138 replies to this topic

[Faelcind Il Dana]

I allways loved the orginal trilogy and occasionally hanker to go back to that universe, however I am allways hesitant to pick up the novels or graphic novels, are any of them worth reading?

[Stilgar]

If you want swashbuckling fun with characters you already know, check out Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy and Hand of Thrawn duology. If you want really good military sci fi with a new cast of characters, read Aaron Allston's Wraith Squadron and its sequels.

[Jussi]

Shatterpoint & Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor by Matthew Stover.
The Thrawn trilogy by Timothy Zahn.
I, Jedi by Michael A. Stackpole.

I haven't read Zahn's Hand of Thrawn duology or Stover's Traitor.

[End of Disc One]

All of these recommendations are great so far, but I'll also throw in A. C. Crispin's Han Solo Trilogy.  It's my personal favorite.

[The Evil Hat]

Zahn's pretty much the top of the pile, for this stuff.

[Imagica]

I've read maybe 10 (at most) Expanded Universe novels, and Thrawn Thrilogy was the best by far. I'd even say it was the best shared universe fiction i've stumbled upon (and I've read a lot of D&D settings-based books back when I was roleplaying). The follow-up duology is a bit worse, but still worth it.
I, Jedi didn't live up to the hype, at least for me.

[polishgenius]

The Evil Hat, on 29 January 2010 - 08:46 AM, said:

Zahn's pretty much the top of the pile, for this stuff.

Does that mean Stover is floating above the pile on a cloud of awesome?

[Memory Lane]

Zahn's books aren't bad, but he's a pretty big minimalist, and I think his main antagonist (Thrawn) is vastly over-rated. It makes for good reading, but he doesn't really capture the spirit of Star Wars in my opinion.

Stover, on the other hand, does so on occasion. His books range from excellent (the novelization of Revenge of the Sith, which is not only my favorite SW novel, but one of my favorite novels*), to the fascinating (Traitor, which is one of the most dark,philosophical novels I've seen in the SW extended universe, and which has an incredibly awesome ending and sacrifice scene), to the only okay Shadows of Mindor and Shatterpoint.

Wraith Squadron and The Black Fleet Crisis Trilogy are good reads, although minimalistic. Just ignore

Spoiler

the Luke parts in the novels of the latter series.

As mentioned above, I like how the former gets away from the ever-present Main Movie Cast with new characters. It also cleans up some of the crap left by The Courtship of Princess Leia (which comes after the series chronologically, but was written first - and in of itself wasted a huge potentially interesting story).

The Dark Empire series of comics are kind of silly, but fun to read as well.

Although I didn't care too much for the Rogue Squadron novels, I, Jedi by Michael Stackpole was very enjoyable (although I admit I might be in a minority there, since lots of SW readers think Corran Horn is a Gary Stu). It's also one of the few SW novels (the only one I know of, actually) that is written from the first-person perspective. I'd at least read it for the Jedi Academy parts - Stackpole does a much, much better job of portraying the events there than Kevin J. Anderson does in his Jedi Academy trilogy.

Labyrinth of Evil is an excellent prelude novel leading right into the events of Revenge of the Sith. It, Revenge of the Sith, and Luceno's immediately succeeding book Dark Lord form an informal trilogy of novels. In fact, just about all of Luceno's books in the SW extended universe are pretty solid, so definitely check them out.

*Stover doesn't entirely get full credit for this, of course, since A)he was working with an existing plot, and B)George Lucas was involved with the editing (I remember Stover saying somewhere in an interview that Lucas went over it literally "word for word", sometimes changing things as small as the way a sentence ended).

Edited by Guardsman Bass, 29 January 2010 - 12:43 PM.

[Tsavong Lah]

Guardsman Bass, on 29 January 2010 - 12:36 PM, said:

Zahn's books aren't bad, but he's a pretty big minimalist, and I think his main antagonist (Thrawn) is vastly over-rated. It makes for good reading, but he doesn't really capture the spirit of Star Wars in my opinion.

Stover, on the other hand, does so on occasion. His books range from excellent (the novelization of Revenge of the Sith, which is not only my favorite SW novel, but one of my favorite novels), to the fascinating (Traitor, which is one of the most dark,philosophical novels I've seen in the SW extended universe, and which has an incredibly awesome ending and sacrifice scene), to the only okay Shadows of Mindor and Shatterpoint.

Wraith Squadron and The Black Fleet Crisis Trilogy are good reads, although minimalistic. Just ignore

Spoiler

the Luke parts in the novels of the latter series.

As mentioned above, I like how the former gets away from the ever-present Main Movie Cast with new characters. It also cleans up some of the crap left by The Courtship of Princess Leia (which comes after the series chronologically, but was written first - and in of itself wasted a huge potentially interesting story).

The Dark Empire series of comics are kind of silly, but fun to read as well.

Although I didn't care too much for the Rogue Squadron novels, I, Jedi by Michael Stackpole was very enjoyable (although I admit I might be in a minority there, since lots of SW readers think Corran Horn is a Gary Stu). It's also one of the few SW novels (the only one I know of, actually) that is written from the first-person perspective. I'd at least read it for the Jedi Academy parts - Stackpole does a much, much better job of portraying the events there than Kevin J. Anderson does in his Jedi Academy trilogy.

