Star Wars author Karen Traviss just announced on her personal blog that Imperial Commando 2 will be her last Star Wars book. While she doesn’t give specific details as to why she’s leaving, she does say that “changes in continuity were such that [she] wouldn’t be able to carry on as originally planned with the storyline [in her novels].”
She talks about how “the cannon [was] beyond [her] control,” and that she was left with a few choices: she “could try to make the massive retcons. Or [she] could switch to different SW books that weren’t affected by these changes. Or [she] could decide to call it a day.” Sadly, the latter choice was the only “rational decision.”
The question is: where does this problem in continuity exist? Some fans have speculated that it involves the timeline of Order 66, on which Karen Traviss worked very hard. Others think it has to do with the Mandalorians, which will be heavily featured in Season 2 of The Clone Wars. The show has already caused some continuity errors, and the introduction of the Mandos could mess up everything Karen Traviss has worked on for the last few years. Sadly, we may never know where the problem lies.
Personally, I’m very sad to see Karen Traviss go. She was one of my favorite Star Wars authors, and I loved the Republic Commando series. While we will miss her, we wish her luck in her future endeavors.
Source: Karen Traviss’ Blog
Read more for details on Karen Traviss.
Karen Traviss is known for writing realistic military stories. She was influential in developing and fleshing out the Clone Wars. She created a culture for the Clone Troopers and Mandalorians, laying the ground work for such great stories as Rookies in The Clone Wars Season 1. She even created the entire Mando’a language based on a few songs from the LucasArts video game Republic Commando. While she’s no longer writing for Star Wars, fans of Karen Traviss can continue reading her personal books, as well as her Gears of War series, based on the hit Xbox 360 videogame.
Karen Traviss Star Wars Novels:
- Republic Commando: Hard Contact (October 2004)
- Republic Commando: Tripple Zero (March 2006)
- Republic Commando: True Colors (October 2007)
- Republic Commando: Order 66 (September 2008)
- Imperial Commando: 501st (November 2009)
- Imperial Commando 2 (TBA)
- Legacy of the Force: Bloodlines (September 2006)
- Legacy of the Force: Sacrafice (June 2007)
- Legacy of the Force: Revelation (February 2008)
- Boba Fett: A Practical Man (August 2006)
- The Clone Wars (July 2008)
- The Clone Wars: No Prisoners (May 2009)
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August 8th, 2009 - 8:45 pm
I completely agree with William. I think the issues are with Mandalorians in the Clone Wars. I really hope they do something great, because I’ve loved the Republic Commando series of novels. If the cartoon doesn’t wow me, it might just put me off the Clone Wars series.
August 9th, 2009 - 10:54 am
While I have not read all of Karen’s work in our universe (I mean Star Wars) I have loved the stories that I have read & am really going to miss reading her work. I will be reading those stories that I have not read as of yet, & I will be taking a look at her other non-Star Wars works (from looking at her site, some of the stories look interesting…) I wish she had stayed around so that she could write more stories about Fett (I really loved those…). Perhaps at some point in the future Karen will decide to return to our universe & write again (a guy can dream…). Perhaps she could write in another era of Star Wars continuity that does not really rely upon the Clone Wars era, or perhaps she could ignore the TV series all together (after all, Lucas has said that the EU has nothing what-so-ever to do with anything he’s done (ie. the movies & the cartoon). With that in mind, Karen could, theoretically, ignore what happens on the Clone Wars cartoon & write the stories she wants to write. I know as fans we want everything to work together & make a single continuous story where everything fits together neatly, but with the Star Wars universe changing daily with the EU (going from 25,000 years before the Battle of Yavin all the way to 124 years after the Battle of Yavin, there are too many years & too many stories for anyone to really keep anything inside continuity, so I’ve gotten to where if something is contradictory I don’t really care), & the TV series, that is an impossible task to accomplish.
August 10th, 2009 - 9:00 am
It is a pity to see the decade’s old system of continuity being so heavily ignored by the TV shows, due to Lucas’s involvement it may be allowed to rewrite the stories but that does not mean it should.
Short term allowing the show to ignore major aspects of the Karen Travis Clone novels may make commercial sense but long term it is likely to reduce the over all value of the franchise.
August 10th, 2009 - 12:17 pm
I’m betting it is the Mandolorian stuff. But she really should have seen this coming, working in the prequel era is a mistake in and of itself. GL and and the entire organization sees that period as a gold-mine and a blank slate, they’ll change it whenever they want.
It must be hard to be a SW author, you either have to write self-contained, boring books or get into the post-ROTJ roster in which case you won’t actually have control of the story. Pretty rough.