The Star Wars Thread

[Shraik]

I've noticed on these boards there are several other big Star Wars fans. I want to see who here on these boards are Hard Core fans. This could be a place for discussion of things in General, upcoming Novels, games, or random Star Wars Events.

As many know, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is due in April, So what do yous guys think of this game? Good or bad for Star Wars in a whole or what?

[Vella_Malachite]

Well, I wouldn't count myself a 'hardcore' fan, but I do have rather a soft spot for the movies, and I want to read the novels. I think of myself as a 'getting-there' fan. So if anyone could tell me which novel is first chronologically, I will look for it. Thanks, all.:smallsmile:

[Catch]

Well, I wouldn't count myself a 'hardcore' fan, but I do have rather a soft spot for the movies, and I want to read the novels. I think of myself as a 'getting-there' fan. So if anyone could tell me which novel is first chronologically, I will look for it. Thanks, all.:smallsmile:

Depends. Where do you want to start, chronologically? (Old Republic, Rise of the Empire, Clone Wars, Rebellion, etc.) As you can see (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_books) there are quite a few (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_books) books and starting points. My advice is to pick up one of the New Republic books and go from there. The more knowledge you accumulate, the more you'll appreciate the novels and comics that go deep into the backstory of the galaxy.

[Wyrd]

I suggest starting with the books written by Timothy Zahn, the Thrawn trilogy. They are, in my opinion, the best. Skip everything marked "New Jedi Order" It will save you time, money and brain cells.

[Raider]

The Thrawn Trilogy is one of the best pieces of literature I've ever read, a must buy.

[Rare Pink Leech]

Agreed with the previous two posters. The Thrawn Trilogy (Heir To The Empire, Dark Force Rising, and The Last Command) are easily the three best Star Wars novels out there. No matter what era of Star Wars you're interested in, you just have to start there.

[Squidmaster]

I consider myself a intermediete to medium fan. I havnt read any of the books, though I will look for the books listed here they sound intresting.

[Szilard]

I am a total fan of Star Wars, I've seen all the movies at least five times each, probabaly ten(a must for any fan), read all the novels based on the movies, The dark nest trilogy, and the Legacy of the force. Right no I'm anticipateing The Force Unleashed, Revelation, The new clone wars movie, and Indiana Jones 4... wait, that probably doesn't count.:smallbiggrin:

[Shraik]

Its a given(Not a Given, but a given none the less) to read the Thrawn Trilogy first. Just tells ya what happened after episode 6. Great go get ya into the loop of things
I hope some fan knows what Givens are and got the joke

[Logic]

The Thrawn Trilogy is a good start. I also like the Black Fleet Crisis Trilogy.

Several novels non-serial novels I would recommend are: Darksaber, Shadows of the Empire, and The Courtship of Princess Leia.

Of the novels I have read, the only stand-alone I actually recommend you stay away from is The Truce at Bakura.

[bugsysservant]

I consider myself more of a "was" Star Wars Fan. I've (of course) seen the movies, and dutifully memorized them, played several of the games, read a couple dozen books, and then stopped. They just seemed boring past the age of... oh, 12 probably younger. I think the new movies kinda ruined it for me. But, if you want to start with books, the Thrawn series is the best. And yeah, I only ever read a few of the young jedi books, but those were TERRIBLE. Most of the books are pretty solid, if a bit formulaic, so if you pick up any you shouldn't be too bad. I think that I only ever put one down (the one where Luke spends the ENTIRE BOOK limping around the Eye of Palpatine talking to the AI. You're a jedi master who has killed a rancor with a rock and you can't manage a few gamoreans. :smallsigh: ) so you should be pretty safe.

[TheRiov]

Its probably easiest to go by print date. (You can leave off pre-Timothy Zahn novels though, (han solo & lando Calrissian novels)

The current incarnation sort of flows from the Zahn novels--characters are introduced there that end up being major players throughout the future novels both past & present. But they dont make as much sense as they're not fully introduced previously.