Labyrinth of Evil is an excellent prelude novel leading right into the events of Revenge of the Sith. It, Revenge of the Sith, and Luceno's immediately succeeding book Dark Lord form an informal trilogy of novels. In fact, just about all of Luceno's books in the SW extended universe are pretty solid, so definitely check them out.

I thought I was the only person who enjoyed "The Black Fleet Crisis".

I haven't read anything since the NJO, but most of the good books have been covered.  Anything by Zahn, Stackpole, and Allston are good places to read.  Allston is the most comedic.

The ones you should absolutely avoid are anything by Kevin J. Anderson, "The Crystal Star" (blech!), anything by Barbara Hambly, and a good chunk of the New Jedi Order.

ETA: I've only read mainly post original trilogy books, so I'm not sure which prequel era books are awful.

Edited by Tsavong Lah, 29 January 2010 - 12:44 PM.

[Memory Lane]

Quote

I haven't read anything since the NJO, but most of the good books have been covered. Anything by Zahn, Stackpole, and Allston are good places to read. Allston is the most comedic.

Good stuff. I haven't touched most of the stuff since the end of the NJO myself - it just felt like the series was repeating itself, again, and milking the cash cow to the max with the Main Movie Cast.

I've heard that the Han Solo Adventures books are fun reads, but I haven't gotten around to reading them myself.

After this, of course, we should probably do a thread on SW books that people shouldn't read.

EDIT: Man, I hate the whole "quote" and "spoiler" tag system now - it's much less friendly than the old versions.

Edited by Guardsman Bass, 29 January 2010 - 12:53 PM.

[MaesterLuwin]

I spend the bulk of my teenage years reading various Star Wars novels; I stopped reading around the time the prequel trilogy came out, because by that point I had lost interest and there was just too much to keep track of.

I also support the notion that Zahn's books are the best that you'll find. He doesn't get as goofy as some of the other authors (Sun Crusher! Dark Saber!), and I remember his portrayal of the characters being spot on. I thought Thrawn was an interesting bad guy, but even more so Talon Karrde and Mara Jade are real characters in their own right, not just second bananas who follow Luke, Han and Leia around.

Most of the other Star Wars novels I read felt like varying degrees of fan fiction (Cloned Emperor Palpatine! Boba Fett comes back!). There were some short story collections that were all right - I think it was Tales of the New Republic that had an interesting story cowritten by Zahn and Stackpole. Tales of from Jabba's Palace was really silly, but I also remember it being very fun to read. I was probably twelve years old the last time I read it, though, to take that recommendation with a grain of salt.

The only reason I still wish Kevin J. Anderson was writing Star Wars books is that it would keep him away from the Dune franchise.

[Rob B]

Guardsman Bass, on 29 January 2010 - 12:36 PM, said:

Labyrinth of Evil is an excellent prelude novel leading right into the events of Revenge of the Sith. It, Revenge of the Sith, and Luceno's immediately succeeding book Dark Lord form an informal trilogy of novels. In fact, just about all of Luceno's books in the SW extended universe are pretty solid, so definitely check them out.

I thought Luceno's entries in The New Jedi Order were pretty good, but Dark Lord was one of the worst SW books I've ever read.

[Greyweather]

I rather enjoyed Karen Traviss' Republic Commando novels.  I haven't read any other Star Wars books, so I can't really say how they compare with the other authors who have been mentioned.

[Memory Lane]

Rob B, on 29 January 2010 - 03:43 PM, said:

I thought Luceno's entries in The New Jedi Order were pretty good, but Dark Lord was one of the worst SW books I've ever read.

It was definitely the weakest of the three, although I'd hesitate to call it one of the worst.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Stover's the only one where I can read his SW novels without the feeling that I'm reading a guilty pleasure hold-over from my high school years.

[End of Disc One]

Nebuchadnezzar, on 30 January 2010 - 04:29 AM, said:

Stover's the only one where I can read his SW novels without the feeling that I'm reading a guilty pleasure hold-over from my high school years.

I understand that feeling, but I would say the same about the X-Wing series.  Lots of clever stuff in there.

[Zap Rowsdower]

Everyone- and by this I mean everyone, not just people who enjoy Star Wars- should read "The Glove of Darth Vader" trilogy.

[Deluge]

Zap Rowsdower, on 30 January 2010 - 10:06 AM, said:

Everyone- and by this I mean everyone, not just people who enjoy Star Wars- should read "The Glove of Darth Vader" trilogy.

Say what you will, but I really liked it when I was in elementary school.

The Star Wars EU varies wildly in quality, but overall it's pretty fun. Zahn is probably the best, but maybe not the most interesting. Some of the graphic novels are great, too, like the KOTOR comics, Legacy, or the first Crimson Empire arc.

[Max the Mostly Mediocre]

polishgenius, on 29 January 2010 - 11:08 AM, said:

Does that mean Stover is floating above the pile on a cloud of awesome?

It must.

My ranking is pretty much Stover>Traviss>Allston>Zahn>Stackpole>don't bother

[kalbear]

Stover really is an interesting piece of work, even though his writing style is entirely based on very objectivist type of leanings. It works really well for the dark side motivations and Revenge of the Sith does a great job of demonstrating why Anakin would change - and that he was likely right to do so.

Traitor was great and had some brilliant set pieces. Shatterpoint was a bit too derivative of Heart of Darkness.