Star Wars Novels/Graphic Novels

[Rody]

I read Aftermath, it was meh :/, I was waiting for more bang for my buck. Are there any other novels of the new Star Wars universe or just Aftermath?

 

[Corvinus85]

A whole bunch. So far, besides Aftermath, I've read

A New Dawn - takes place before the OT - introduces two of the main characters from the animated Rebels series

Dark Disciple - takes place towards the end of the Clone Wars

Lost Stars - before, throughout, and a little after the OT

[Jedi Renee]

When I was younger (probably my early teens), I read through all of the Star Wars novels out at the time up through Vector Prime. Most of that was back when they were going through the "Superweapon of the Week" phase, but I still liked them a lot, and like some of them.

 

My favorite out of the lot is still I, Jedi by Michael Stackpole. I've heard a lot of complaints that Corran Horn is a Gary Stu for Stackpole, and some of that is true - but it was still a very enjoyable first-person POV book that fleshed out the universe, and Stackpole did a better job of depicting training at the Jedi Academy on Yavin 4 than Kevin J. Anderson did in his original trilogy centered on it.

 

I could never really get into the Thrawn Trilogy of books. I don't know why - maybe it's Zahn's writing, or I didn't care much for the characters. It also felt rather anti-climactic when right after that we get the Dark Empire comics storyline, which feels out of place because it is out of place - they were originally supposed to be set months after Return of the Jedi, and had to be pushed back.

 

This is going to sound weird, but I think my biggest disappointment among the books was the Courtship of Princess Leia. There was something interesting there - Luke and a potential unwitting apprentice in Prince Isolder - which they completely decided to ditch for the Han-Leia storyline about survival amidst the Witches of Dathomir (which is more boring). Which is a pity, because making Isolder force-sensitive would have explained a lot about his background and also given Luke an apprentice to train.

 

I also have a soft spot for Darksaber, even though it's a bad book. There's a lot of weird black humor in there, especially surrounding Bevel Lemelisk (the former chief designer for the Death Star) and the farcical attempt by a Hutt to construct a Death Star turbolaser weapon on the cheap. Also a rather graphic flashback scene where the Emperor kills Lemelisk with carnivorous beetles before transmigrating his soul into a clone body - and Lemelisk's reminiscences about the other six times the Emperor did it to him, like kicking him out of an airlock or having him slowly dipped into molten copper.

I thought 'I jedi' was  great and is a favorite of mine. I read most of the novels which were released pre  2000,  and a lot of the young adult stories by Jude Watson- which  were good too. They were about master /padawan relationships end dooku, qui gon, obi and anakin. Tattooine ghost was great.  My favorites were the 'tales of' short story collections such as at the most Eisley cantina, jabbas palace etc. Not sure il bother with the new books. Last good book I read was plagius. 

[Joe Pesci]

There's like 4 or 5 short stories just released on Amazon from .75-1.99 at the moment, focusing on background characters from TFA.

[Magnar of Skagos]

I'm thinking of picking up Darth Plagueis sometime. Need more Sith in my life.

I'm still looking for the Tales of the Jedi: Dark Lords of the Sith comic ommnibus', but can't find them anywhere. Even online, their like $100+.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

All the old Dark Horse stuff goes out of print after the 31st. Not sure if this was mentioned earlier in the thread, apologies if it was. I really enjoyed Tag & Bink Are Dead and Dark Empire. 

http://toybox.io9.com/the-greatest-dark-horse-star-wars-comics-to-buy-before-1670419639?utm_expid=66866090-68.hhyw_lmCRuCTCg0I2RHHtw.0&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F

[Magnar of Skagos]

All the old Dark Horse stuff goes out of print after the 31st. Not sure if this was mentioned earlier in the thread, apologies if it was. I really enjoyed Tag & Bink Are Dead and Dark Empire. 

http://toybox.io9.com/the-greatest-dark-horse-star-wars-comics-to-buy-before-1670419639?utm_expid=66866090-68.hhyw_lmCRuCTCg0I2RHHtw.0&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F

Hmmm... I might have to pick up some copies before their gone. I still have to get the rest of the KOTOR comics. I have the first, but not the others.

[Darth Richard II]

I'd sit through a 40 hour Jar Jar Binks film before I read one page of Dark fucking Empire again.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

I'd sit through a 40 hour Jar Jar Binks film before I read one page of Dark fucking Empire again.

Eh, the art is kind of mediocre, but the story is fun. Couldn't take more than a couple of hours to kill the whole series, so I would have to say you're making a bad trade there.

[Darth Richard II]

Yeah I think you underestimate my hatred for Dark Empire.

[Magnar of Skagos]

Yeah I think you underestimate my hatred for Dark Empire.

Are you saying you wouldn't recommend it?

[Spring Bass]

I'm not fond of Dark Empire myself. It's a comic series, and it feels really comic book-y with all kinds of weird stuff like extra super weapons, extra Sith magic, and so forth.

