The Robotech Protoculture collection is excellent!

[yoda313]

Ok I've got an off the wall question for the macross saga.

How come none of the humans tried to use the protoculture chamber? Wouldn't it have been smart of them to say put a whole troop of soldiers through it and supersize them to control the big guys?? Or was it exlained in some background material that you can only go from big to small and not the otherway around???


Also I've started watching the Masters set and am only part way through the first disc. Is it me or is Dana a bit of a ditz???

[the_man_one]

the zentradi are decended from human but not actually human... bred for war (built tougher) by the masters... humans are too frail a species to undergo a upsize.... yes dana is a ditz, she gets better as the series goes on tho.... isnt she an early teen when it starts?

[yoda313]

Ah gotcha the-man-one.

Actually she's supposed to be an academy graduate so I'd guess 19-21????

[lordsmurf]

The Masters characters are more bearable in the latter Robotech stories. They were whiny teens in the original cartoon (Robotech translation).

[the_man_one]

that time in southern cross they had an accelerated training program.. they sent ppl out at early ages (bowie? was 14 or 15 yr old grad) i think she may be 15 or 16 when it first starts, even in macross rick hunter was 16 or so when he got in a varitech the first time

[lordsmurf]

Rick was about 19, actually, if I remember correctly. It was Minmei that was 15 and turned 16 shortly thereafter. Macross was about 10 years long? More or less. Lisa was about 5 years older than Rick.

[yoda313]

Well I checked Barnes and Noble today (the actual store) and there weren't any Robotech books there that I could tell. Are these out of print or something? I might try my library sometime.

I ended up buying a Stargate SG1 paperback just for the heck of it. I haven't read any novelized versions of the show yet. Should be interesting. Its set during the early part of the first season.

I also bought a Timothy Zahn Star Wars audiocd. The OUTBOUND FLIGHT abridged version. Though the abridged version is still 6 hours and 5 discs long

[lordsmurf]

These have been out of print for about 15 years now. The most recent reprints were about 10 years ago. You won't be finding them in bookstores.

Go online and get the Jack McKinney Robotech novels. I'm sure half.com or amazon.com has them for pennies.

The Stargate SG1 books existed long before Showtime picked up the series, and there are some very divergent plots.

You should also track down Robotech Art I and Robotech Art III. The Art I book gives a lot of info on the original series. The Art II book is thin and mostly just artwork, some of it quite crappy. The Art III book chronicles Macek's vision for Robotech: The Sentinels and Robotech: The Odyssey.

[yoda313]

Thanks lordsmurf. I'll check them out sometime.

[Dv8ted2]

You might try here for the novels.

[lordsmurf]

75 cents each here:
http://people.half.ebay.com/Jack-McKinney_W0QQcidZ1023668868QQmZbooks

As low as 1 cent here:
http://amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b/102-5389397-3209730?initialSearch=1&url=search-alias%3...0&Go.y=0&Go=Go

Worth every penny .. literally!

Be sure to read them in order (not numerical order, but story order!)

The Art I, Art 2 and Art 3 (paperback editions) are also on amazon.com cheap too!

I've got an original of this (41x27), going to finally buy a good frame for it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:RobotechTheMovie.jpg (the original 1986 ENGLISH version available in Dallas and signed by Macek, which are rare, not the shitty reproduction Spanish one)

[yoda313]

Thanks lordsmurf and dv8ted.

I ended up using amazon and got this:


The Macross Saga: Battlecry
(ISBN: 978-0-345-38900-8) contains:
Book 1: Genesis
Book 2: BattleCry
Book 3: Homecoming


It's the three in one reprint I found on the robotech website. They were backordered on the complete collection from them so I decided on the first 3 pack. It was only a 1 cent plus 4 shipping.

What I'll do is I'll start on this pack and then see if I want to buy more. Thanks.

[lordsmurf]

Be careful that the 3-in-1 is not abridged. I don't see how they can't be. The print in the normal volumes was already pretty small, and the three books is much thicker than 1 book.

[yoda313]

Thanks lordsmurf. It might be. But it's not a big gamble total was like 4.00.

Like I said if I like these I'll look for more.

[yoda313]

bump!

Well I got the book the other day. I started reading it and its pretty good. I don't know if its abridged or not. The chapters feel a little short. Here are the page totals for the three books - Gensis - Battle Cry - and Homecoming:

genesis 176

battle cry 150

homeocming 161

Are those chopped??

This is that three in one rerelease - print date 1994.

I'm definitely considering buying more if I can keep getting them for four bucks total including shipping each - great deals!! Though I'll try looking for the full individual books next time. Probably after I finish this book - at least part of it.

[Dv8ted2]

The original books as follows -

Genesis - 201 Pages
Battle Cry - 210 Pages
Homecoming - 205 Pages

There is also a preview of chapter 1 of each book at the end of these books.

[lordsmurf]

You're getting screwed, I would guess. You want the full books. How many text lines are on a full page? Type out the full top and bottom line off a random page.

Let's compare.

[yoda313]

Ok looks like I took a short cut here.

I'll look for the full versions next time. Anyway these did get me interested at least

[lordsmurf]

True Robotech fans will not want to miss a single sentences from the full novels.

