Following on from my blog about Troy Denning's Invincible thread, I am setting up this blog because Sue Rostoni has been answering many questions about that book and about Legacy of the Force as a whole in the Welcome some BC&T VIPs thread.

Q&A 1: Hey Sue- just finished Invincible, and felt it was a good read, but I'm curious about something that seems absent from it- after all the build up for Niathal throughout the series and, particularly in the last book, she's surprisingly absent in Invincible (which was a little dissapointing- her "I've had enough" moment in the last book was one of my favorite)- was there a subplot excised during the editing process?

No, she wasn't excised -- she just didn't have a central role in this last book. There was so much to cover and she was more in the sidelines.

Q&A 2: But to anyone whose willing to answer, is an idea like Daala becoming the Chief of State something that was on the drawing board of the team, or did Troy Denning think that up himself?

It came up during one of our story conferences. The galaxy needs unity at this time and Daala is the only one that all sides will accept. She smart and has mellowed with age. It's not that far-fetched an idea and makes perfect sense when you look at things from the characters' points of view.

Q&A 3: I felt very little emotion when I was reading it. That's terrible, considering the events that occur. Karen Traviss was able to make me cry with just the 2-page epilogue of Revelation, and yet I felt barely any hint of heartbreak as I read the scene I had been anticipating for years.

Gosh, for me it was the opposite, even though I knew what was happening. What got me were the Jacen jokes at the beginning of the chapters. I was continually reminded of what a great person Jacen was; how tender and caring, bright, inventive, playful -- all those wonderful qualities.... and here he is now; corrupt through wrong thinking and jealousy, totally out of control and out of touch, way off the track and needing to be stopped. The jokes made me feel to tender toward him that when the inevitable did happen, I did tear up, just remembering the boy/man he used to be and how he totally messed himself up, and for Jaina, for what she had to do.....

Q&A 4: As a long-time Jaina and Jacen fan (I've been obsessed with them since I was 12 years old!), I wanted a tearful reunion between them, regardless of what the outcome of their duel was. To that end, what appeared in the book simply fell flat.

Yes, I agree, there was no tearful reunion between the two. Jacen was well beyond being able to accept responsibility for his actions and stop. I don't think he was technically insane, but his power had certainly affected his reasoning ability. I don't think there was any possibility that he would sit down and talk with Jaina and admit that he had made some major missteps. Boy gone wild.

Q&A 5: I like the LofF overall, but some things were brought up and never followed up on. In the first book (I think) we had Wedge and Tycho, but then never hear another thing about them. Then you had Syal Antilles (I think that's the one) who is brought in like she will be a big part of the series and then nothing is heard about her. I could even see if some characters only popped up in a certain author's novel, but those few weren't. I also thought a big deal was made over Jaina's Mando training and then she apparently only used it in one fight (the first). That should have been in THE fight.

This is a possible downside to having multiple authors write a series. Certain authors love certain characters and feature them in their books, never to be seen again. However, the flip side is that more readers get a taste of different characters and situations, and, hopefully, more of you will find what you want.

Q&A 6: What?! Why would you skip over the emotional aftermath of the death one of the EU's most pivotal characters? "Jacen's dead, so we can move on and forget him?" All told, about fifteen pages was spent dealing with the main characters', mostly Jaina's, reactions to Jacen's death, and that's all we're going to get?


It seemed to us that most of the readers disliked how Han dealt with Chewie's death in The New Jedi Order series and the Legacy series was so fraught with emotional aftermaths that we decided to give the readers a rest from the pain of it all. And a lot of people like to grieve in private.

Q&A 7: Readers need to be able to connect with characters, and it's very hard to connect with, say, a father who seemingly loses his only remaining son and does not mourn for him, as Han will seem when we see him next in Millenium Falcon.

I understand your point-of-view. We did see Han's and Leia's struggle, and Jaina's as well, throughout the LotF series once Jacen turned into Caedus. They grieved quite a bit for their lost son in the series. Still, though, I know what you're wanting, and I think Jim will have to include some of what they're still going through.

