I just finished a re-read of the original Gundam novels (Awakening, Escalation, Confrontation) by Tomino himself. In the light of GQX's "what if" timeline, I think now is as good a time as any for any and all UC fans to give them a go.
Up front, the events in the novels are not canon. Tomino wrote the books while the anime was still in production, and wanted to go in a more mature direction with the story, unconstrained by sponsors and toy sales. There are many parallels to the anime, but right from the get-go things are framed differently: Amuro, Kai, Hayato, and Ryu are already enlisted pilot cadets in the Federation. The concept of newtypes is also introduced early on.
Events, and some characters, diverge further from canon as the story moves along. The beats remain mostly the same but the details vary. One of the most relevant differences, in terms of present-day, is that Challia Bull takes on a much more important role in the novels. In the anime, he was just one of many forgettable doomed mobile armor pilots. In the books, he becomes Char's trusted confidante and a major player. I got chills while watching GQX Beginning in the theater - the vibe was totally lifted from the novels.
By the final showdown, events have diverged almost unrecognizably from the anime, and are incompatible with anything else from the franchise. Tomino has said that had he known how the anime was going to end, and that there would be sequel(s), he would not have written the books as he did. But as they are, they give insight into the directions Tomino wanted to go, some of which were realized in Zeta especially.
And I think that is really where the novels shine. While the events are not canon, there is thematic depth that absolutely still resonates in Gundam to this day. Officially, bits and pieces have been taken from the books over the years for various media: Zeon PM Darcia made it into the movie adaptation of the anime; G3 Gundam has become a staple color variant; Sasro was fleshed out in Origin; and now Challia is getting some of the spotlight in GQX.
All that said, there are some rough edges. First and foremost, Tomino is notoriously bad at writing nuance for women's characters. The novels are no exception. Though there is a bit of saving grace in that he verbalizes some of his complex through the thoughts of the male characters, which makes it a bit easier to relate to IMO. Instead of being squarely incel-level "woman does something incomprehensible," it's more "I have no idea what she was thinking, but I wish I did so I could have not been such an ass." It's not much of an improvement, but I'll take what I can get in this category. Also, the English translation itself is kind of rough. It's not bad, and I can't speak on accuracy, but there's an awkwardness that's hard for me to describe.
In all, I see the novels as an integral, though complimentary, piece of UC lore. They open a window into Tomino's thought process while the original anime was still taking form, giving us more depth to some key characters even if the events are an alternate timeline.
I do not believe this is currently in print. Once fairly rare, there have been at least two modern compilations so it shouldn't be too difficult to locate. Of note, the downloadable epub version on archive.org is from the original 1990 translation. This was long before official romanizations of names were available, so we get some phonetic transliterations like Sha, Brite, Zak, and Zavi. It also seems to have stripped out line breaks, along with the occasional < Line of newtype telepathic dialog > , though this may have just been my reader borking things. The PDFs look fine though.
Okay, gushfest over. If anyone else has read these (or is curious about anything), I would love to hear your thoughts.
I've only seen Slayer live once. Was hoping for this to make the set, but sadly it did not. I had to settle for the entirety of Seasons.
Tap for spoiler
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