during writing/editing when you all said, "Okay, wait, do we really want this to be fake? Doesn't that undermine the story?" or otherwise raise concerns as to the impact (or lack thereof) of the novel's ending?
I can understand wanting the treasure to be symbolic. It's been done to death already, but it's a tried and true way to end a treasure hunt without the players becoming filthy rich and changing things dramatically for future stories. But to have it not only be symbolic but also a forgery? Isn't that like having Indiana Jones seek the Ark of the Covenant or the Holy Grail, only to discover an old hope chest and a Burger King cup?
It always seemed like an odd creative decision to me. Maybe I'm missing a critical insight that went over my head somewhere.
END SPOILERS
|
|
|
|
|
Date Posted: Apr 20, 2009 08:57 PM
I totally agree Nathan. It's one of the main reasons that I don't really care for the book at all, something I rarely say about a Star Wars novel.
|
|
|
|
|
|
S1th'ari
Total Posts: 5138
Member Since: 09/08
|
|
Date Posted: Apr 20, 2009 09:07 PM
Definitely. The ending was ridiculously anticlimactic, but the story leading up to it was great, I thought -- namely the parts with the weapons syndicate, Seff Hellin and Jadak's story.
|
|
|
|
|
|
jason max
Total Posts: 255
Member Since: 03/07
|
|
Date Posted: Apr 20, 2009 09:56 PM
Millennium Falcon: Aka "Sometimes the Journey is more important than the Ending."
and on manuscript lengths... double-spaced does not mean that there is a whole text's length of space between lines, so the page count would not be HALF.
When considering older Troy Denning manuscript lengths (namely, those of the DN trilogy, which Sue handily posted several hundred pages back) and compared them to the final products, you get a consistent ratio of 1.3 MS pages to every 1 final page. Meaning that if Abyss followed the same rule, and doesn't have any major cuts, it's count ought to be something close to 369.
|
|
|
|
|
|
S1th'ari
Total Posts: 5138
Member Since: 09/08
|
|
Date Posted: Apr 20, 2009 10:05 PM
This message was edited by S1th'ari on Apr 20, 2009 10:06 PM
Well, that's the longest so far, with Omen the shortest. Thanks, jmax.
|
|
|
|
|
Date Posted: Apr 21, 2009 06:54 AM
you get a consistent ratio of 1.3 MS pages to every 1 final page
That's exactly the ratio I wanted to compute by asking Sue for the Outcast manuscript length. Thanks!
369 pages sounds good.
|
|
|
|
|
Date Posted: Apr 21, 2009 07:12 AM
This message was edited by vandaronas on Apr 21, 2009 07:14 AM
As added info, I just found this quote from Sue from WAY back...
I just received Matt Stover's first draft of the Revenge of the Sith novelization. It's about 520 pages long at 12pt Courier.
Granted, this was a first draft, so lots could've changed. But... The final hardcover was 432 pages (1.2 ratio), and the mass market paperback was 480 pages (1.08 ratio). So using the hardcover ratio from ROTS on the Abyss manuscript, we get 400 pages. So it looks like either way, Abyss will be quite long.
|
|
|
|
|
Date Posted: Apr 21, 2009 07:16 AM
Sue - in my trip in the way back machine (looking for the above quote), I noticed that the Coruscant Nights trilogy was originally scheduled to debut back in May of 06, 2 years before it actually did. How come it was delayed so long?
|
|
|
|
|
Date Posted: Apr 21, 2009 11:04 AM
Back quite a long time ago a few people asked why THE CLONE WARS novelization wasn't coming out in paperback here in the U.S. since it initially came out as hardcover. At that time I didn't know and guessed that perhaps it didn't sell as well as expected, due to the economic slowdown. I should never post my "guesses." I have since spoken with Shelly at Del Rey and here's her answer:
The first Clone Wars novel was published as a hardcover because the decision was made to do the first cartoon episodes as a movie, and the feeling was that a hardcover better signaled everyone's excitement about the movie. Since the other 4 books were neither novelizations nor tied to a feature film, we stuck with our original plans to publish them in trade paperback--a first for that format in adult SW fiction. If we were to reprint the first book in mass-market paperback, it would still be a singleton; when we are closer to the publication of the 5th and last book, we will be looking at all five and considering where to go with them, format-wise.
|
|
|
|
|
Date Posted: Apr 21, 2009 11:22 AM
Thanks Sue. I personally hope that they will reprint in regular paperback, seeing as to that's all I buy.
|
|
|
|
|
Date Posted: Apr 21, 2009 11:50 AM
I just learned that ABYSS is coming out August 18th rather than August 25th.
The back cover is being worked on now....
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
© Lucasfilm . All rights reserved. | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Business inquiries
|
|
|
![[ Help ]](/skin/default/img/nav/help_off.gif)
![[ Frequently Asked Questions ]](/skin/default/img/nav/faq_off.gif)
![[ Categories ]](/skin/default/img/nav/cats_off.gif)
![[ Books, Comics and Television ]](/skin/default/img/forums/24.gif "[ Books, Comics and Television ]")
![[ Beginning ]](/skin/default/img/shell/arrow_double_back.gif "[ Beginning ]"){kind=icon}
![[ Previous ]](/skin/default/img/shell/arrow_single_back.gif "[ Previous ]"){kind=icon}
![[ Next ]](/skin/default/img/shell/arrow_single_next.gif "[ Next ]"){kind=icon}
![[ End ]](/skin/default/img/shell/arrow_double_next.gif "[ End ]"){kind=icon}
