Canopus' examples of Wendig's writing raise some interesting questions.
Is the writing merely bad? Part of me finds it hard to believe that any publisher in the declining book market would choose to print writing of such terrible quality. (But the bigger part of me remembers reading samples of recent Hugo Award-winning novels and short stories, so no, it's not unbelievable that a publisher's standards could be so low.)
Is it that the writing was aimed at a particular demographic? Say, teen boys? Hmm. It's got fart jokes, so maybe, but teen boys who would choose to read a Star Wars novel are probably going to be of above average intelligence and reading at a higher level. This seems marginally higher in the latter regard than the readers issued to us as second-graders (though that was nearly 40 years ago for me, so maybe teens in public schools are reading at this level nowadays).
Are all Star Wars novels written like this? I assume that any such novels have to be authorized by Disney, given the use characters and other Lucas intellectual property now owned by the Mouse. Where is Disney's quality contr-- Oh. Right. Never mind.
The best explanation I can see is Disney thinking that the market for Star Wars-related material is so hot that the quantity of offerings matters more than the quality. In other words, that there such a high demand for Star Wars tie-ins that anything they churn out will sell sell sell regardless of quality. We already know they're that stupid and short-sighted, given what they did with the core properties of the franchise. They ruined the toy market with bad decisions, so it's entirely likely that they're delusional about what the book market is willing to absorb. The sequel trilogy's characters are not popular or memorable as far as I can see, so they would have been smart (given the ill will generated by the movie) to put out high-quality tie-ins to develop/rehabilitate those characters and thereby mollify and woo back the hard-core fans - but if they were that smart, they wouldn't have crapped on said fans in the first place.
I'm actually mostly-serious when I suggest that if Disney wanted to reestablish it's credibility with the franchise, they'd commission a novel set before "Last Jedi", focusing on Rose and her sister, and make it exciting, compelling, and emotionally moving. Now, that would be a climbing-Everest-like stunt that would require some serious talent to pull off, but just imagine how far it would go towards rescuing the franchise if they could succeed (and then follow up with the other half-developed characters from the Disney films).
Is the writing merely bad? Part of me finds it hard to believe that any publisher in the declining book market would choose to print writing of such terrible quality. (But the bigger part of me remembers reading samples of recent Hugo Award-winning novels and short stories, so no, it's not unbelievable that a publisher's standards could be so low.)
Is it that the writing was aimed at a particular demographic? Say, teen boys? Hmm. It's got fart jokes, so maybe, but teen boys who would choose to read a Star Wars novel are probably going to be of above average intelligence and reading at a higher level. This seems marginally higher in the latter regard than the readers issued to us as second-graders (though that was nearly 40 years ago for me, so maybe teens in public schools are reading at this level nowadays).
Are all Star Wars novels written like this? I assume that any such novels have to be authorized by Disney, given the use characters and other Lucas intellectual property now owned by the Mouse. Where is Disney's quality contr-- Oh. Right. Never mind.
The best explanation I can see is Disney thinking that the market for Star Wars-related material is so hot that the quantity of offerings matters more than the quality. In other words, that there such a high demand for Star Wars tie-ins that anything they churn out will sell sell sell regardless of quality. We already know they're that stupid and short-sighted, given what they did with the core properties of the franchise. They ruined the toy market with bad decisions, so it's entirely likely that they're delusional about what the book market is willing to absorb. The sequel trilogy's characters are not popular or memorable as far as I can see, so they would have been smart (given the ill will generated by the movie) to put out high-quality tie-ins to develop/rehabilitate those characters and thereby mollify and woo back the hard-core fans - but if they were that smart, they wouldn't have crapped on said fans in the first place.
I'm actually mostly-serious when I suggest that if Disney wanted to reestablish it's credibility with the franchise, they'd commission a novel set before "Last Jedi", focusing on Rose and her sister, and make it exciting, compelling, and emotionally moving. Now, that would be a climbing-Everest-like stunt that would require some serious talent to pull off, but just imagine how far it would go towards rescuing the franchise if they could succeed (and then follow up with the other half-developed characters from the Disney films).