Are there other "space carrier" novels out there with not too much "weird" elements but instead grounded military sci-fi?

I thought the X-Wing series was good...but more for teenagers. I liked them at the time, but when I went back to them later I felt I had outgrown them. Not trying to sound like a snooty ass and no offence intended. Zahn's books on the other hand still hold up!
 
People will have different standards. I suppose a Star Wars branded story will be written in a more accessible way than what a 'hard core sci-fi' reader might want/expect. I will happily go back to them from time to time and still enjoy them.
 
On the off-topic Star Wars discussion, I suspect the revenue - if that could in any way be a reasonable gauge of movie quality - for Episode IX suffered as a result of the mixed response to Episode VIII.

With due respect, this isn't how the box office works... and there's a reason box office analyst is a highly specified job and not something internet randoms can pick up based on their gut feelings. A bad reaction to a movie can be identified in a bunch of ways and the alt right bickering on Twitter isn't one of them. You would see a significant drop off after *opening weekend* and not two releases later... and it would be represented in the CinemaScore, the way the industry measures the immediate I-just-saw-the-movie reaction to films (and that's exactly what happened with Rise of Skywalker... it receieved the series' worst score, B+, and then the box office fell off /after/ it opened).

But even then that's less an indictment of Rise of Skywalker and more just how film series' work... even high profile sequels see an expected drop in the box office in pretty much every scenario and that's known to be magnified when it's annual releases. (From my personal experience working with the folks that process this stuff, the only true surprises for Disney were the fact that the first movie did much better than expected straight off the bat and the fact that Rogue One did such good numbers. The lower box office for Solo and Rise of Skywalker was pretty much as expected.)
 
I wasn't trying to make any serious analysis - I didn't know people actually gauged film responses in this way (as a whole the film industry, at least in the Anglosphere, seems overly inflated in terms of monetary values anyway). Unlike a lot of 'Internet randoms', I generally don't go around venting my frustrations with the belief that my 2c would actually change anything in the big picture - I think you know me well enough for that. Was simply responding from my perspective of feeling less disappointed with IX than VIII.

But while you're explaining all that, why did Disney's strategy on Star Wars feature film releases seem to change substantially if the lower revenues were expected to begin with? I was under the impression that Disney was disappointed with how Solo performed (maybe because of the voices of those 'Internet randoms' you refer to) and adjusted their strategy accordingly.
 
There isn't much cited that I didn't already know - that he was dissatisfied with VII and was unhappy that his ideas were rejected by Disney (within their rights as new owners, I suppose). I know of vague references to the Whills from various notes about it in the old EU, but there isn't any detail on what he would have done if he continued to do VII-IX himself.
 
But while you're explaining all that, why did Disney's strategy on Star Wars feature film releases seem to change substantially if the lower revenues were expected to begin with? I was under the impression that Disney was disappointed with how Solo performed (maybe because of the voices of those 'Internet randoms' you refer to) and adjusted their strategy accordingly.

This is another one that's just based on what people on the internet think -- that if they made five Star Wars movies in rapid order then they must have been planning to continue that forever. But there wasn't anything slated (which happens years in advance) and nothing else was in production. They made the cycle of movies they planned to and then moved on to the next thing... (Which happens to be an increasingly major focus on streaming.) (Similarly, the agreement with Bad Robot was to do the three films... without a similar deal, Lucasfilm's resources reduce back to the group that did the two in-house story films... it's not so simple as pointing a finger and saying make another Star Wars every year.)
 
Absolutely absolutely recommend Glynn Stewart. The Castle Federation series is awesome, and has some obvious nods to Wing Commander in it. His other series (Duchy of Terra, Peacekeepers of Sol, Exiles) are excellent as well.
 
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