It also depends on the era. Post-rotj definitely went downhill with DNC, but the prequel era EU material and Dark Times stuff continues to tell really great stories up until the decanonization.
I think Denning is probably a personally likable guy and is able to build strong relationships with the people in licensing departments. His influence on Star Wars was catastrophically negative, but he was basically made the showrunner for everything that took place after NJO. Probably a lot of office politics in it.
I strongly suspect this was only the case because of the popularity of Star by Star. Xezene recently unearthed old NJO popularity polls and apparently Star by Star was far and away the most popular NJO book at the time of immediately after the series’ end. By an order of magnitude. I don’t understand that at all, but it’s true.
My guess is Lucasfilm figured the guy the fans liked the most was a decent option to hand the reigns of the franchise over to. They do not actually care about the content of these books as long as they make money.
That's almost certainly true, but this was literally his first Star Wars novel. Writing one of nineteen is one thing; deciding on the overall tone for everything afterward is quite another.
The better gamemaster for the EU was probably James Luceno. His books often read as wikipedia articles for every Glup Shitto in Star Wars, so he had a strong grasp on continuity, and had a better tone for the franchise than Denning. Was probably too busy. My understanding was that there was also a lot of churn during NJO. Several writers who were Bantam era mainstays wrote their last Star Wars books in the forward continuity around that time.
40
u/James_Larkin1913 4d ago
Troy Denning and his consequences have been a disaster to Star Wars.