Q&A 8: That being said, I feel like I was punched in the gut when I read "We're putting the gap in there so you won't have to read about the angst and grief our main characters experience after Jacen's death, etc. We want them to be able to recover a bit, off camera." After feeling like I was left grasping for straws at the end of Invincible, you're going to pull away any chance we have to see the raw aftermath of the LotF series? You make an interesting point with Chewbacca's death, but let's put things into perspective--Chewie's death was the first major death in an Star Wars EU book. It was totally and completely shocking. The fans were up in arms because you had never done anything like that before. Now that it's been done and we are expecting it, even anticipating it, the fans surely behave differently than when Chewie died.

I really appreciate what you're saying here. Yes, the fans have acted very differently this time around. The thing is, I have heard throughout the Legacy series, from a number of different people, that the series (and the NJO series) was too dark, too distressing. That people read Star Wars to escape reality, not be shoved back into it. The thought at our end was that you all had had enough strife, death, destruction, emotional upheavals to last for quite sometime. What you wanted was escapist fiction -- something that the authors, editors, and I aren't entirely ready to give you -- but felt that reading a book consisting of the characters' heart-wrenching torment of losing yet another child would be too much for an author to write, let alone for us to read. It could be that you core fans, those of you who participate on the boards here, are ready for the entire story, whatever emotions it brings up. I can try to get an ebook or something in between, in those grief-stricken years, if you really need to read about Leia's heart breaking again, or Han busting his knuckles on the side of the Falcon.... But there has to be a story for it to be set in too and people have to carry on somehow. Those of you who have lost a real person close to you know how devastating it can be, and how paralyzing. I don't know if there's a novel there, of people wandering around knowing their entire galaxy will never be the same and trying to figure out where they fit in it.

If the Falcon book is set 2 years after Jacen's death, it would be fair to say that his parents haven't gotten over it yet... they'll still be dealing with their grief in some ways.


Q&A 9: and i think this is one of the complaints of the series - that a significant resolution to the series "came up" rather than was planned out from the beginning (unless of course, it came up at the beginning). that the themes and conflicts that initially drew in the reader to the series seemed to disappear rather than come to a pre-planned conclusion, such as the war with the confederation, which wasn't touched on much in the final two books, or lumiya's tassels that were referenced a lot to start with, but less and less as the series moved on.

Yeah, "came up" meant "planned out" here -- although I don't remember that we discussed Daala as commander in chief at our first meeting -- it might have been at the second one. [forgive memory malfunction]. The writing process is very fluid and during the evolution of the characters and events, sometimes possibilities arise out of the story itself -- this is a good thing. The way characters are acting/reacting leads to another conclusion than was originally planned. Because of the creative process, we (that's the authors and editors) think it's very important to allow continuing discussions on important story points until we all agree that element is being added/removed/changed builds on the overall story. I feel like I just wrote a possible Mad-Lib.

Q&A 10: such as the war with the confederation, which wasn't touched on much in the final two books, or lumiya's tassels that were referenced a lot to start with, but less and less as the series moved on.

Yes, this is true, the war was a backdrop and I can see where it could have been brought up front a bit more -- which would have allowed for a larger role by Naithal. That would have been cool.

The Tassels: We were aware of that, but couldn't come up with a way to continue the tassel thing throughout without it seeming too contrived.

Q&A 11: even a major event like mara's death, though serving a purpose in jacen's transformation, seems to do little in the grand scheme of the series (and the eu at large) if he's to die shortly thereafter, whereas it seems much more could have been done with both characters, in terms of the sacrifice, balance and legacy themes that the series touches on.

Another good point -- seemed we could have used a few more books after Sacrifice to introduce that more. On the earlier topic, what if the Main Climax wasn't saved for the last book, but happened in the next-to-the last book. The last book then could be the "epilogue" in 390 pages...

Q&A 12: and just out of curiosity, do the authors and editors of the series have a consensus of what the legacy of the force is, besides a catchy title?

It's a long story and one that involves other people, so I'll have to get their clearance before I type. I'm not one to tell stories at the water cooler.

Q&A 13: What I really think has been learnt with this series though is that rotating authors just doesn't work. NJO worked far better when authors were allowed to start and resolve their own plots without having other authors in between trying to stay consistent but maybe not knowing where a particular author was going with an idea.

