Chapter one is just a few months after ROTJ, there are no e-wings yet.

The writing is, um, not my favorite style. Too familiar, I guess. Authors for SW books need to read Brian Daly's stuff. That's how you capture the feel.

There are no E Wings AT ALL until the new canon adds them back in.

Crystal Star should clearly stay in the canon. By far the greatest EU novel.

You're trying for the troll, right? I can't tell if you're being serious or not...

Probably going to buy this if just to give myself a foundation for the movie.

Okay, it must be a cultural thing here, but why most of the commenters are so pissed off it being present tense, third person, short sentences?

English isn't my mother language, but those things are perfectly valid in the other languages I know... Any explanation why present, third person, short sentences is objectively wrong?

It's not necessarily the third person, no problem there. First person annoys me.

Short sentences can work, but can't be over done as it can be jarring and ruin the flow of writing. What little I read was very odd. Novel length story I'm working on has a few and grammar check screams at them.

Present tense is just painful to me. It reads as though you are there witnessing the events as they happen and I have issues with getting immersed into a story that way.

You are right Azrapse, they are valid. It's a personal opinion of the writing style, not a declaration that it is wrong. To me the choices made just makes it feel dumbed down.

Present tense is just painful to me. It reads as though you are there witnessing the events as they happen and I have issues with getting immersed into a story that way.

That sounds like an oxymoron to me. But I guess it's just a matter of tastes.

That's it exactly. A matter of taste. There will be people who like the book the way it is written. They won't be wrong any more than any other opinion.

Okay, it must be a cultural thing here, but why most of the commenters are so pissed off it being present tense, third person, short sentences?

English isn't my mother language, but those things are perfectly valid in the other languages I know... Any explanation why present, third person, short sentences is objectively wrong?

Third person is fine. Short sentences are fine. Present tense makes me want to kill someone.

That said, this reads like William Shatner.

Wedge sees the X-wing. Wedge misses the X-wing. Wedge wants the X-wing. Wedge cries for his X-wing.

3rd Person and PT don't go well together either IMO. 1st person writing is awful IMO. So this isn't the worst :D

As Janson said, it's a matter of taste though.

The comments thread on that article is *epic*, though...

...or...

Yeah! Yes, you can. Let me try.
"Wedge flies his ship through the sky. He wonders how many stars there are. He flies over a city. Tall buildings. Short buildings. People move on the ground." Yep, I'm going to go sign my contract now.

...or even...

Present tense? Really? The modern fad for this format is frustrating and terrible.

To use present tense correctly, look at how Jane Austen does it. For narrative, past tense is the only thing that makes grammatical sense. It's bad enough having so much present tense in YA (which often follows inferior forms to pander to what they perceive to be their audience), but seeing it infect this trilogy in particular disenheartens me. I guess I'll have to forego reading it and just wait for the summaries to go up. Correcting the amateurish present tense writing in my head as I read gives me a headache.

Oh, I dunno.

I think you just aren't able to comprehend how awesomer than everyone else this writer is. Indeed, he can help you write betterer! You just have to read the books he's published on how to be so good:

30 Days in the Word Mines (ebook)

...or...

Revenge of the Penmonkey (ebook)

...or even...

500 Ways to Write Harder (ebook)

He certainly has a high opinion of his own skill, anyway.

Chapter one is just a few months after ROTJ, there are no e-wings yet.

The writing is, um, not my favorite style. Too familiar, I guess. Authors for SW books need to read Brian Daly's stuff. That's how you capture the feel.

There are no E Wings AT ALL until the new canon adds them back in.

I would say the Legends stuff exists in a nebulous region where it still exists as long as it doesn't contradict the new cannon. E-wings 'might' exist, or might not. We don't know until it shows up somewhere, or it is deemed to be a non-entity.

Chapter one is just a few months after ROTJ, there are no e-wings yet.

The writing is, um, not my favorite style. Too familiar, I guess. Authors for SW books need to read Brian Daly's stuff. That's how you capture the feel.

There are no E Wings AT ALL until the new canon adds them back in.

I would say the Legends stuff exists in a nebulous region where it still exists as long as it doesn't contradict the new cannon. E-wings 'might' exist, or might not. We don't know until it shows up somewhere, or it is deemed to be a non-entity.

Are you suggesting that we have some sort of Schrodinger's w-wing?

