Best of the starcraft novels

Until I resolve my financial situation and purchase WoL, this section is a tad inactive. So instead, this thread.

Which of the starcraft novels have you read, and how did you like them individually/as a whole.

Which ones I own:

Liberty's crusade: This book is mainly interesting because it makes the in-game storyline apparent, with great writing by Jeff Grubb. I'd recommend this book to anyone who wanted to learn more about the starcraft universe after playing the original game.

Shadow of the Xel'naga: Book two of the same series as Liberty's crusade, and has nothing to do with it other than that. Shadow of the Xel'Naga, written by Gabriel Mesta, was not as well written as Liberty's crusade, but still highly entertaining. Gabriel Mesta was apparently not big on story-gameplay segregation, which caused such silly things as miniature battle-cruisers used in atmospheric battles (in an effort to explain how BC's were used in missions of the original starcraft). The dark templar saga references this book a number of times.

Speed of Darkness: This book is the only book in starcraft canon that does not deal with major significant events. Instead it follows the life of a single marine, fighting for a single planet. Tracy Hickman did an excellent job writing this, but the book is not really neccesary if you want to brush up on starcraft lore.

Queen of blades: While the writing on this book is at times mediocrore, it presents a very interesting story. Like Liberty's crusade, queen of blades tells the story of starcraft from an out-of-game perspective. I still really like the interaction between zeratul and tassadar, although kerrigan chasing them felt very, very, very silly.

Starcraft Ghost: Nova: Such a shame this game was put on indefinite hold, and the high quality of this book only makes me want it more. Nova is a very interesting character, and the way confederate society is described makes the starcraft universe feel more lifelike. Nova is the young daughter of a rich confederate family, who develops psionic powers on a scale similar to that of Kerrigan and tries to evade the government who wants to make her a ghost. Despite such a cliché story, it is very very good.

The dark templar saga: Firstborn: yes. Very, very yes. This book has it all; an interesting story of itself, a very nice look at backstory we already know and fantastic writing. I cannot praise Christie Golden enough for this fantastic book. It follows the story of Jake Ramsey, an archeologist, and Rosemary Dahl, a mercenary working for Valerian Mengsk, as Jake's mind is merged with that of Zamara, and he starts to relive protoss history. I am currently rereading this book, to brush up on the details before starting with the second book in the series. Firstborn is well-integrated in the starcraft universe, and I recommend it to everyone (although you probably want to read Shadow of the Xel'Naga for some backstory)

Overall, the starcraft novels are very good. Even queen of blades, by far the most mediocre, was a fun and interesting book. Despite having every book written by a different writer, the lore connection between the various books is very solid, something expanded universes are often weak on (*cough*stargate*cough). If I had to rank the books I read, it would be

1. Firstborn
2. Liberty's crusade
3. Speed of Darkness
4. Nova
5. Shadow of the Xel'Naga
6. Queen of Blades

Anyone else want to share his opinion on any of these or other starcraft books?

 

aaah i haven't read any starcraft books yet but maybe its about time =.=

 

it's so much about time that you could even say


hell, it's about time.


I have yet to play the starcraft 2 campaign, but I wonder if it integrated any of the dark templar saga stuff. So I ask of you whether this means anything to you (and if you could say yes or no while tagging spoilers):
1. Nemaka
2. Dead man's port
3. A dark Xel'Naga pillar artifact
4. A mercenary group led by RM Dahl
5. Valerian Mengsk trying to convince the world he is gonna be a better emperor than his father (I know from the portraits he is in-game)
6. Protoss preservers
7. Phoenix creatures locked away in Xel'naga temples

 

I own the first four you mentioned (but my version of the QoB story is called Uprising). I've had them in my book shelf for a long time ago and they're helping me get through the dark times until I can play SC2 on my computer. I wish I had more of the books since they have all been good reads so far IMO. I kinda thought about buying the comics when I first saw them but my financial situation didn't allow it at the time.