Without rotating, there would be a year between books. That works pretty good for a shorter series, but 9 years to finish a series -- that's asking a lot. There are a lot of things to think about though, about how to do it better. Thanks for your feedback.

Q&A 14: Then how come the NJO didn't take that long with a staggering 19 books?

Because there were many authors and the authors for the upcoming couple of years of books were all writing at the same time.

Q&A 15: Based on the LOTF timeline you did, and with Revelation taking place twelve weeks (which I believe are five-day weeks, but I could be wrong) after Sacrifice, it seems that Invincible could possibly take place at the beginning of 41 ABY. Are there plans for the LOTF timeline to be completed, and a definite placement for Invincible?

Wow. You know, my timeline wasn't correct. I was basing it all on Ben's birthday and I know I didn't do something right. i always wanted to fix it and make it right, but i could never get the time to get on top of it again. Maybe someone here has figured it all out.

Q&A 16: Wait... what? No no, your timeline was correct in regards to Ben's birthday, with Exile taking place about two-thirds through the year, just as Edge of Victory II: Rebirth did in 26 ABY. I was just wondering if the rest of the books caused the finale to spill over into 41 ABY.

Ben's birthday is in the right place, but I think I counted wrong when I backtracked from Ben's birthday to the beginning of the series. I think my starting date is off.

Q&A 17: will anything be written about what happens to mandalore with the virus and with the bombing the imps did?

Stay tuned.

Q&A 18: For instance - what happened to Tycho? Is he dead? Wedge was brought in and then disappeared. He didn't even come up in Mara's funeral scenes. Missing opportunities like these leave me feeling more disappointed than satisfied. I had hoped this series would be a great opportunity to show Luke & Ben's father/son relationship - but instead it's so disjointed and undeveloped, it's got me feeling like Luke is the worst father ever...and Luke is my favorite character! I couldn't imagine Luke not having an awesome relationship with Ben - will this ever get addressed/repaired?

There was a lot going on in this series... many character threads, multi-plots, people here and there, here and gone..... That might just be the nature of SW -- there are so many characters and everyone wants/expects to see their personal favorite take center stage and that can happen for that 15 minutes, but not for an entire series. Can't have 40 main characters. Maybe 5 or 6 per book, but then everything gets stretched too thinly. So Wedge comes in and gets his spot, but if he's not essential in another scene, he's not there. Or he's there and off camera and you can use your imagination to see the scene from his point-of-view, i.e., Mara's funeral. I know that sounds simplistic and the actual process is anything but simplistic. And then every element of a book has to be tied in and lead the book's theme forward. And if a certain character doesn't add to the development, then it's a misuse of words, and when there are only 350-400 pages per novel, authors have keep things pretty tightly wound. Does that make sense?

Q&A 19: What purpose was served by killing Caedus so soon? I can see his fall taking place over about a year, but why the entire reign? It was a lot of build up just to end like it did. Was Jacen redeemed? (And why wasn't it made clear to us the audience?)

Caedus was killed in the last book; that was as late as we could put it. We had him start the fall in the first book so we would have time to really experience his journey, with Sacrifice being the point of no return. Was he redeemed? You'll have to draw your own conclusions

Q&A 20: I almost find it an affront as a fan to be told that I am incapable of dealing with a storyline that packs an emotional punch.

Wow. If that's what someone implied about me, I wouldn't be "almost" affronted! I hope that my previous post wasn't interpreted as my thinking that you all aren't "incapable of dealing with a storyline that packs an emotional punch." The entire series was an emotional punch. I am sorry that you didn't feel the emotional element of Invincible was strong enough, but I can assure you there was no discussion of pulling anything back.

As far as the Falcon book being set 2 years later, and my comments around the grief issue. There are many reasons why it makes sense to do it this way, and sensible reasons for wanting the next book starting on the heels of the last. Just please keep an open mind and be patient.

Q&A 21: With 2 sons now dead, both whom were jedi will this strain the relationship between the 2 longtime friends or do you think han is able to see that both anakin and jacen's deaths were out of luke's hands?

I think Han sees what was happening and doesn't blame Luke.

(more Qs & As will be added after they've been posted)

(you can read my thoughts on Invincible here)