I think we can make no assumption that they do exist based on current information. w-wings are being used right after Endor and w-wings are being used in TFA. w-wings were supposed to replace w-wings (although they didn't actually do that even in Legends material). So, currently, it's a fair assumption there are no e-wings in the new canon.

Chapter one is just a few months after ROTJ, there are no e-wings yet.

The writing is, um, not my favorite style. Too familiar, I guess. Authors for SW books need to read Brian Daly's stuff. That's how you capture the feel.

There are no E Wings AT ALL until the new canon adds them back in.

I would say the Legends stuff exists in a nebulous region where it still exists as long as it doesn't contradict the new cannon. E-wings 'might' exist, or might not. We don't know until it shows up somewhere, or it is deemed to be a non-entity.

Are you suggesting that we have some sort of Schrodinger's w-wing?

I think we can make no assumption that they do exist based on current information. w-wings are being used right after Endor and w-wings are being used in TFA. w-wings were supposed to replace w-wings (although they didn't actually do that even in Legends material). So, currently, it's a fair assumption there are no e-wings in the new canon.

You lost me, but if what you're saying is what I think you're saying, 3 things: E-wings came into play 8 years after Endor (they could be outdated by TFA), they didn't replace X-wings because authors were to sentimental about X-wings, and 3, we have no evidence that they won't appear in TFA.

That said, I would agree that they don't exist in the new canon until otherwise seen.

Chapter one is just a few months after ROTJ, there are no e-wings yet.The writing is, um, not my favorite style. Too familiar, I guess. Authors for SW books need to read Brian Daly's stuff. That's how you capture the feel.

There are no E Wings AT ALL until the new canon adds them back in.

I would say the Legends stuff exists in a nebulous region where it still exists as long as it doesn't contradict the new cannon. E-wings 'might' exist, or might not. We don't know until it shows up somewhere, or it is deemed to be a non-entity.

Are you suggesting that we have some sort of Schrodinger's w-wing? I think we can make no assumption that they do exist based on current information. w-wings are being used right after Endor and w-wings are being used in TFA. w-wings were supposed to replace w-wings (although they didn't actually do that even in Legends material). So, currently, it's a fair assumption there are no e-wings in the new canon.

You lost me, but if what you're saying is what I think you're saying, 3 things: E-wings came into play 8 years after Endor (they could be outdated by TFA), they didn't replace X-wings because authors were to sentimental about X-wings, and 3, we have no evidence that they won't appear in TFA.That said, I would agree that they don't exist in the new canon until otherwise seen.

Or that potentially xwings are sangificantly cheaper to produce then ewings, thus as a main line fighter craft the old x is the goto

Okay, it must be a cultural thing here, but why most of the commenters are so pissed off it being present tense, third person, short sentences?

English isn't my mother language, but those things are perfectly valid in the other languages I know... Any explanation why present, third person, short sentences is objectively wrong?

Third person is fine and first person is fine. It's a stylistic choice. Short sentences are fine, but fragments are not, they're just bad grammar (Shaara runs into this problem too; his books give me headaches). Dialog can be an exception here, if the person you're quoting speaks in fragments, but the actual narrative should not be in sentence fragments (though 1st person can sort of get away with it, since it's essentially all dialog).

Present tense is not fine. In narrative, present tense is intended for timeless things, like descriptions of an area that one might visit even now (Pemberly is a fine estate that sits among the moors. It hosts extensive forests and a fine lake, and overlooks the village below.). When the narrative shifts to actual story telling, though, you need past tense. After all, you're relating events, which are not timeless - they're inherently circumscribed, and therefore require past tense. (... overlooks the village below. When I first saw Pemberly, it was from that village, looking up at its majestic perch with the sun framing it agaisnt the horizon.). I hope you see the difference in the two parantheticals there, and appreciate the distinction between timeless descriptions and time-limited narrative.

Third person is fine. Short sentences are fine. Present tense makes me want to kill someone.

Present tense is just painful to me. It reads as though you are there witnessing the events as they happen and I have issues with getting immersed into a story that way.

Present tense narrative gives me headaches. I have to correct it in my head as I read, and it ruins the experience.

He pulls up his datapad. Scrolls through the list with a tap of the button on the side. (He has to hit it a few extra times just to get it to go—if there’s one thing he looks forward to when all this is over, it’s that maybe they’ll start to get new tech. Somehow, this datapad had actual sand in it, and that’s why the buttons stick.) The list of planets clicks past.

