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I want to read some EU Star Wars books
THEPAIN73
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Timothy Zahn (Specifically the Heir to the Empire trilogy)
Matthew Stover
Michael Stackpole (He's okay at best, but he wrote the Rogue Squadron series whic leads into the best series by the best author.......)
Aaron Allston! (Wraith Squadron series, actually part of the "Rogue Squadron" series, but so much better.)
After those....Ignore everything else.
Edit / Ooops, wait. I forget the author, but there is a series called Coruscant Nights which is, get this, jedi noir.
Go from there.
Check out: Zahn's Heir to the Empire, Rogue Squadron, Wraith Squadron, and I, Jedi
Avoid: Truce at Bakura, Jedi Academy trilogy, and Corellian trilogy
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
X-Wing Series
Thrawn Trilogy AND the Hand of Thrawn books
I also own the Jedi Academy trilogy and the Corellian trilogy, those are pretty decent stories.
I also liked the Tales of... series of collections of short stories.
Limed for great truth.
The "Tales from..." short story collections are fantastic for additional back story.
Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader
The Force Unleashed
Death Star (can't vouch for this one)
Dark Lord : The Rise of Darth Vader is good if you enjoy vader being an emo pussy that pines over padme. If you prefer the OT Vader, skip it.
Death Star is a horrible horrible book.
but they're listening to every word I say
the only way you will learn to appreciate the few books that people actually enjoy is by reading through the tons of crap that goes along with it.
Between Sith and Hope there are the Adventures of Lando Calrissian (which surprisingly I haven't read)
Also the Han Solo Trilogy is pretty good and it drops you right at the doorstep of New Hope and gives you a good reason why Han is not enthused about the Rebellion.
I'll note that you REALLY need to like Star Wars to wade through the majority of the books from the EU. I ran out of steam somewhere in the middle of the Vong invasion, it just got sort of boring and any character I cared about was either killed or not really involved.
Timothy Zahn wrote both a Trilogy and a Duology, they're seperated by a decade or more so reading just the Zahn books can be difficult if you're a continuity freak.
A couple of books are easier to read as one offs like I Jedi, Allegiance or the Tales books (Tales from Jabba's Palace and Tales of the Bounty Hunters). Also Shadows of the Empire is nice too, takes place between Empire and Return. You might've played the N64 game.
Um, what he said.
I also really liked the two Medstar (I think that's right) books. M*A*S*H transplanted from Korea to the Clone Wars.
Han Solo trilogy is worth reading
Han Solo adventures is NOT worth reading
Lando Calrissian adventures is also NOT worth reading
Now you couldn't skip the shit books without missing something really important. And getting a completely new author to write every book, especially when the stories took place one after the other and sometimes even overlapped, made it even more obvious that nobody had a fucking CLUE what they were doing. Every character would go through a complete personality makeover whenever a new author was writing them, so you couldn't get a proper feel for them. Sometimes you'd like them, but the next author would start their series and a character you'd been enjoying would rubberband back to being a moron asshole again.
I made it through the Vong books and had to quit. Not just because I was busy doing other things, but I just wanted an ending.
But that's me. If you want to read the books, go for it. They can be a lot of fun, and you get to see characters grow and do cool shit. There's a lot of backstory, so it can be like a comic book world at times, full of self-reference and nods to events and characters from other series, but for most of the Bantam run that wasn't too important. Authors were jumping back and forth in time, and there were a lot of books that clearly nobody liked and everyone just forgot. There are also a few instances of things that have been retconned, like the final reveal of Boba Fett's true identity (he was a disgraced ex-cop).
I'd say your best bets are, the Han Solo books (both trilogies were good from what I remember, but Brian Daley's were better -- kind of like a Western set in the Star Wars universe, if you like that sort of thing), read a synopsis for Shadow of the Empire, or play the game, because the book is terrible. It's not that important, so you can skip it if you want. Same with Splinter of the Mind's Eye. The book is actually alright, but ends up having nothing to do with anything because it was written even before Empire Strikes Back was released and had some seriously weird shit going on in retrospect.
Skip The Truce At Bakura. A not very good attempt to create a new villian that never took off. Nothing important happens. Just know that it DID happen.
Read the X-Wing books. Rogue Squadron is alright, if a little wanky. Stackpole's heroes are kind of Gary Stu-ish, which gets annoying. Still, there's some decent adventure and a lot of important things happen. The dogfighting scenes are kind of a mess, though. That stuff just doesn't translate well into play-by-play description, and it's too bad everyone after him tried to copy it.
