I just found out why the plot sucks!!!

[Quirel]

Yeah, pretty much. I guess it's something of a guilty pleasure. Then again, I'm the type of person who has Nova as my second favourite StarCraft novel, has 2001: A Space Odyssey as my second least favourite sci-fi movie and actually considers the film version of Battlefield Earth to be good.

As a science fiction oddity, you've gone from 'mere curiosity' to the level of 'take this one in for analysis'.

I will admit, though, I don't enjoy 2001: A Space Odyssey so much as I respect it. When you think about it, it's probably one of the few hard sci-fi movies out there, where Kubrick and Clarke went out, made solid predictions about what society and technology would be like once we started 'crawling out of the cradle'.

Comparatively, a lot of sci-fi movies are "Jaws in Space!" or "Technology X runs amok!" Nothing explicitly wrong with that (Unless you're pissing on the source material, ala "I, Robot") but it certainly makes 2001 unique.

And for the record, that's how I feel about both Heaven's Devils and I, Mengsk as well.

Have yet to read Heaven's Devils but I thought I, Mengsk was fairly good. StarCraft, it seems, is a difficult universe to write for without following the basic plotlines of "Fight over McGuffin X" or "Hold out against the Zerg!" (Again, nothing explicitly wrong with these plotlines, but it's nice to see something different) and I, Mengsk deftly avoided both of those.

I actually consider Anderson a bit better in the realm of experience. While I don't need to bring Shadow of the Xel'naga into this, I would say Saga of Seven Suns is better than Inheritance. Characters were less compelling, but the setting felt far less generic.

That's all that separates Anderson from Paolini. Experience, and there's barely even that! Anderson started pecking away at a typewriter... what, 45 years ago? He's barely learned anything since, and he's still the literary equivalent of a 5 dollar hooker!
*Goes outside and blows off steam*
Ok, back. Let's just say, the 'prequels' he co-wrote to the Dune universe did NOT endear him to me. As for the Saga of the Seven Suns, certain ideas he presented may have been interesting, but they were killed off by his lack of literary chops. A lot of events and characters were tacked in to pad the story out to seven books, but weren't adequately integrated into the narrative.

I don the Hat of Hypocrisy for this, but there's only one proper length for a story, and that's 'Long Enough.' I've only ever read one series that was justified in spanning a seven-book arc, and that series was NOT written by Anderson, Goodkind, Eddings, or Jordan.

In experience, only for Heaven's Devils in regards to characters. IMO, The Flood and The Gathering Storm had good characters and development for said characters.

Having picked up "At Empires Edge" and read through two chapters, his prose is already problematic.
To be honest, I don't think I've ever seen this many exclamation marks in the narrative.

Will keep reading.

As for the steady decline, I'll come out and say that Cryptum continued said decline for me.

D=

And yes, I haven't read any of her Star Wars novels despite being a relatively established author for the series. As to why, I refer to my earlier comments on being a sci-fi oddity. And, you know, that Mandalorians and clone troopers are OVERRATED.

Well, the natural path of all things in the Star Wars universe is as follows:
Exposure > Popularity > Overhyping > No Longer Interesting

It happened to the Jedi, it happened to the Mandelorians, it happened to the Clone Troopers... If I wasn't so tired, I would write something like "Exposure leads to Popularity, Popularity leads to Overhyping, Overhyping leads to being written by second-rate writers, and it's all downhill after that."

[Turalyon]

Let's just say, the 'prequels' he co-wrote to the Dune universe did NOT endear him to me.

Gah! I know exactly what you mean. If only I could "unread" them in my mind...

[Hawki]

As a science fiction oddity, you've gone from 'mere curiosity' to the level of 'take this one in for analysis'.

Oh god, not analysis! Wait, please...I can show good taste! That's why I like Stargate: Universe more than SG-1 and the Star Wars prequel trilogy more than the original!

Wait a minute...

I will admit, though, I don't enjoy 2001: A Space Odyssey so much as I respect it. When you think about it, it's probably one of the few hard sci-fi movies out there, where Kubrick and Clarke went out, made solid predictions about what society and technology would be like once we started 'crawling out of the cradle'.

To be honest, my respect for the film mainly lies in the realm of special effects, and it doesn't help that the final Jupiter section seems devoted to them. Clarke himself I respect, but that mostly lies in the realm of the novel. Granted a film can't go into as much depth as its host novel, but even so, the plot felt paper thin and disjointed. Like The Fifth Element, more style than substance, but unlike that film, its McGuffins remained too vague to really leave much of an impact.

Still, it did give us HAL. And that, I'll remain eternally greatful for.

StarCraft, it seems, is a difficult universe to write for without following the basic plotlines of "Fight over McGuffin X" or "Hold out against the Zerg!" (Again, nothing explicitly wrong with these plotlines, but it's nice to see something different) and I, Mengsk deftly avoided both of those.

I'm going to go on a bit of a shameless plug tangent, but in all honesty, the format of "x vs. y" is quite common for sci-fi games as a whole and certain non game sci-fi medias as well (Aliens/Predator comes to mind). In the realm of plot-based multi-chapters, the ease at which one avoids a "x vs. y" scenario depends on the ammount of background material avaliable, as well as familiarity with said background material. Of course, this is just in the realm of fanfiction, but I find that it's more the grasp of a universe that determines the ease/lack of it in writing more than the nature of the universe itself, which while it plays a part, matters more. I guess that's why in my case I've been able to devote a Sonic the Hedgehog story to pondering on the nature of racism and prejudice whilst reducing Doctor Who to such an x vs. y scenario, when traditionally it would be the other way round (not that I'm ignorant of DW, but while I've followed STH since 1991/'92, I'm pretty ignorant of everything pre-2005 for DW). I, Mengsk, I think, succeeded because McNeil knew the universe well enough to have a good mix of old and new material and weave them together.

I've only ever read one series that was justified in spanning a seven-book arc, and that series was NOT written by Anderson, Goodkind, Eddings, or Jordan.

Kind of the same for me, in my case, Harry Potter. I've also read the Heptalogy that is The Chronicles of Narnia but in regards to being a series of seven, you could easily skip out The Magician's Nephew and The Horse and His Boy and the series wouldn't suffer for it.

[Hellgrinder]

Hey, just be glad Anderson didn't write StarCraft II's campaign.

Huh, Anderson vs. Meyer, who's worse?

[Kimera757]

Hey, just be glad Anderson didn't write StarCraft II's campaign.

Huh, Anderson vs. Meyer, who's worse?

Anderson is capable of writing good novels. Sometimes. He wrote good X-Files stuff. His Dune House trilogy was pretty good too (the Butlerian Jihad stuff, on the other hand, was execrable). It seems his real problem is inconsistency. Sometimes he writes good stuff, and sometimes he writes crud like Shadow of the Xel'Naga.