Amusingly, the author isn't even consistent with his abuse of the English language. "Somehow, this datapad had actual sand in it, and that's why the buttons stick." Seriously? It had sand in it, so that's why the buttons stick now? It should read "stuck" ("or has actual sand," if you follow the author's present tense atrocity).

The "Then" section was sort of readable when I was able to fool myself into thinking it was a recording (recordings are timeless, so you could watch one in past tense [you and the act of watching are constrained by time] and describe the video itself in present tense [since the video could hypothetically be viewed at any time]). The fact that it becomes clear by the end that it's supposed to be actual narrative reveals it to be simply bad writing instead (here I'm referencing it in present tense since it's available for anyone to read, while previously I was describing my specific interaction with it, which required past tense).

Present tense is not fine. In narrative, present tense is intended for timeless things, like descriptions of an area that one might visit even now (Pemberly is a fine estate that sits among the moors. It hosts extensive forests and a fine lake, and overlooks the village below.). When the narrative shifts to actual story telling, though, you need past tense. After all, you're relating events, which are not timeless - they're inherently circumscribed, and therefore require past tense. (... overlooks the village below. When I first saw Pemberly, it was from that village, looking up at its majestic perch with the sun framing it agaisnt the horizon.). I hope you see the difference in the two parantheticals there, and appreciate the distinction between timeless descriptions and time-limited narrative.

Maybe I am spoiled of roleplay gaming, where all narrative and descriptions are in present tense (and second person, besides that). Maybe the author tried to achieve a greater degree of immersion by replicating that style in this book.

Perhaps he's not even trying to be a narrator, but more like the reader's mind's eye, witnessing events that are happening just now, and their outcomes are unknown to everyone. Not even the narrator knows what will happen next, because there is no narrator, and it is in present tense.

The sort sentences and paragraphs give (to me, at least) an sensation of continuous flow of events. There is not time for long expositions or monologues. Thing are happening in front of you.

I don't know. To me it sounds like it's trying to do something different. I don't mind that. He could always have done the same thing and get his paycheck without bothering much, like the bunch of "I write for food" people that made up most of the worst parts of the EU before.

Present tense and past tense are both legitimate choices. As I understand it, present tense has become much more common recently, while past tense has been the prevailing choice for centuries. People being what they are, this means a lot of people are going to complain about the fads and trends of the day, which become part of how they identify themselves, as someone who is for/against something, and being against the new is always a popular choice.

Present tense is used capture a feeling of being in the moment, and immediacy, past tense feel more like a story that has already happened is being told. There's more to it but that's the basic idea.

The comments thread on that article is *epic*, though...

"Wedge is sitting in a ship. Not an X-wing. Another ship. A different ship. But X-wings—Wedge likes X-wings. Good fighters, they handle well. He used to fly them a lot—on missions. Lots of missions. Those were hard days—days of flying missions—but now it's quiet.

"Too quiet."

Sign me up, guys. I can totally be a LucasBooks author now.

...or...

Yeah! Yes, you can. Let me try.

"Wedge flies his ship through the sky. He wonders how many stars there are. He flies over a city. Tall buildings. Short buildings. People move on the ground." Yep, I'm going to go sign my contract now.

...or even...

That's brilliant!

As he flies his ship. Not an X-Wing. Another ship. He sees something. Outside his window. The cockpit window. The cockpit window of his ship. He sees an X-Wing. He cries. Just a little. He wants an X-Wing. He also wants some ice cream. Not just any ice cream. He likes rocky road. He used to eat lots of Rocky Road ice cream. On missions. In his X-Wing.

It reads like William Shatner reading Haiku.

Yeahhh...

Present tense? Really? The modern fad for this format is frustrating and terrible.

To use present tense correctly, look at how Jane Austen does it. For narrative, past tense is the only thing that makes grammatical sense. It's bad enough having so much present tense in YA (which often follows inferior forms to pander to what they perceive to be their audience), but seeing it infect this trilogy in particular disenheartens me. I guess I'll have to forego reading it and just wait for the summaries to go up. Correcting the amateurish present tense writing in my head as I read gives me a headache.

Oh, I dunno.

I think you just aren't able to comprehend how awesomer than everyone else this writer is. Indeed, he can help you write betterer! You just have to read the books he's published on how to be so good:

30 Days in the Word Mines (ebook)

...or...

Revenge of the Penmonkey (ebook)

...or even...

