Legacy Books (1/4 through #3)

[sgatazmy]

I'm reading these books fast for me. I think part of that is because there is so much filler. I could handle it in book #1 when the story was just getting set-up but it's very annoying in book #3 where I'm just ready for the plot to continue already.

More spoilery thoughts (up through 1/4 of book #3)

Rodney as a Wraith is really really annoying and somewhat confusing in some of the dialogue areas. I do like the idea of Rodney leading the bad guys to Atlantis while under alien influence, but I just don't feel this was the way to do it. At the very least it should lead to some powerful scenes, but the authors keep pulling back for some reason. They write pages and pages of slow time on Atlantis but then quickly skip through the scenes where the team sees what's happened to Rodney? How does that make any sense?

I also understand the need for new characters but I would like my new characters flushed out more. When they go on about how they have the gene it just makes me feel like I'm reading a Mary Sue.

I'm still enjoying the books enough to keep reading them. Most of the characters seem like the characters I know. I can skim quickly through the filler (I don't mind set-up and slow build, but rehashing episodes drives me batty). As much as I don't like the Rodney storyline, I am very much enjoying how Wraith culture works in this. Some of it is...off, but not so off that I'm put out of the story.

Comments

[sholio]

I think part of the issue with the books' focus is that I gather Rodney is the writers' least favorite character in the main cast. (I have a kind of complicated history with the authors of these books; the short version is that I knew some of them in fandom for a little while.) I don't think any of them hate him, but for the most part they like writing the other characters better and also fall into the fannish camp of people who feel the show was too Rodney-centric towards the end, and I think that's got a lot to do with Rodney being shuffled offstage a lot of the time and mostly in a bad guy role. That said, I don't think they did terribly wrong by him in the books or anything -- well, I have no idea how the series ends, because I never read it all the way to the end -- but I think that's probably why it reads to you like it's rushing through the Rodney scenes.

[sgatazmy]

That makes sense to some degree on why they are shuffling them off. I do feel the show was too Rodney-centric for a while so it is nice to see some stories where he is off to the side. Unfortunately, when the authors set the reader up for a certain meeting scene and then don't follow through, they have set the reader up for disappointment. I like the slower parts on Atlantis (when not rehashing episodes or reading Mary Sue characters) but in the end a novel has to have its pay off. This one seems to fail to deliver. I'm noticing a lot of the same comments on Amazon about the books. I also read the third book required someone to step in and take over some which may be why the writing is also dry in book three compared to book one.

It's interesting that you knew them briefly in your fan circle. I really wish some of the writers I loved in SGA wrote these novels instead. You, Tipper, Kodiak Bear Country, Sablecain would all have made amazing book writers. You can carry the action through to the end and understand what the reader is set-up for. I never feel let down by your stories.