ROBOTECH v Second Generation DEL REY BOOKS CLASSIC VALUE THREE NOVELS FOR THE PRICE OF ONE #7 SOUTHERN CROSS The Robotech Masters had come to Earth to finish the conquest their Zentraedi warrior-slaves had begun...and a battle-ravaged planet had to defend itself once more. That was when Dana Sterling, half-Human, half-Zentraedi commander of an elite Hovertank unit, stepped into the spotlight of interstellar history! #8 METAL FIRE An alien fortress had crashlanded on Earth--brought down in the struggle between the Robotech Masters and Earth's Human inhabitants. Now the fortress dared someone to penetrate its dark mysteries. And who better to brave that ship than Dana Sterling's 15th Squadron ATACs--after all, they had brought the thing down to begin with! #9 THE FINAL NIGHTMARE The Robotech Masters' Protoculture Matrix was degenerating, transforming into the Flower of Life--which was sure to draw the savage, merciless Invid across the galaxy to Earth. But the Army of the Southern Cross vowed to fight to the bitter end. And Dana Sterling raged a desperate war of her own to decipher her strange visions and the secret of her alien heritage...
Team McKinney spends much of the three collected novels actively apologizing for how the adaptation of Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross does not flow particularly freely in the on-screen Robotech version. As a reader who is not interested in comparing the books and show in a scene-for-scene manner, this is mildly infuriating. Rather than expanding upon the central plot, space is dedicated to revisiting to how scenes and characters often don't make much sense. The one saving grace in regard to trying to be faithful to the Robotech episodes is that obvious errors (Dana referring to herself as a sergeant, Angelo's rank fluctuating between corporal and sergeant, etc.) are ignored.
Considering that the anime Southern Cross sucked in it's original Japanese form (why they used it to form the middle story arc in the original RoboTech anime series is beyond me), so considering that, it gets props for not sucking that badly, but it still can be difficult to get through, and because of that, sours most of the rest of the series, fortunately, the Macross Saga (which occurs before this) and the Sentinels Saga (which starts before this one and ends in the Invid Saga) help to compensate for this one.
Chronological Orderings: Southern Cross #12 Metal Fire #13 The Final Nightmare #15
This book is a conglomeration of the three final novels that cover season two of the Robotech television show. The source material was a completely different series that was inelegantly stapled and taped to the end of the original series (season one). This book was equally inelegant. At times it works overtime to tie the two series together, but in the failed process this book emphasizes that the combination really doesn’t work either in video or novelized form. In fact, I enjoyed the season of the show because when watching it is easy to forget that it’s supposed to be the same series. But for this book form, the author never lets you forget, constantly bringing up ties to the original story that are tenuous at best, and continuity busting at worst. If you’ve read the novels this far, you should keep going, but no one should ever read this book as a stand-alone, and most readers should simply skip this.
These books have always been a race against a crazy deadline in an effort to consistently present what was an inconsistent story line in the first place.
This collection is where is shows through the most - it feels as though the authors have finally given up. They don’t explain or justify the dumb things that the tv series makes the characters do - rather they just marvel along with the reader at the 2-dimensionality of the characters, at the wildly unlikely plot twists.
Enough to stop me from tracking down the other novels In the series? Quite possibly. I believe that this is the last of the series that was actually on TV, so my loyalty to my childhood might not extend any further than that...
Whereas the McKinney adaptations of the Macross and New Generation arcs stand shoulder-to-shoulder with their animated originators, the Southern Cross is so vastly superior to the original animation that words fail me. Gone are most of the nonsensical character beats, int heir place is reasoned motivation.
You can generally watch the episodes, or read the books and get all you need to continue, but for Southern Cross, the book is DEFINITIVELY better.
The Robotech books give a fuller story then the series of the same name. Both are good, but I have found I really enjoyed the books more than I thought when I started to read them.
The Masters Saga is definately the least favorite part of Robotech among fans, as it unfairly had to connect two seperate tv shows which it wasn't related to itself. The books try to cement the three eras, but this means that the novels depart from the tv show quite a bit (such as the stray "dog" Dana finds is her pet, and the eccentric Professor Lazlo Zand being examples). Overall it is still decent, but definately not a continuation of Macross that most people are expecting.
This was yet another series of the Robotech books that was good. However, it had almost the exact same plot. Aliens come, they look like humans, Humans think they're super strong, looks like the aliens will win , some fall in love with the humans, Aliens defeated by love. It was a good book with nice action but it was the so similar I just like it.
Great understanding, especially towards the end of how the series went. There were a few "hand wave" moments but it gave me a much deeper understanding of the Robotech universe and Protoculture in general.