500 Ways to Write Harder (ebook)

He certainly has a high opinion of his own skill, anyway.

They need to get William Shatner to narrate this book.

Present tense is used capture a feeling of being in the moment, and immediacy, past tense feel more like a story that has already happened is being told.

Given that the events in Star Wars are explicitly defined as "a long time ago..." and that the series is deliberately structured and identified as a mytho-historical story, past tense is what authors should be using.

For those going to GenCon this yeah, this author will be there. You can express your joy (or disdain) to him directly...

Stopped reading. Maybe I'm just old school, but when I was taught how to write, one of the major rules was "Show, don't tell."

I somehow managed to avoid any present tense stories, but this is...well I don't want to say awful, but to be optimistic, will require some getting used to. Lots of getting used to.

To me, it reads more like a synopsis or some notes. Not a narrative story. I feel alienated from the character we're following. It's like physically being in their head; we can see and hear everything they're doing (as well as limited by it). However, we're also not "seeing" from their perspective, we're being told what their perspective is.

I dunno....I don't like it.

Present tense is used capture a feeling of being in the moment, and immediacy, past tense feel more like a story that has already happened is being told.

Given that the events in Star Wars are explicitly defined as "a long time ago..." and that the series is deliberately structured and identified as a mytho-historical story, past tense is what authors should be using.

Agreed, and the opening crawls were in past tense as well.

Agreed, and the opening crawls were in past tense as well.

Er ... Star Wars transitions from past to present tense. Here's the last paragraph:

Pursued by the Empire's

sinister agents, Princess

Leia races home aboard her

starship, custodian of the

stolen plans that can save

her people and restore

freedom to the galaxy....

Agreed, and the opening crawls were in past tense as well.

Er ... Star Wars transitions from past to present tense. Here's the last paragraph:

Pursued by the Empire's

sinister agents, Princess

Leia races home aboard her

starship, custodian of the

stolen plans that can save

her people and restore

freedom to the galaxy....

Yeah, I noticed that too. The crawls tend to favor past tense, but can jump present tense, and long, single sentence paragraphs.

Episode IV: A New Hope
"It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire.
During the battle, rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire's ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR, an armored space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet.
Pursued by the Empire's sinister agents, Princess Leia races home aboard her starship, custodian of the stolen plans that can save her people and restore freedom to the galaxy...."

Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
"It is a dark time for the Rebellion. Although the Death Star has been destroyed, Imperial troops have driven the Rebel forces from their hidden base and pursued them across the galaxy.
Evading the dreaded Imperial Starfleet, a group of freedom fighters led by Luke Skywalker has established a new secret base on the remote ice world of Hoth.
The evil lord Darth Vader, obsessed with finding young Skywalker, has dispatched thousands of remote probes into the far reaches of space..."

Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
"Luke Skywalker has returned to his home planet of Tatooine in an attempt to rescue his friend Han Solo from the clutches of the vile gangster Jabba the Hutt.
Little does Luke know that the GALACTIC EMPIRE has secretly begun construction on a new armored space station even more powerful than the first dreaded Death Star.
When completed, this ultimate weapon will spell certain doom for the small band of rebels struggling to restore freedom to the galaxy...."

Episode I: The Phantom Menace
"Turmoil has engulfed the Galactic Republic. The taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems is in dispute.
Hoping to resolve the matter with a blockade of deadly battleships, the greedy Trade Federation has stopped all shipping to the small planet of Naboo.
While the Congress of the Republic endlessly debates this alarming chain of events, the Supreme Chancellor has secretly dispatched two Jedi Knights, the guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy, to settle the conflict...."

Episode II: Attack of the Clones
"There is unrest in the Galactic Senate. Several thousand solar systems have declared their intentions to leave the Republic.
This separatist movement, under the leadership of the mysterious Count Dooku, has made it difficult for the limited number of Jedi Knights to maintain peace and order in the galaxy.
Senator Amidala, the former Queen of Naboo, is returning to the Galactic Senate to vote on the critical issue of creating an ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC to assist the overwhelmed Jedi...."

Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
"War! The Republic is crumbling under attacks by the ruthless Sith Lord, Count Dooku. There are heroes on both sides. Evil is everywhere.
In a stunning move, the fiendish droid leader, General Grievous, has swept into the Republic capital and kidnapped Chancellor Palpatine, leader of the Galactic Senate.
As the Separatist Droid Army attempts to flee the besieged capital with their valuable hostage, two Jedi Knights lead a desperate mission to rescue the captive Chancellor...."

