I’m going to pitch an idea here that goes against my fundamental theory of Star Wars. In my head, Star Wars is about the asymmetric struggle between two powers for control of the galaxy and good and evil and all that jazz. Now, I may tend to come down on the side of what most people might consider ‘evil’ most of the time, but I will someday tell you why Palpatine may have been evil and how it might have been a good thing for the galaxy. Suffice to say that evil sucks but it is efficient.
But like I said, my favorite SWEU stories are reflections of the movies and how they worked. The original Thrawn trilogy is still my favorite EU narrative ever, and it perfectly mirrors the Original Trilogy, one relatively small group of people fighting for what they believe is right against a larger, more powerful group. It just so happens that the small group is Thrawn’s fleet and the larger group is the Republic.
But that doesn’t mean that these kinds of stories always work, I have some serious problems with stories like Jedi Academy, where it’s still there, but it’s a rehash. And some books that are really different from the formula I’ve enjoyed, like Allegiance or Choices of One. So, obviously I’m willing to make some exceptions for good books. Another one that I’m sure will win that exception is Scoundrels. I can rest assured it’s going to be good because it’s Timothy Zahn and he’s never done anything to upset me in the EU.
But Scoundrels got me thinking about this whole idea. It’s a particular kind of story, isn’t it? It’s the heist story. The most common thing it’s being compared to is Ocean’s Eleven but at the same time it’s really similar to The Italian Job or Gone in Sixty Seconds. It’s a genre. What does this kind of book mean for the continuing narrative of the EU?