Darth Plagueis was good, but felt really bizarrely placed in the timeline - especially the ending:

 

The movies imply quite heavily that Palpatine killed Plagueis many years ago when it comes up in Revenge of the Sith. But then the novel has him killing Plagueis quite literally at the same time that the Battle of Naboo in The Phantom Menace is on-going.It just felt very strange as an ending to an otherwise good and interesting book.

[First of My Name]

What I've seen of Dark Empire looked like a rainbow vomited over the pages.

Electric Bass, that surprised me too, it was kind of weird but it didn't really bother me.

All the old Dark Horse stuff goes out of print after the 31st. Not sure if this was mentioned earlier in the thread, apologies if it was. I really enjoyed Tag & Bink Are Dead and Dark Empire. 

http://toybox.io9.com/the-greatest-dark-horse-star-wars-comics-to-buy-before-1670419639?utm_expid=66866090-68.hhyw_lmCRuCTCg0I2RHHtw.0&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F

That hasn't been mentioned earlier. Thanks, I might have to pick some stuff before it's gone.

Marvel is already re-releasing some of the Dark Horse stuff though, with their Epic Collections. I got the first Knights of the Old Republic one and it's actually better quality than DH's Omnibuses.

 

[Spring Bass]

I remember someone took the first Dark Empire comic, and turned it into an all-text novel version of the comics that was vastly better. I went looking for it, though, and the web site was gone.

I suppose one of the main elements of the plot was over-riden by Revenge of the Sith anyways. It used to be implied that Palpatine's heavy use of the Dark Side was quite literally ruining his body, turning him into what he was in Return of the Jedi. Then we found out in ROTS that he looks like that because of the battle with Windu, when he was warped and damaged by his own force lightning.

 

[Werthead]

Dark Empire was poor. Resurrecting the Emperor was just a really poor idea and the execution was terrible. It wasn't the worst thing about the EU (Kevin J. Anderson's work was much worse), but it was pretty low on the quality bar.

[Joe Pesci]

So I finished up those new short stories, they were ok for the most part. The one that stood out was Perfect Weapon, really good and captured the Star Wars feel more than the others did imo.

[Spaßvogel]

I agree with an above poster about the mediocrity of Aftermath.  I also thought it was a bit misleading that he was truly the book that bridges the gap...turns out it's just one of a trilogy and the other two won't be out before the movie obviously. Of the rest of the "New Canon" I've only read Heir to The Jedi, Tarkin, A New Dawn, Twilight Squadron, and Lost Stars.  The only reason I read the latter was because it gives the back story of the battle of Jakku, the planet that Rey is Star Destroyer seplunking on in the TFA trailer.

Twilight Squadron has a big battle on Sullust, which is one of the main rotating maps in the Battlefront game. It was fun reading the book and being able to picture the landscape. 

Finally, I decided to give the YA novel Smuggler's Run a try.  They are in the new canon timeline, even though they are YA books.  (Same with Lost Stars).  The authors don't write down to a hypothetical teenaged audience *most* of the time, but there were a few moments where they spent far too much time setting up something that was blatantly obvious.  \

So far, A New Dawn has been the best written of the bunch, even if is focused on the back story to the Rebels cartoon.

[TheRevanchist]

I'm not fond of Dark Empire myself. It's a comic series, and it feels really comic book-y with all kinds of weird stuff like extra super weapons, extra Sith magic, and so forth.

Darth Plagueis was good, but felt really bizarrely placed in the timeline - especially the ending:

 

Hidden Content

I didn't mind that. In fact, I quite liked that because it was quite unexpected. Also:



Bar Thrawn trilogy, I think that it is the best SW novel.

Palps and Sidious making Padme queen was done very nicely. Otherwise, it wouldn't have made sense a 16 yeard old girl to be queen of a planet.

I like how they tied some loose ends. We saw the reason why Count Dooku left the order, we saw of how the Clone Army was created, we saw also characters from Thrawn Trilogy.

If Snoke is Plagueis, I guess that the story of the book will look even more powerful.

Considering that I never liked 'Darth' Maul, I didn't mind him getting demoted to just a Sith assassin, from Sith apprentice. Seriously, he was too stupid (and too weak compared with Dooku and Skywalker) to be Sheev's apprentice.

I don't think that the movie implies that Darth Plagueis was long before the movies. Even before the novel, pretty much everyone thought that Plagueis was Palpatine's master. Yep, we thought that it might have been a decade or two before the story of the prequels, but it kind of works this way too.

[Joe Pesci]

Well I was gonna start Battlefront, but after seeing TFA last night I'm going to read that first instead. I'll post my thoughts of it after I get into it about halfway.

[Calibandar]

I wonder to what extent the TFA book expands upon the film I have just seen.

It's a film that in some parts really piques curiosity and you'd want to read more about certain characters.