[yoda313]

I'm looking into some book websites. I want to see what they do for combining shipping. The ones through amazon do only single item shipping. I'll look around.

[yoda313]

BUMP!

Well I kept trying and I hit the jackpot - EBAY finally came through. I got a ton in one bid - all of these for 27 plus shipping (7.00):

1 First Generation - Genesis
#2 First Generation - Battle Cry
#3 First Generation - Homecoming
#4 First Generation - Battlehymn
#5 First Generation - Force of Arms
#6 First Generation - Doomsday
#7 Second Generation - Southern Cross
#8 Second Generation - Metal Fire
#9 Second Generation - The Final Nightmare
#10 Third Generation - Invid Invasion
#11 Third Generation - Metamorphosis
#12 Third Generation - Symphony of Light
#1 The Sentinels - The Devil's Hand
#2 The Sentinels - Dark Powers
#3 The Sentinels - Death Dance
#4 The Sentinels - World Killers
#5 The Sentinels - Rubicon
#18 The End of the Circle
#19 Lost Generation - The Zentraedi Rebellion
#20 Lost Generation - The Master's Giambit
#21Before the Invid Storm

This should be fun. I didn't expect to win but did The problem with a lot of the super cheap 1.00 sales online is you get stiffed with shipping. The few I looked at would charge 4 for shipping but then 3 for each additional book. So this is great for shipping.

I'm part way through the MASTERS dvd set. i had finished MACROSS dvd set when I bought it. Now I'll be more motivated to finish Masters and head to New Generation.

[lordsmurf]

Read the books in story order, not numerical order.

It goes as follows:

#1 First Generation - Genesis
#2 First Generation - Battle Cry
#3 First Generation - Homecoming
#4 First Generation - Battlehymn
#5 First Generation - Force of Arms
#6 First Generation - Doomsday
#19 Lost Generation - The Zentraedi Rebellion

#20 Lost Generation - The Master's Gambit - (Robotech the Movie Untold Story storyline)
#7 Second Generation - Southern Cross
#8 Second Generation - Metal Fire
#9 Second Generation - The Final Nightmare
#21 Before the Invid Storm

#10 Third Generation - Invid Invasion
#11 Third Generation - Metamorphosis
#12 Third Generation - Symphony of Light

#1 The Sentinels - The Devil's Hand
#2 The Sentinels - Dark Powers
#3 The Sentinels - Death Dance
#4 The Sentinels - World Killers
#5 The Sentinels - Rubicon
#18 The End of the Circle

Remember that some of The Sentinels is now retconned due to The Shadow Chronicles. But it's still close. I would try to forget Shadow Chronicles while you read these books. I think many old-time fans lookat at Shadow Chronicles as the "what if" type of story, especially since it's only had 90 minutes of airtime, while the books had hours upon hours of reading time.

At some point in time, I forget exactly where, the Mospeada (New Generation) and Sentinels timelines overlap (middle of series, somewhere), but in different locales in the universe. You'll have to choose which ones you want to read first. Most people read New Gen before Sentinels, but some prefer it backwards.

It's at this overlap break, by the way, that Shadow Chronicles happens, although they've taken some liberty with chronology and characters.

[yoda313]

Thanks lordsmurf. Am I missing any??? Is this really a complete set?

[Dv8ted2]

Thanks lordsmurf. Am I missing any??? Is this really a complete set?

That is all the books. You have the complete set. Jack Mckinney stopped after the 21st book. Then the books were reprinted.

[yoda313]

Great! Sounds good.

[lordsmurf]

My favorite book is still Genesis. It gave all the back story you'd never get in the cartoon. That's why I say to not read the abridged versions. All those chapters with Lang and Fokker were excellent.

Sentinels also has overlap with Southern Cross (Masters). At some point in time, Dana and others leave Earth to join Hunter and company. This is why they are missing in the Mospeada (New Generation) Earth. You'll see their arrival in Sentinels.

It's a really messy story, in terms of how many locations exists at the same time, but Macek and "McKinney" (two authors together, a pen name) handled it well. Not a bad job of splicing together 3 unrelated cartoons for toy sales.

[yoda313]

That's why I say to not read the abridged versions

Too late. I'm halfway through my 3-in-1 abridged set for the Macross. I'll keep reading it until I get my new set.

I'm at the point now where they get suckered into the Mars station. Lisa just got rescued by Rick.

After reading these I'm gonna want to watch the whole Macross series again

[Heywould3]

if a book is meant to be for recreation/entertainment why would anyone want a abridged version? i never understood that.

[yoda313]

Well for starters I think those three-in-ones came out sometime after the originals were out of print.

My guess is they were a money making scheme - they didn't want the hassle of reissuing the originals but still wanted to make money off of them. Don't know that for sure but just a guess.

[yoda313]

bump!

Damn almost half a month later and no books. But to be honest the guy said he didnt' ship until three or four days after the end of the auction - he was away at school and didn't have them with him.

I think they were shipped usps. If I don't get them by the end of the week I'm gonna ask for at least a tracking number. I want to make sure the dude actually mailed them.