Devil's Due + Art Scans

[Gradius]

Anybody read this yet? I thought it was a notch above Heaven's Devils IMO. But:

Hidden Content:

Vanderspool as the villain is the best they could think of? The guy was supposed to be dead. It makes me feel like they accomplished nothing at the end of the book, killing a guy that they thought was dead anyway. Also, Myles is the SC1 magistrate? Doesn't make much sense since Raynor introduces himself in the campaign, but it's more likely they're not related.

And I'm disappointed that Kydd was killed off so randomly. He was an awesome character.

Also, here are the scans of the art at the end:
http://sclegacy.com/_staff/gradius/s...ue/devils1.jpg
http://sclegacy.com/_staff/gradius/s...ue/devils2.jpg
http://sclegacy.com/_staff/gradius/s...ue/devils3.jpg
http://sclegacy.com/_staff/gradius/s...ue/devils4.jpg

Just love that first one.

[PhanttoM]

I have to receive my copy yet, but I have read the summary on SCwikia.

The pics are looking great - #1 and 4 really shows the space western theme to anyone who might not know the SC universe.

The "Raynor-facepalm" is quite funny...love the angle of it.

[Alex06]

I have to receive my copy yet, but I have read the summary on SCwikia.

The pics are looking great - #1 and 4 really shows the space western theme to anyone who might not know the SC universe.

The "Raynor-facepalm" is quite funny...love the angle of it.

I don't fancy the whole space western aspect of SC2. (Too many colonial & cowboy references in 2 compared to 1) SC1 never had it. SC1 felt more like Aliens than a Space Western. And I dug that. Ok, so Raynor has a westerny feeling to him, and the UED expedition in BW really were into classicism, but I really would love to see something more modern and advanced with Terrans, like in Halo, Mass Effect, Starship Troopers, and Aliens. I'm not sure I like how they made the Dominion all classic with so many references to colonial US. The Confederate flag in SC1 was enough IMO.

But I do like the higher tech feeling of SC2's Terran units. (Siege Tank, Thor, Nomad, Diamondback, etc.)

With that said, I managed to get the novel while I was away in NYC last week. Haven't even started the 1st one, but I'm definitely intrigued by Raynor's and Tychus' past.

[broodmywarcraft]

Yeah, I'm not a fan of the whole space western aspect either.

[Sarov]

Just love that first one.

I know right? When I saw it, I immediately thought of Raynor thinking, "My jukebox is working!" even though it's before StarCraft 2.

Also, that picture of him facepalming... once you see the hairy legs you will not be able to forget them. DX

Hidden Content:

But:

[...] And I'm disappointed that Kydd was killed off so randomly.

Kydd? No! Zander and him were my favorites.

[l33telboi]

I didn't care much for the novel.

I just don't care for Golden's style. The book is decently written but she seems to shun everything that has to do with warfare and science fiction. In the Dark Templar trilogy the battles she wrote about were always extremely lackluster, almost as if she just wanted to get it over with as fast as possible so she could get on with writing some more about her bland characters. This novel has the exact same problem. In the entire book there's not a single decent battle. The largest scale we get is Tychus versus a few police men on vulture bikes, and the rest is just mostly small fights involving fisticuffs or pistol shootouts.

Starcraft is a game that's all about controlling armies and destroying other armies set in a science fiction setting. A novel set in said universe should at least have some combat and science fiction in it. But there's extremely little of either here. There's also a waaay too heavy emphasis on space western in this novel.

Golden would be better suited sticking to writing fantasy. I hope this was the last novel we've seen from her set in the Starcraft universe.

[Kimera757]

I don't fancy the whole space western aspect of SC2. (Too many colonial & cowboy references in 2 compared to 1) SC1 never had it. SC1 felt more like Aliens than a Space Western. And I dug that. Ok, so Raynor has a westerny feeling to him, and the UED expedition in BW really were into classicism, but I really would love to see something more modern and advanced with Terrans, like in Halo, Mass Effect, Starship Troopers, and Aliens. I'm not sure I like how they made the Dominion all classic with so many references to colonial US. The Confederate flag in SC1 was enough IMO.

I'm not feeling this.