 

I read the comics, but didn't really mention them because they weren't books. Might do a more proper review. They have nice drawings, but the story was cancelled before it got anywhere. It was either cliché'd or weird stuff that didn't really make sense. (especially the robotic giant cat-thingie the umojans used. That that thing just bothered me because of the severe way it didn't fit the setting). I recommend both nova and the dark templar saga (seriously, christie golden can write fantastically. This thing might even beat In the shadow of the empire by Zahn in regards to expanded universe quality) over the comics.

 

No.

Yes, but it's basically a name drop.

Yes, there's a xel'naga artifact that's very plot-relevant... what do you mean by a "pillar" artifact though? (Eg from which book?)

Given what happened to them in Firstborn, of course not. Dahl doesn't appear either.

Absolutely. And you might want to buy I, Mengsk as well, for more background on him.

Yes.

No, but read the rest of the Dark Templar Saga to learn about them.

I can't say more unless you show me how to use spoiler tags here. They're different on every forum.

If by Umojans you meant "Screaming Skulls" pirates, who are more associated with Kel-Morians than anything else, you'd be right.

And those "cat thingies" are called predators (also cybercats), and are a campaign unit in Wings of Liberty

 

I really should have seen that one coming.

And I indeed seem to have misremembered the comics, my bad for that. Still don't think they fit the setting. And it also makes me wonder how Raynor could have created a new thing from research that already existed.


spoiler tags are quite simple. You just put the word spoiler in a tag

Code:

[spoiler]spoilersspoil[/spoiler]

edit: stupid code tags.

 

This was an absolutely terrible novel. I'm astounded you would call it "highly entertaining". I don't consider unrealistic fanfiction to be "entertaining". Villagers don't get to beat the zerg, Duke is not that stupid, etc.

Spoiler

I have yet to play the starcraft 2 campaign, but I wonder if it integrated any of the dark templar saga stuff. So I ask of you whether this means anything to you (and if you could say yes or no while tagging spoilers):
1. Nemaka

As mentioned previously, it does not appear.

2. Dead man's port

It is the setting of one of the missions. However, it's role in the plot has nothing to do with the xel'naga at all; it's a terran vs terran mission. The world appears to have less Dominion influence than before.

3. A dark Xel'Naga pillar artifact

Still not sure what you mean by pillar.

Read Twilight first (The Dark Templar Saga novel, not the glowing vampire series). It is awesome.

ESCALATING SPOILERS HERE!

According to Twilight, some of the artifacts seem to be dark.

In Wing of Liberty, the required missions revolve around collecting five pieces of an alien artifact, while keeping Kerrigan from getting her hands on it. It's revealed the artifact is xel'naga in origin, and it's only a few thousand years old. It has the ability to suck the life out of protoss and zerg (sound like that temple in Shadow of the Xel'Naga?)

Information about the xel'naga is contradictory, deliberately. Sometimes they seem peaceful (as revealed best in the StarCraft manual and in StarCraft: Frontline: Volume 4: The Voice in the Darkness) and other times as neglectful or even malevolent (a giant meteor dropped on Nemaka and all the air vanished, resulting in lots of fossils... does that sound like the xel'naga to you? They built another temple on Bhekar Ro which "eats" protoss and zerg. Or that artifact that nearly sucked the life out of Savassan/Khas in the Aeon of Strife? Actually yes, that is the work of the xel'naga.).

It seems there's two groups of xel'naga, with one being peaceful, one not, and the second group probably has a greater influence on the plot than the first.

And I won't say more, but if you're determined to spoil the game for yourself, see the wiki in my signature.

4. A mercenary group led by RM Dahl

Nope.

5. Valerian Mengsk trying to convince the world he is gonna be a better emperor than his father (I know from the portraits he is in-game)

I take it you haven't seen the trailer starring Valerian Mengsk. Not only does he try to do so, he hires Raynor to help.

6. Protoss preservers

There's a prophecy which plays a big role in Wings of Liberty. Zeratul gets his hands on it, but he can't understand it. He needs the preservers to make sense of it. Naturally, there's something that's in the way. Then, he gets his hands on another vision which reveals much more information. (In fact, you play that vision as a mission. And it's glorious! One of the achievements is actually named that.)

