Immagine dell'autore.

John Jackson Miller

Autore di Star Wars: Kenobi

210+ opere 5,826 membri 186 recensioni 3 preferito

Sull'Autore

John Jackson Miller is a science-fiction author, comic book writer, and commentator, known for his work on the Star Wars franchise and his research into comic book circulation history. He was born on January 12, 1968. He began as editor of the trade magazine Comics Retailer in 1993. Following the mostra altro introduction of Magic: The Gathering, he added games to its coverage, changing the title to Comics & Games Retailer in 2001. In 1998, Miller was appointed managing editor of Comics Buyer's Guide; he served as the first editor of Scrye: The Guide to Collectible Card Games. He produced much work for Comics Buyer's Guide magazine. His first professional comics work appeared in 2003 in Crimson Dynamo for Marvel Comics, which led to a run on Iron Man. He writes a regular column called Longbox Manifesto for regular comics magazine Comics Buyer's Guide. In 2007, he launched The Comics Chronicles, a website devoted to comic-book circulation history and research. In February 2007, he was hired as a writer for the video game Sword of the New World. In early 2008, he launched a fantasy webcomic with artist Chuck Fiala called Sword & Sarcasm. In 2008, he wrote the Dark Horse comic-book adaptation of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.[4] In 2009, he was announced as the scripter for Mass Effect: Redemption, the first comic-book series based on the video game Mass Effect, launching in January 2010. In 2013 he wrote his first novel in a non-licensed universe, Overdraft: The Orion Offensive, for 47 North. In 2005, Miller wrote an issue of Star Wars: Empire for Dark Horse Comics, featuring Darth Vader. Next year, as part of Dark Horse Star Wars comic line, Miller started writing the ongoing Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic comic series, serving as a spin-off for the video game. The series proved a major success among fans and lasted for 50 issues. In August 2008, Wizards of the Coast released a Knights of the Old Republic guidebook for its Star Wars Roleplaying Game, which Miller co-wrote. In 2010 Miller began writing the Star Wars: Knight Errant comic series. A Knight Errant novel was released in early 2011 by Del Rey. This was Miller's first professional novel. Most recently, 2012 saw a continuation of the Knights of the Old Republic storyline with a mini-series entitled War. In October 2012, Del Rey announced that Miller would write Star Wars: Kenobi, a novel about Obi-Wan Kenobi's life on Tatooine. This title made The New York Times Best Seller List for 2013. His title, A New Dawn, made the New York Times bestseller list in 2014. (Bowker Author Biography) mostra meno

Serie

Opere di John Jackson Miller

Star Wars: Kenobi (2013) 648 copie
Star Wars: A New Dawn (2014) 566 copie
Star Wars: Knight Errant (2011) 342 copie
Takedown (2015) 120 copie
Prey: Hell's Heart (2016) 93 copie
Vector, Volume 1 (2009) 88 copie
The Enterprise War (2019) 83 copie
Prey: The Jackal's Trick (2016) 81 copie
Prey: The Hall of Heroes (2016) 78 copie
Rogue Elements (2021) 65 copie
Die Standing (2020) 55 copie
Mass Effect Volume 3: Invasion (2012) — Autore — 54 copie
The High Country (2023) 52 copie
Titan: Absent Enemies (2014) 39 copie
SMITE: The Pantheon War (2017) — Autore — 6 copie
Human Error (2013) 4 copie
Star Wars 2015 Sampler (2015) 4 copie
Une nouvelle aube (2017) 4 copie
Star Wars Sonderband 54 (2010) 3 copie
Bottleneck 3 copie
Orientation 2 copie
Iron Man (1998) #81 — Autore — 2 copie
Mass Effect: Invasion #1 (2015) 1 copia
Mass Effect: Invasion #2 (2015) 1 copia
Mass Effect: Invasion #4 (2015) 1 copia
Hells Heart 1 copia
Új hajnal 1 copia
Star Wars 2014 Sampler (2014) 1 copia

Opere correlate

Canto Bight (2017) — Collaboratore — 250 copie
Armored (2012) — Collaboratore — 141 copie
Planet of the Apes: Tales from the Forbidden Zone (2017) — Collaboratore — 26 copie
Halo: Rise of Atriox (2018) — Autore — 9 copie
Star Wars 2015 Del Rey Sampler (2015) — Collaboratore — 3 copie
Comics Buyer's Guide #1598 (2004) — Collaboratore — 3 copie
Comics Buyer's Guide #1596 (2004) — Collaboratore — 1 copia
Comics Buyer's Guide #1595 (2004) — Collaboratore — 1 copia

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Recensioni

The premise of this book sounds fun, and potentially interesting: Admiral Riker has gone rogue, and Captain Picard has to stop him. Picard has spent a career bringing in evil admirals... but what if that evil admiral is the man he trusts most in the universe? Immediate Hunt for Red October vibes. It's a cracker of a premise.

