*To me, reading the series, it seemed almost as if you were each trying to tell different aspects of the Galactic story - you were telling the story of the war, with the key strategic movements coming in your novels, Karen was telling the story of the Mandalorians culminating in Jaina's training there, and Troy was telling the story of Jacen's connection to Allana and Tenel Ka culminating in his actions of the final book which I shan't discuss *

i might quibble a little with where you thought our respective focuses lay, but yours is a very good analysis of what we were up to. We weren't working at cross purposes -- we were indeed trying to show the same conflict through different lenses.

- did it ever get difficult to pick up your strand again after two books going in completely different directions to yours?

No, that was never difficult. The sole difficulty it presented was that you had to decide individually which of your original ideas for continuations of sub-plots you actually did need to pick up and which you didn't. In the two-novel gap, for instance, Karen or Troy might have addressed some emotional point, Jacen character progression point, or war event point that I was thinking of addressing, so I'd have to reevaluate whether and how I wanted to handle that detail. And I, of coure, was doing the same thing to them.

Hey Aaron!! I loved all three of your books in LOTF, and really carried me through the series even if I was dissapointed in parts. I don't mean that as an insult to the other two authors, I just found your style of writing refreshing to read, and a style that I really enjoy, and what makes me continuously re-read all your Star Wars books and have Enemy Lines 1 as my favourite SW book.

To me, reading the series, it seemed almost as if you were each trying to tell different aspects of the Galactic story - you were telling the story of the war, with the key strategic movements coming in your novels, Karen was telling the story of the Mandalorians culminating in Jaina's training there, and Troy was telling the story of Jacen's connection to Allana and Tenel Ka culminating in his actions of the final book which I shan't discuss - did it ever get difficult to pick up your strand again after two books going in completely different directions to yours?

Solo out

There seems to be some confusion as to the Tycho question --- at the end of Fury, it seemed like he betrayed Wedge, Luke, and the entire Jedi Coalition during the space battle, which many fans interpreted as him actually infiltrating Jacen's camp to become Luke's inside man. Many fans assumed that this would be touched on in Invincible, and the confusion is that it seems like a currently unresolved plotline.

Wow. That really comes out of what I consider a skewed perspective. No, Tycho was, however reluctantly, simply doing his duty to the armed service to which he had sworn an oath long before.

Some fans seem to think that there were two sides to the situation he faced -- Luke's and Jacen's. But there were actually three -- Luke's, Jacen's, and Niathal's. Tycho works for Niathal. He has strong bonds of loyalty both to Wedge and to the GA military, as represented by his boss, Niathal.

Since Tycho was on a mission from the GA military, the duty uppermost in his mind was to those who dispatched him on his mission. Regardless of his feelings toward Wedge and Luke, he had to try to do his duty. In pursuing the Jedi aboard the Anakin Solo and trying to alert the ship's crew to their plan, he was making a heroic, if ultimately unsuccessful, effort to do that duty], regardless of how he personally felt about Jacen, Luke, Wedge, Niathal, etc., and regardless of what it might cost him.

And you can be sure that Wedge, also a military veteran, would understand all this, and that there would be no animosity between them when next they met.

So, no, there is no unresolved Tycho plot. He was not trying to infiltrate anyone, he was not betraying anyone -- he was doing his duty. And he did successfully open up secret communications between the Jedi and Niathal, thus resolving his part in the story.

I suspect it's time to update my FAQ.

Sue and gang,

Any possibility that we could go back to single-author trilogies, even within the context of a larger series if necessary? I find an odd dichotomy occurring with these books being split up the way they are. To some degree, the individualsm of the authors is being lost in the larger picture, as they work to mesh their styles and stories with others'. And on the other hand, the feel is slightly disjointed because of this very individualism. I preferred it when an author had the opportunity to fully develop a theme before handing the torch to someone else.

Just personal preference.

Hey Sue, thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to answer some of our questions and complaints. I have a question about Han and Luke's relationship. 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? thanks and I'll light this one up for you!

or how katarns jedi team escaped after caedus demolished them, it goes from caedus thinking they have no escape to them appearing safe planets away. That always confused me

Caedus assumed that the shuttle was important to their escape plan, but it never wars.

The team escaped the same way they always planned to. Remember, the shuttle that apparently came in to extract Katarn's team was only ever intended as a distraction. The team plan, which some members carried out, was to enter the shuttle, then escape back into the undercity through a belly hatch. The shuttle, under computer control, would then lift off and lead the authorities away at least briefly, giving the escaping team a head start.

Things did go wrong, obviously -- Katarn nearly dead, Mithric dead, the shuttle grounded. But since the shuttle was never their method to get off-world, you can assume that they had another method -- possibly the same one that served to bring them to Coruscant. They didn't have to improvise anything.

My REAL question is how the kriff he survived Caedus's wrath after that. He was essentially responsible for allowing the entire rescue team onboard the Anakin Solo; if Tebut was killed for allowing the team onboard, I would think that Caedus would march right down to the medical ward and tear Tycho's heart from his chest for leading them onboard.

Caedus killed Tebut not because he genuinely considered her a traitor or an incompetent, but because he needed to kill someone in order to quench the rage that he felt after Allana's rescue. She was close, she was convenient, and she had some relevance to the events that led to Allana's rescue.

The question then comes up, how many people does Caedus need to murder (horribly) in order to deal with his anger? His behavior after her death -- cooling down to a creepy, hollow sort of calm -- suggests rather strongly that the answer is "one."

As he leaves the bridge, he tells Nevil that he's going to his quarters. Were he going to kill Tycho, he would have told Nevil that he was going to the medical ward.

So, though it's not stated later in the book or the series, the prevailing evidence points to a likelihood that Caedus did not kill Tycho.

Hey Aaron!!! waves furiously

Tycho's survival of the blaster wasn't a concern of mine. My REAL question is how the kriff he survived Caedus's wrath after that. He was essentially responsible for allowing the entire rescue team onboard the Anakin Solo; if Tebut was killed for allowing the team onboard, I would think that Caedus would march right down to the medical ward and tear Tycho's heart from his chest for leading them onboard.

There seems to be a lot of confusion as to whether Tycho survived the events of Fury, but the answer is right there, at the bottom of page 350. "General Celchu is in the medical ward, recovering from a stun bolt."

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?

cont'd...