You can read The Courtship of Princess Leia if you want. It's merely alright, but some important things happen that will be referenced in a lot of books later on. You may want to read a synopsis.
Now here things get tricky. Aaron Allston is easily the most fun Star Wars writer to read, and his Wraith Squadron books are basically the A-Team + X-Wings, which is just as awesome as it sounds. However, his books take place around The Courtship of Princess Leia, and if you read that book afterwards expecting it to be just like that, then you will be very disappointed. Which is why I say to read courtship first.
The last 2 X-Wings books (Isard's Revenge, and the delightful Starfighters of Adumar) actually take place after the Thrawn books, so you can wait till then. Starfighter's is actually a standalone that could be read any time after you've finished those other books.
Next is the Thrawn Trilogy. These were the first real EU books released and the first most people read. I remember reading them as a kid, and they're what made me spend $40 on hardcover releases of such tripe as The Crystal Star and Planet of Twilight (I shit you not). I also think they were the only good books Zahn ever wrote in the Star Wars universe, but that's just me.
Now things get really ugly. From here you've got a lot of really terrible books and some even worse comics. Kevin J. Anderson takes over for a while, and he's a terrible, terrible author. But, most of what he wrote is important. What comes next in the timeline is the Jedi Academy trilogy, which are probably his best work, but you're better of reading a synopsis. Then I, Jedi, which is pretty good, then the Callista books, which give Luke a love interest, then get rid of her just as quick. I'd say you should read Children of the Jedi, because it's actually pretty decent and the only one that will matter in the future. DO NOT READ DARK STAR. DO NOT READ PLANET OF TWILIGHT.
Crystal Star is boring and nothing happens, skip it. Black Fleet trilogy is a mess, which sucked because it actually had some cool things going on. Read it only if you really like Chewie and Lando, because they get to be cool. It's pretty pointless in the end and gets like 2 sentences mention in one book later on that mean nothing. The New Rebellion is dumb filler, skip it.
The Corellian Trilogy is pretty important, and I don't remember them being bad. Kind of short though. Maybe get the first one from a library and decide from there.
The Hand of Thrawn books were dumb as hell. I didn't like them at all. They also made me start to hate Mara, which is great because she becomes a major character after that. They're moderately important, so reading them is up to you. If you really liked Zahn's other stuff then I'd say give them a shot, but be warned: they're basically a set-up for the New Jedi Order, and if you don't plan on reading that then you should skip them. I read Survivor's Quest, but I don't remember much about it. Whatever.
Then comes a bunch of kid's books. I read most of the Young Jedi Knights books, and they're important if you want to know who half the characters in the New Jedi Order books are. They're quick reads, and not terrible, even by Kevin J. Anderson's standards. Up to you, I'm sure you could pick them up on the cheap and finish the lot in a couple weeks light reading.
After that you can fill things out by reading the Tales of... books, which are pretty good and sometimes important, and the Dark Empire comics, which are fucking awful and should have been purged, but weren't and are sometimes referenced (all you need to know is that the Emperor cloned himself and Luke goes to the dark side for a bit), the X-Wing comics, which are like the books but take place at a different time and are your only real source of info on a few characters who become important later and are referenced often (like Baron Fel, his relation with Wedge, and the 181st).
The Bounty Hunter Wars books were garbage, and retconned anyway.
Now comes the New Jedi Order books. There's a trick to enjoying these, at least this is how I did it: Look at them as the huge WHAT IF? scenario you've been building up to. With all those other books under your belt you'll get a lot more enjoyment out of these books, because they're constantly referencing the past and they have so many cameos and shout outs that could easily be missed. This is the reason I enjoyed them, even the lamer series. Be warned that it's a completely different tone from all the other books until then. There's no superweapon of the month, no Empire, redshirts that take all the hits. Shit gets fucked up, people get fucked up, and there's a certain point where you realize that, unlike everything before then, there's no going back. The galaxy will never be the same again.
AND THEN YOU STOP. Because if you finish that and take the ending as an ending, things are alright. I read a couple of the Legacy of the Force books, saw where it was going and that even Allston couldn't make them fun, then decided that I was done. But I was one of the few who actually liked Jacen, so whatever.
I personally don't enjoy the pre-ANH era that much and never dug deep into it. Rogue Planet, because it was important to the NJO books, Shatterpoint because Windu is a beast, a couple of the film adaptations, and that was about it. I'm sure some of them are decent, if you enjoy that era. Read reviews, though, because it's easy to get burned.