Unfortunately, if you're a writer, you have to work back from and figure out what circumstances would bring this about. And, alas, there's not really any. Riker is not going to become an evil admiral. So it's got to be mind control. And if you're John Jackson Miller, you fish through old Star Trek episodes to find one that's ripe for a sequel. (I feel like every Star Trek book of his I've read has done this, bar The Enterprise War.) "The Nth Degree" is a perfectly logical choice for a follow-up; well, I guess so, anyway, as it's one of those TNG episodes I've never gotten around to! But it seems to have some intriguing loose ends, and the powers of the Cytherians make good sense for giving Riker both a motivation and an advantage.

But once you construct it like that, I feel like the premise is fulfilled only in a purely mechanical way. All this is to say, I thought the first half of the book, where the characters and the reader are trying to figure out what's going on, worked well. It's fast, it's sharp, it's tense.

...but the Picard vs. Riker thing never really materializes. Riker is so smart, no one can really compete with him at all. So what we get instead is more Riker vs. Riker, Riker's conscience vs. Riker's programming. But this is all external, because Riker isn't a viewpoint character once he's possessed. And Riker comes up with plan after plan; we don't see Picard having to do clever things to outwit his old friend. Indeed, the cleverest ploy comes from Dax on the Aventine when she fiddles with the lights.

The second half of the novel, I thought, really fizzled away the potential of the first. Once you find out what's going on, it doesn't even really feel like anything's at stake. In the first half, you're like, who's trying to short out communications across the galaxy? what's this all in aid of? In the second half, the answer is it's not really in aid of anything, it's just an end in itself. There's not actually really any kind of danger coming. The book swerves into making the Cytherian-controlled people other than Riker into a new threat, but this never really convinces; one is a comedy Ferengi whose plan is to sell the Federation mortgages. On top of this, I found the action around the climax fairly confusing.

One of the things tie-in books live or die on is characterization: do the writers capture the characters from the shows? But in reading Takedown I came to realize this actually has two parts. One is, obviously, capturing voices, the feeling that you can imagine the actors delivering the lines. Miller is great at this. But there's another: the feeling that you learned something about the characters you didn't already know. Sometimes this is a change in character, but I think it can be a new situation, a new turn, something you didn't expect. Takedown doesn't really achieve this. (And I know Miller can do this, because I think he did it in both Pike books.) Riker, Picard, Dax... they're all just kind of there, reading their lines as they go through the plot. The non-tv characters feel pretty thin. I think there's potentially a great Riker-as-admiral book to be written, but I still don't feel like I really know that Riker yet. Riker went through this whole experience, but it didn't give me much insight into him; Picard had to potentially do a big thing, but I don't know him any better either.

Maybe I'm being unfair. It has a good zip to it, and the first half is solid. But I feel like a better book with this basic premise exists somewhere in the multiverse, and I wish I'd read it.

Continuity Notes: Other Notes:
  • Riker experiences a holoprogram of the Titan, and one of his clues it's a fake is that some of the ranks are wrong. "Always getting the ranks wrong," sighs the creator of the program. "I forget how closely people pay attention." Miller's Titan novella, Absent Enemies, received some flack for getting the ranks wrong, so it's a cute reference.
  • I found the account of the political career of Senator Bretorius totally hilarious, especially the jokes about his biographers and his (lack of) participation in Shinzon's coup. His last line is also great.
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Segnalato
Stevil2001 | 4 altre recensioni | Sep 10, 2023 |
I Wasn’t the One Living in a Nightmare

John Jackson Miller returns to the outer reaches of space in another original Star Trek: Strange New Worlds novel. Captain Christopher Pike is in command of one of the first exploratory vessels, the Starship Enterprise. His crew is called in to investigate the missing starship Braidwood, which was last located heading toward the planet Epheska. When Captain Pike, First Officer Una, Cadet Nyota Uhura, and Science Officer Spock approach the planet they are separated when all technology ceases to function. trapped on a planet without means to escape, Captain Pike must find his crew and solve this baffling mystery.

This is not a usual space adventure, as it is primarily set on the planet Epheska. Where technology is stuck in the age of old westerns by the mysterious Baffle. This is an interesting book about the purpose of the Prime Directive, and the difficulties between different planetary races. John Jackson Miller builds a world with a mixture of old-world planetary beings. Some are recognizable Star Trek groups, such as the Vulcans, and the unfamiliar Skagarans. All caught up in a complex philosophy that technology ultimately leads to destruction. A great read for those who enjoy the new Star Trek tv series, and of course, space traveling horses.
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Segnalato
VictoriaGD | 4 altre recensioni | Jul 2, 2023 |
A tempting of character possibilities becomes impeded by the slow unfolding boring standard Western genre fare. Hopefully a follow up about the other 19 years that Kenobi spent on Tatooine will be more compelling.
 
Segnalato
waconner | 30 altre recensioni | Jun 29, 2023 |
The first few books are a bit long and drawn out with not much happening and the planet they are on is just a bit boring to be honest.

The books after Korsin start to pick up the pace a bit, but I am really struggling to finish this book and not shelve it!
 
Segnalato
roylmac1 | 4 altre recensioni | Jun 19, 2023 |

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Statistiche

Opere
210
Opere correlate
12
Utenti
5,826
Popolarità
#4,228
Voto
½ 3.6
Recensioni
186
ISBN
224
Lingue
7
Preferito da
3

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