×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

Forum - View topic
Robotech Novels?




Anime News Network Forum Index -> General -> Novels
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
Oaknut



Joined: 20 Jan 2007
Posts: 27
PostPosted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 11:03 pm Reply with quote
Are the Robotech novels by Jack Mckinney worth reading? I have not seen the tv series, but I would like to see it in the future. I would like to read the books before I watch the series......that's if they are worth the time and money.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Shigi



Joined: 01 Nov 2007
Posts: 41
Location: CA, USA
PostPosted: Sat Aug 09, 2008 9:02 pm Reply with quote
Personally, I love the McKinney novels (well up until #18, I'm less wild about #19-21) but fans of Robotech are sort of split on the matter. Some fans don't like the changes the books made to the series, but I think they were a really interesting take on the series. It gives the series another level of depth and they really read like sci-fi (as they should since Jack McKinney is a pseudonym for Brian Daley and James Luceno, two well-known sci-fi authors). An added benefit is the fact that the novel series has a real conclusion.

Anyway, try them out and see. The recent re-releases of the novels don't cover all the novels, but I see them turn up fairy frequently in used book stores.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
Darklinglost



Joined: 24 Oct 2008
Posts: 1
PostPosted: Fri Oct 24, 2008 6:13 pm Reply with quote
I read the novels back in junior high, which was like 20 years ago for me, they had just been released then and were still coming out one at a time. The series was on TV at the time, at least on Guam, where I was living then, and I found the books to be more enjoyable than the animation. The characters seemed to have greater depth in the book, and the story unfolded more vividly than in the animation which always seemed to short, at least to me. I think they would be well worth the time and money to read them.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Bling Bling



Joined: 01 Mar 2009
Posts: 24
Location: NC
PostPosted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 5:43 pm Reply with quote
The novels arent worth reading if youve seen the series they take five pages to describe little details
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
vashna



Joined: 19 Feb 2010
Posts: 1313
PostPosted: Fri Feb 19, 2010 3:08 pm Reply with quote
I've really been wondering about this myself, since I usually like the novelizations of Western series (ie Star Trek and Star Wars.) I imagined these to be like that, just with the SDF Macross, SDC Southern Cross and Genesis Climber MOSPEADA anime series taken into novelized form.

I was really hoping they'd have them at my library, since my library tends to have niche stuff like that, but they didn't. Interestingly enough, they have the BattleTech and MechWarrior novels, and of course those two franchises have some debate as to just how much they 'borrowed' from Robotech/SDF Macross/SDC Southern Cross/Genesis Climber MOSPEADA. That being said, I am a fan myself, and am actually reading those books. I wonder if they're close in any way to the Robotech books?
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
ljaesch



Joined: 03 Apr 2009
Posts: 299
Location: Enumclaw, WA
PostPosted: Fri Feb 19, 2010 3:32 pm Reply with quote
Only the first twelve books of the novel series follows the original Robotech series. There was a group of the Robotech books ("The Sentinels," which spanned five books), which tells the story of the mission of the SDF-3. Only part of "The Sentinels" was animated, and can be seen as a film (I have the film as a bonus feature from one of the Robotech Legacy DVD box sets I purchased almost ten years ago).

Other books in the series fill in the gaps between the three series that made up Robotech.

Book #19, The Zentraedi Rebellion, falls in between the end of the Macross series and the beginning of "The Sentinels."

Book #20, The Masters' Gambit, is set before the start of the Southern Cross storyline.

Book #21, Before the Invid Storm, is set between te end of the Southern Cross material and the beginning of the Mospeada (aka Invid) material.

Book #18, The End of the Circle closes the series (its set after the end of "The Sentinels"), and it brings everything to a close.

Personally, I do enjoy the Robotech novelizations. I also think the new material written for these books beats the pants off of what we ultimately saw in Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website AIM Address Yahoo Messenger
vashna



Joined: 19 Feb 2010
Posts: 1313
PostPosted: Fri Feb 19, 2010 7:55 pm Reply with quote
I have the Sentinels as a VHS release, from the other Palladium/Harmony Gold videocassettes that were released a number of years ago. Though I bought it used, I have not yet watched it. For that matter, I purchased a new DVD of Shadow Chronicles and haven’t seen it yet.

Thank you for telling me a little about the books though!
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic    Anime News Network Forum Index -> General -> Novels All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Page 1 of 1

 


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group