The terran fringe worlds are backwater southern US country, and bear many similarities to westerns. This goes right back to StarCraft I's cinematics: Wasteland Patrol, Amerigo, and The Ambush come to mind. It's not a new trend. Raynor is an (almost) ordinary guy, representative of the typical Confederate citizen betrayed by their government... and he's a cowboy. (Nobody but city boy Michael Liberty ever even notes this.) Contrast with committed revolutionary Sarah Kerrigan, who isn't. (And don't contrast with Edmund Duke. Before the novels, he was basically a hick in charge of troops. Now we know he's a rich urban hick.)

In the entire book there's not a single decent battle. The largest scale we get is Tychus versus a few police men on vulture bikes, and the rest is just mostly small fights involving fisticuffs or pistol shootouts.

It's a character novel about outlaws. There aren't going to be big battles. People made the same complaints about Nova; it's a character novel about a character before she became a ghost, and they complained she wasn't cloaking and killing things.

You should read the back of a novel before buying. I thought the whole thing about them being outlaws was kind of obvious.

I agree, the combat scenes could have been better. But bigger? That wouldn't have made a whole lot of sense.

[mr. peasant]

I'm not feeling this.

The terran fringe worlds are backwater southern US country, and bear many similarities to westerns. This goes right back to StarCraft I's cinematics: Wasteland Patrol, Amerigo, and The Ambush come to mind. It's not a new trend. Raynor is an (almost) ordinary guy, representative of the typical Confederate citizen betrayed by their government... and he's a cowboy. (Nobody but city boy Michael Liberty ever even notes this.) Contrast with committed revolutionary Sarah Kerrigan, who isn't. (And don't contrast with Edmund Duke. Before the novels, he was basically a hick in charge of troops. Now we know he's a rich urban hick.)

I disagree. A lot of what you describe there (rednecks, hicks, corrupt government, etc) would fit better with the Deep South stereotype rather than a classically Western one. For instance, Mar Sara is portrayed as backwater because it was an unimportant location rather than a frontier town. The evolution of Starcraft's aesthetics is better described in its entry on TVTrope's Space Western page.

[Kimera757]

I disagree. A lot of what you describe there (rednecks, hicks, corrupt government, etc) would fit better with the Deep South stereotype rather than a classically Western one. For instance, Mar Sara is portrayed as backwater because it was an unimportant location rather than a frontier town. The evolution of Starcraft's aesthetics is better described in its entry on TVTrope's Space Western page.

The TV Tropes page isn't convincing in making a distinction. Deep South and The West overlap considerably. Quite a few states are both.

The West wasn't just a frontier. It was almost lawless, or rather, the wealthy landowners made the law. Their "cow hands" often became "gun hands", guarding their herds, and ego boosting meant cowboys would (literally) shoot each other rather than have their reputations dashed. The Western era in fact ended, not due to a resolution of conflict with natives and Mexico, but with the invention of cheap fences (so you could fence in the cattle, making rustling a lot harder). Thus, I find the notion of the frontier being such an important part of the Western era a little odd. That was the kind of thing that affected some states, but not all. Yeah, that was a wall of text

And of course there were towns in unimportant locations in the West, often only existing due to mining concerns (there's gold in these hills! or oil!) but sometimes drawing attention due to Native Indian raids. I think that kind of thing was less common in the more heavily-settled Deep South.

[mr. peasant]

I think you're confusing between the two (at least the tropes/genre, if not the actual reality of the two histo-geographical settings). While the Deep South stereotype does heavily feature social class (rich people making the rules, landowners and slaveholders vs labourers, racism, etc) and clashes between social groups in general, the Western is more about living in an untamed land; which gives it a more 'me vs everyone else' vibe rather than the 'us vs them' of differing social groups. Rather than the land itself, what was seen as valuable was livestock/food and gold. Indeed, if you look at old Westerns, groups and factions don't usually figure much in a story and when they do, they're usually comprised of a band of unique individuals (often with separate and different backstories) as opposed to a homogenous group with identical views and goals.

Back to SC1 and SC2, the main point I was trying to get across (especially with the Space Western trope entry) was that there was a definite change in aesthetics between SC1 and SC2. By this, I'm referring to things like props, visual style, background music, etc. While there (by way of the stylistic overlap between Deep South and Western stereotypes as you previously mentioned) in SC1, SC2 definitely played up the Western/cowboy influences.