I only see there the present tense and derivatives of it to talk about events "before just now" or "just until now", or "at this moment", like the present perfect simple, or present progressive.

The whole crawl is basically talking what is happening now. The only references to past tenses are when it talks about what you might have missed since the last movie.

Talking of this, I see a recent trend in the camera style during the saga that favors the immediacy of the action. Especially from Episode II and on (III and VII, including Clone Wars and Rebels), specially the battle scenes make use of that nervous, sudden-zoom-in-and-out, live-from-the-trenches kind of camera. I am not sure if I like that, but it is definitely quite distinctive, and attempts to make the experience more immediate, rather than staging a battle with perfect camera angles. I wonder if this author is trying to get closer to that, by using a war report, or even historical present tense kind of writing.

Episode IV: A New Hope
"It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire.
During the battle, rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire's ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR, an armored space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet.
Pursued by the Empire's sinister agents, Princess Leia races home aboard her starship, custodian of the stolen plans that can save her people and restore freedom to the galaxy...."

Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
"It is a dark time for the Rebellion. Although the Death Star has been destroyed, Imperial troops have driven the Rebel forces from their hidden base and pursued them across the galaxy.
Evading the dreaded Imperial Starfleet, a group of freedom fighters led by Luke Skywalker has established a new secret base on the remote ice world of Hoth.
The evil lord Darth Vader, obsessed with finding young Skywalker, has dispatched thousands of remote probes into the far reaches of space..."

Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
"Luke Skywalker has returned to his home planet of Tatooine in an attempt to rescue his friend Han Solo from the clutches of the vile gangster Jabba the Hutt.
Little does Luke know that the GALACTIC EMPIRE has secretly begun construction on a new armored space station even more powerful than the first dreaded Death Star.
When completed, this ultimate weapon will spell certain doom for the small band of rebels struggling to restore freedom to the galaxy...."

Episode I: The Phantom Menace
"Turmoil has engulfed the Galactic Republic. The taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems is in dispute.
Hoping to resolve the matter with a blockade of deadly battleships, the greedy Trade Federation has stopped all shipping to the small planet of Naboo.
While the Congress of the Republic endlessly debates this alarming chain of events, the Supreme Chancellor has secretly dispatched two Jedi Knights, the guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy, to settle the conflict...."

Episode II: Attack of the Clones
"There is unrest in the Galactic Senate. Several thousand solar systems have declared their intentions to leave the Republic.
This separatist movement, under the leadership of the mysterious Count Dooku, has made it difficult for the limited number of Jedi Knights to maintain peace and order in the galaxy.
Senator Amidala, the former Queen of Naboo, is returning to the Galactic Senate to vote on the critical issue of creating an ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC to assist the overwhelmed Jedi...."

Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
"War! The Republic is crumbling under attacks by the ruthless Sith Lord, Count Dooku. There are heroes on both sides. Evil is everywhere.
In a stunning move, the fiendish droid leader, General Grievous, has swept into the Republic capital and kidnapped Chancellor Palpatine, leader of the Galactic Senate.
As the Separatist Droid Army attempts to flee the besieged capital with their valuable hostage, two Jedi Knights lead a desperate mission to rescue the captive Chancellor...."

I only see there the present tense and derivatives of it to talk about events "before just now" or "just until now", or "at this moment", like the present perfect simple, or present progressive.

The whole crawl is basically talking what is happening now. The only references to past tenses are when it talks about what you might have missed since the last movie.

Talking of this, I see a recent trend in the camera style during the saga that favors the immediacy of the action. Especially from Episode II and on (III and VII, including Clone Wars and Rebels), specially the battle scenes make use of that nervous, sudden-zoom-in-and-out, live-from-the-trenches kind of camera. I am not sure if I like that, but it is definitely quite distinctive, and attempts to make the experience more immediate, rather than staging a battle with perfect camera angles. I wonder if this author is trying to get closer to that, by using a war report, or even historical present tense kind of writing.

Note: most cinematic or stage productions will naturally use present tense, on account of the watcher being able to view the action regardless of time. Written narrative does not have this ability, and uses past tense to relate the events that happened. Imagine how odd it'd be for a film or a play to try to operate in past tense (outside of some documentary narrators, but then, they're narrating about a past event).