I care way too much about this stuff, even now. :x
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Perhaps start with the below
1. The Zahn stuff. He is a solid scifi writer and his works got a lot of us into reading EU back in the day
2. The short story collections
I've tried to read some of the EU fiction, but I always end up coming back to the Dark Horse comics. Tales of the Jedi is just fantastic (rather cheap in omnibus form), and I have actually very much enjoyed the Clone Wars series because, well, the comics portray the Jedi of the PT in the way that they probably should have been portrayed in those damn films.
I also find that the amount of "crap" you have to wade through is generally smaller with Dark Horse, and they don't screw too much with continuity. If you're a fan of Knights of the Old Republic, both the aformentioned Tales of the Jedi and the Knights of the Old Republic series were excellent, from a Star Wars-geek perspective. The Knights of the Old Republic line is beginning to go into things like Revan before the civil war and focuses a bunch on Malek before he went all iron-jaw.
This is a lie and you are a liar.
If you're just looking for good Star Wars books start with the Thrawn Trilogy. The books can be pretty hit and miss though, but I've read almost all of them.
But I agree, it was shamelessly done for 'shock value' rather than (imo) any particularly powerful plot point.
I remember (I believe) reading that the powers up high required the writers to kill one of the main characters. I mean, really?
Yeah, I vaguely recall that too.
I think it was even originally going to be someone else, but here we are.
Whoa, whoa whoa. Starfighters of Adumar was good.
I concur. Isard's Revenge is rubbish, but I really like Starfighters of Adumar.
I really enjoyed the Jedi Academy Trilogy by Kevin J Anderson (Jedi Search, Dark Apprentice, Champions of the Force)
And I know this isn't novel related but my upcoming suggestion is EU related. The Dark Horse comic series' of Tales of the Jedi: Knights of the Old Republic, Tales of the Jedi: Dark Lords of the Sith and TOTJ: The Sith War are on equal footing with the Thrawn trilogy in my opinion. They are fucking awesome.
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They should have been cleansed!
But I don't even like KOTOR, so what do I know.
And, yeah, the corporate meddling in the NJO series was annoying. Actually, when the last books came out and they started releasing such tidbits as them coming up with the name Yuuzhen Vong by looking at the menu of their favourite Vietnamese place, or how they had to
I still think there is entertainment to be had from the whole NJO series, you just have to know what you're getting in to.
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Has anyone read Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor or the Millennium Falcon novel yet? How are they? Mindor has a pretty awesome cover.
Beyond that, i don't have much hope for the post-ROTJ novels. Read the Legacy of the Force, and while some subplots were fairly interesting, most of it was a mess.
Before you read it though, I recomend you read Shatterpoint (also by Stover) as it introduces some characters that show up in Shadows. Plus it's a good book and should be recomended more often.
Falcon strikes me as pretty average for a Star Wars novel. It's not a great read, but on the other hand it's more enjoyable then say, Crystal Star. Read it if your a OCD completionist freak like me, otherwise it's pretty skippable.
They started to build Jacen up to be a badass, then the next book switched authors (sorry, I don't remember which books or authors I'm referring to), and he went back to plain old Jacen again. It was kind of jarring, and I thought "man, fuck this multi-author shit." and quit reading the EU books.
Lame. I like lightsabers and jedis.
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Then it switches to Jaina being a complete ditz and you have to wait a couple more books for the cool shit.
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However, the fact that everything that happens is instantly swept under the rug and forgotten was one of the major reasons I stopped reading.
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Absolutely. Aliston is genuinely funny and the decision to focus on only a few key characters was brilliant. Wraith Squadron was also fantastic.
Also, some of the very recent Fate of the Jedi stuff is fun. Allston and Denning have done well.
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She built a completely immersive world of the Mandalorians that was in many ways out of character with the other portrayals of them in canon and in the EU. Also, her characterization of Jacen in the Legacy of the Force books, particularly in Bloodlines, was awful.
Yet from practically page one of Bloodlines he may as well call himself Darth Hitler. There's no sort of smooth transition at all.
I've also read she was the one who decided that the series needed to kill a major character besides Jacen, and that it should be Mara.
Basically, her decisions seem to have been largely responsible for turning Legacy of the Force from the good series it seemed to be in the first book into a travesty. So much so that I recommend we hence forth spell the word "Travissty."