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Thread: What Are You Reading?

  1. #541

    Default Re: What Are You Reading?

    Quote Originally Posted by TheEconomist View Post
    The Dark Templar trilogy is 'good'. Leave it at that. It's the best StarCraft novels up to that point, which is why it was retconned.
    Econ, I have always, in my mind, considered you a pretty sane, rational person.

    What the crap are you talking about?

    As a writer, I'd say the best (of the ones I've read) is Speed of Darkness (in terms of writing style) and SCG: Nova (in terms of plot ideas) -- not that either of those were really much good at all. The "Dark Templar" Saga, on the other hand, was a hot mess. Both the narrative and the ideas behind it were all incomprehensible and ridiculous. Not to mention full of retcons. Let me count the ways.

    1. Humans are able to form their own Khala connection, despite the fact that they have no nerve cords.
    2. The writing is really terrible. It constantly uses passive voice and repeats very trivial character descriptions.
    3. Valerian is portrayed as potentially really evil in the first book, but in the other two is emphasized as a very, very obvious friendly person.
    4. Rosemary attempts to kill a man for betraying her, but he was only trying to help her get into contact with Valerian, who ends up being friendly to the MCs. Thus Rosemary killed him for nothing -- twice, because he ended up infested.
    5. Despite the fact that this is called the "Dark Templar" trilogy, nothing new is told about the Dark Templar, and their motivations are FAR less explained than the nature of the Khala. There are only two DT characters of significance, one only doing anything in one book, and the other a bastardized, emo version of Zeratul.
    6. The post-XN Protoss are retconned to be caveman-like idiots who are easily impressed by drawings on the ground. All this despite the fact this is post the point where the XN developed them as a species.
    7. The first hundred pages "develop" a bunch of characters that all end up dead and have no affect on anything that happens later in the plot.
    8. Jake has no reaction to having a female Protoss trapped in his brain. What did he do when he had to go to the bathroom?
    9. Minimal inter-character conflict for the purposes of interesting narrative drama.
    10. Why would DTs use crystals to record memories, when the crystals they need to do so originate on Aiur? It would make more sense if the Khalai used crystals, and the DTs used preservers. I know the books are supposed to explain the game, but this is a bad way to introduce preservers.
    11. The Taldarim are cleansed of their addictions to sundrop extremely easily, quickly, and without causing any trouble for the good guys.
    12. Zamara's character is vague and indistinct. She basically does whatever the plot wants her to.
    13. Every Judicator character is exactly alike and completely stupid. No explanation in the book is given for how or why these people came into authority on Aiur or why anyone bothered to listen to them.
    14. Jake is strangely okay with going along with most of what Zamara wants without arguing about it.
    15. The golden ratio is for some reason an important plot point, despite the fact that is is meaningless.
    16. The Khala is retconned from a series to teachings to crystals warping your brain.
    17. Despite the fact Jake is the main character, the author clearly prefers Rosemary, allowing her to go through adventures while Jake is just a boring dude.
    18. The Protoss on Aiur are willing to help two complete strangers for no reason, and are not weirded out in the slightest by Jake having a 'Toss chick in his head.
    19. Artanis left survivors on Aiur without making any attempt to rescue them since the fall of Aiur. Nor did any private Protoss citizens attempt to do this on their own.
    20. Ulrezaj is wasted as a bad guy. He does nothing meaningful and dies in a dumb way.
    21. The existence of preservers is a retcon. The manual states that Khas' real name was lost to time. Zamara remembers Khas' real name, and a lot of other stuff too. Retcon.
    22. Basically nothing is ever explained about Dark Templar society, beliefs, ritual, or even where their name comes from. The first two books act as though the third will explain everything, but all the third does is explain stuff we already know (either from the games or from the previous two books) and have a mind-numbing battle at the end.

    These books suck. Bad. I could even go on listing things. It's not as offensive as Shadow of the Xel'Naga (it does reference it, though), but it's still only marginally better. You can't really expect great things from a writer who writes female torture-porn and incest fantasy.

    - Artanis.

  2. #542
    Junior Member
    Join Date
    Aug 2018

    Default Re: What Are You Reading?

    Moby Dick by Herman Melville
    gmail sign up new email

  3. #543

    Default Re: What Are You Reading?

    I'm finishing up Vernor Vinge's Deepness in the Sky

  4. #544

    Default Re: What Are You Reading?

    Going back to After the Reich again, need to look at it for ideas for future SC fic

  5. #545

    Default Re: What Are You Reading?

    huge sci-fi here (shocker since I love SC, right?), and have been plowing through all the classics the last couple years - just started Dune which is supposedly one of the best. i will say though, my top 3 sci-fi include 2 classics and 1 newer title: Seveneves (the new one; Neal Stephenson), Contact, and Ender's Game. fourth place would probably go to The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
    Gamer Dating

  6. #546
    TheEconomist's Avatar Lord of Economics
    Join Date
    May 2009

    Default Re: What Are You Reading?

    So no one cares but old StarCraft and WarCraft books are being released on audiobooks.

    Just FYI

    Rest In Peace, Old Friend.

  7. #547

    Default Re: What Are You Reading?

    You're right. I don't care.

    I dunno, the Nova book might be fun.

    Right now I'm reading the Tripods trilogy written back in the sixties. The world gets taken over by a bunch of aliens who cruise the world in giant, three-legged machines. It's pretty good.
    Last edited by Nissa; 12-10-2018 at 03:15 PM.

    - Artanis.

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