7. Phoenix creatures locked away in Xel'naga temples

No, these don't appear in Wings of Liberty. You learn what you need to know about them in Twilight. (Or the wiki, if you prefer.)

 

I almost finished Shadow hunters, so I'll pick up twilight on friday.

The Temlaa tribe was protecting several artifacts during the age of strife. One of these artifacts was a great dark pillar with writing. It seemed weird to me that the pillar was mentioned so often in comparison with the other artifacts, so I wondered if it had any significance.

Eh, a stupid book can still be very entertaining, if only for the possibility of writing rants on the subject. Just look at any work by Kevin J. Anderson.

 

That particular pillar artifact was not mentioned in Wings of Liberty. I suspect once that underground city was found, the pillar's relevance to the plot vanished.

 

thanks. I thought it would have some significance, since it was mentioned so often while not influencing the plot.

and I have to admit that the last time I read shadow of the xel'naga was quite a while ago and most of my memory of it has been filtered through the reading of firstborn. So I might have to read it again to see how it stands on its own.

 

I liked it. It did have holes but it was still good to read.

 

added a poll.

 

The underground city, however, appears in Shadow Hunters, and it didn't get any less creepy.

 

Yeah, but the underground city was found with a tablet artifact that was only mentioned once before, not the pillar.

 

So I'm lost as to why the pillar was significant. I suppose I could re-read Firstborn, but trust me, the pillar is never mentioned beyond that one novel.

 

So it turns out Gabriel Mesta is a pseudonym for Kevin J anderson. The guy behind the bad dune novels. And behind the bad star wars novels. And behind the hilariously awesome/awful saga of the seven suns.

Kevin J anderson is like the Reb Brown of writers. Everything he does is bad. Very bad. But somehow also quite good. The narrative build-up is epic. The space-battles are awesome. Every sentence becomes an epic tale all unto itself. It's just that his stories really really suck. I should know, I read most of his stuff (I love ripping on it). I actually advice people to read at least the first few books in the saga of the seven suns, if you can get them at your library. They are fun to read through, you only realize how stupid the plot is on retrospection (since he has no established canon to ruin, it isn't glaringly obvious at first), and then you can have fun pointing out the sheer number of stupidities inside his plot. It's the perfect unison of awesomeness and awfulness.

Also, I guess I should also review Shadow Hunters, now that I have read it:
It's good. It has all the good writing points of Firstborn and has a pretty cool story. I really like the interactions between Rosemary and the protoss, showing just how weird their culture actually is. The book is not as good as firstborn however, for a single reason: Jake has to describe that Rosemary is pretty about once every chapter. A few times a single sentence I wouldn't mind, but it was really getting on my nerves. Still, I would advice this book to everyone who read firstborn. And I advice reading firstborn to all fans of starcraft. And I advice being a fan of starcraft to most people I like.

 

A new novel, StarCraft: Secret Missions, is being released in April 2012. It's by Christie Golden. It's a 320 page hardcover, so the same size as Devils' Due.

Source: http://books.simonandschuster.com/Starcraft-Secret-Missions/Christie-Golden/9781451659627

Yes, that's word for word the Heart of the Swarm intro info.

But it's here: http://catalog.simonandschuster.com...b=0&ed=&showcart=N&camefrom=&find=warcraft&a=

 

Since I like Christie Golden's writing, I will probably get the book. I just wish Blizzard could tell a story inside of its games.

 

i own 10 novels.hope to buy Spectres and devil's due soon.
so my choice is:

1. Liberty's Crusade
2. Nova
3. DTS:Shadow Hunters
4. Shadow of Xel'Naga
5. DTS:Twilight
6. DTS:Firstborn
7. I,Mensk
8. Speed of Darkness
9. Heaven's Devils
10. Queen of Blades

Queen of Blades have so many plot holes that it was very hard for me do read the whole book.