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Star Wars Novels

J

jgbishop

Senior member
I'm not a huge Star Wars nut, but I'm wondering what decent Star Wars novels are out there. I'm particularly interested in books that occur after "Return of the Jedi". Are the Timothy Zahn books any good? What others are out there? Are there any "official" novels?
 
Yes, the Timothy Zahn books are very good. If you would like to read the books in chronilogically order, take a look into the first few pages of any of the books (while at the bookstore) and you'll find a timeline. They are all 'official' and efforts have been made to keep them all on one continuous timeline. However, it's not been perfect, particularly with the older novels so you will see some discrepancies. I enjoyed the humor in the X-Wing series, too. I've read all of the books... most are decent. Some are great (any by Zahn) and some (The Crystal Star, Planet of Twilight, Darksaber) are really bad.
 
In my opinion, the three best books written in the past few years are:
Star By Star (but this won't make sense unless you read the entire New Jedi Order arc starting with Vector Prime)
Dark Rendezvous (lots of Yoda, set before Episode III)
Labryinth of Evil (immediately before the start of Episode III)
 
Is the Thrawn trilogy where I should start? Those look like a good starting point, but I've only done a little looking.
 
Well The X-Wing series is good (Rogue & Wraith squadrons), as is "I, Jedi" by Stackpole (who started the X-wing series).

Thrawn trilogy is good...I never finished the NJO but plan on it sometime...I think "Star By Star" was the last one I got.
 
The thrawn series is a great start. There are books before it in the timeline, but it was one of the first series written so it doesn't reference much else.
 
As someone who owns over 70 star wars novels (and no, I am not including any of those "young jedi knights" or other nonesense) I have to say start where you want! I read them as they come out so I never get them in perfect crono order as they come out all over the place. The zahn trilogy was good, but his later star wars books are kinda annoying as they are very repetative. (He is dead, no need to write books about him any more!)

The x-wing series is great as well as the NJO. If you decide to delve into the NJO go through ALL the books, not just the hardcovers as they better explain the whole situation. Some of the other series are great like the bounty hunter wars and the black fleet crisis but don't just focus on the series, there are alot of indivdual books that are great. The previously mentioned "I, Jedi" is awesome as well as "Truce at Bakura", "Courtship of Princess Leia", and lots of the "Tales of" books (basically a bounch of collections of short stories).

Also, as much as people like to bash kevin j anderson, I thought his Jedi Acadamy trilogy was good. Not as good as alot of others, but decent and MUCH better than most of his other books.

Let me know if you have any more questions

-spike
 
I was just looking on amazon for books...don't know which to read/read first

so many of them 🙁

Anybody want to point me to some specific books? I haven't read any yet, so it's from the start.
 
Funny to see this thread today. I just put in a request for the Thrawn books from my local library earlier this week. Sadly, part 2 came in first, so I can't start yet. I did, however, read the Dark Empire graphic novel this week, and it wasn't great. It was an interesting story, but the writing was lacking. There was one moment when Luke and Leia joined hands to "let their Jedi powers unite" against the Emperor. Couldn't help but laugh, being reminded of Zan and Jana, the ORIGINAL Wonder Twins.
 
Originally posted by: neonerd
I was just looking on amazon for books...don't know which to read/read first

so many of them 🙁

Anybody want to point me to some specific books? I haven't read any yet, so it's from the start.
Click to expand...

 
The Thrawn Trilogy is my favorite trilogy. Anybody looking to start need look no further than this trilogy.

Second comes the Corellian Trilogy. Great story, and very good suspense. The last book is really cool, about Centerpoint Station.

Then comes the Han Solo Trilogy I particularly like how this trilogy ties together other novels for the sake of continuity. It ends right before Han Solo meets Luke and Obi-wan in Mos Eisley Cantina. It also explains how Han Solo met Chewbacca and how he came into possession of the Millenium Falcon.

Then comes the X-Wing Series. Wedge Antilles is one of my favorite characters, and he kicks ass in this 9 book series. This series is more on the "technical" side of the Star Wars Galaxy, i.e. don't read this if you're expecting Jedi and The Force to fill in plot details.

Then comes the Jedi Academy Trilogy. Dark Apprentice was the first Star Wars book I read, and it got me hooked. Mind you, this is a while ago, so it might be more targeted for kids.

Of the individual books, I like: Darksaber, The New Rebellion, Shadows of an Empire, and The Courtship of Princess Leia (I know some of you Star Wars junkies think this book is crap, but I kinda liked it).

The Anthologies: Tales from Mos Eisley Cantina, Tales from Jabba's Palace, and Tales of the Bounty Hunters are cool as well. You get to find out just how exciting and interconnected the characters in the movie really were. Any character, even those that appreared for a few seconds on screen, has their own story and is fleshed out.

I haven't read the other anthology: Tales from the New Republic and Tales from the Empire, but I did read the short stories in the end. They were written by the "major" Star Wars authors: Zahn and Stackpole, and they explain some pretty cool plot points in the Expanded Universe.

Hope that helps. I'm currently reading the New Jedi Order books.
 
Originally posted by: chuckywang
The Anthologies: Tales from Mos Eisley Cantina, Tales from Jabba's Palace, and Tales of the Bounty Hunters are cool as well. You get to find out just how exciting the characters in the movie really are. Any character, even those that appreared for a few seconds on screen, has their own story and is fleshed out.
Click to expand...

I liked the stories of Malakili and IG-88.
 
Originally posted by: Spike
As someone who owns over 70 star wars novels (and no, I am not including any of those "young jedi knights" or other nonesense) I have to say start where you want! I read them as they come out so I never get them in perfect crono order as they come out all over the place. The zahn trilogy was good, but his later star wars books are kinda annoying as they are very repetative. (He is dead, no need to write books about him any more!)

The x-wing series is great as well as the NJO. If you decide to delve into the NJO go through ALL the books, not just the hardcovers as they better explain the whole situation. Some of the other series are great like the bounty hunter wars and the black fleet crisis but don't just focus on the series, there are alot of indivdual books that are great. The previously mentioned "I, Jedi" is awesome as well as "Truce at Bakura", "Courtship of Princess Leia", and lots of the "Tales of" books (basically a bounch of collections of short stories).

Also, as much as people like to bash kevin j anderson, I thought his Jedi Acadamy trilogy was good. Not as good as alot of others, but decent and MUCH better than most of his other books.

Let me know if you have any more questions

-spike
Click to expand...

I'd have to disagree w/ the courtship of princess leia... that one kinda sucked I thought
 
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