Grand Admiral Thrawn
Captain Pealleon
Talon Karrde
Mara Jade
Winter
Much of Rogue Squadron
Garm Bel Iblis
The Noghri

Even some of the characters that don't survive the series cast VERY long shadows.

Similarly the Dark Empire graphic novels bring up some major changes in the star wars galaxy, and explains a lot of Luke's future attude.

Truce at Bakura has some ramifcations during the NJO series but is otherwise a fairly non-event.

Courtship of Princess Leia is notable because it introduces the Hapes Cluster, the Queen Mother, etc all of whom become major players well into the NJO series and even into Legacy of the Force era and have strong influences on the Darth Caedus storyline. none of which makes a lot of sense without understanding some of the politics of Hapes.

To me, Shadows of the Empire is utterly forgettable. (though it introduces Black Sun and Dash Rendar) but I just didn't enjoy it.

Spectre of the Past/Vision of the Future are Zahn creations again. They hint at the dark storm coming for NJO, and bring more information on Thrawn, the Chiss (who also become major players in NJO)

The X-Wing novels detail more of Rogue Squadron's exploits, and give you some information about Corellia, (which becomes important both in NJO & Legacy of the Force Era) --I havent read it myself though.

Despite what others say, if you want to understand the future of Star Wars, you kind of have to read NJO--a very daunting task as its like 14 books. But the NJO totally changes the landscape of the Galaxy--including annihliating several major systems, wiping out a bunch of major characters, and 60 trillion lives.

Two novels that are 'filler'-- Rogue Planet & Outbound Flight. They were written during/after NJO but they explain provide a ton of backstory for the 'as is' universe. (and Outbound Flight has the advantage of having Thrawn, probably THE most popular character in all of EU)
The novel Rogue Planet is an Obi-Wan/Anikin novel that takes place leading up to the Clone Wars, but explains some information that comes into play in NJO.
Similarly the Outbound Flight is more of a 'filler' book it actually describes how Outbound Flight ties in to the Chiss, the Yuzahn Vong, and Thrawn.
There is another Zahn novel that was published before Outbound Flight and NJO that deals with how Luke & Mara descover the remnants of Outbound Flight, and some of the mysteries opened up there dont get resolved until Outbound Flight. (the prequel)

Later you slip into Dark Nest & Legacy of the Force which gets even darker but having not read that far myself, I wont comment.

[Catch]

Despite what others say, if you want to understand the future of Star Wars, you kind of have to read NJO--a very daunting task as its like 14 books. But the NJO totally changes the landscape of the Galaxy--including annihliating several major systems, wiping out a bunch of major characters, and 60 trillion lives.

This is basically where I stopped reading, as the writing had stopped being, well, Star Wars. I found it difficult to suspend disbelief for an unstoppable, incredibly powerful menace literally appearing out of nowhere and wreaking havoc on the galaxy only to be ended by a giant nomadic Deus Ex Machina.

What's more, certain character deaths bothered me, most notably those of
Chewie, Anakin Solo and Mara Jade, especially so since Chewie died saving Anakin and Mara spent half the Vong War staving off death only to be backstabbed by her prima donna nephew. Apparently, killing off a bunch of integral characters is supposed to absolve the lack of creativity and fill in for a dearth of the traditional Star Wars trappings. Overall, it was far too grim for my tastes, and now with Anakin Solo running around playing Sith, I've generally lost all interest. Hopefully he'll bite it soon and we can get back to some decent fiction.

[Shraik]

Any Fan's here play the Star Wars RPG?

[Attilargh]

You have to be more specific. If you're referring to the Wizards' d20 game, I really like the Saga edition, have played the Revised but was ambivalent, and haven't tried the original at all. If you're referring to the West End Games' d6 version, I've played it once, but it seemed okay. I probably should read the books some day. If you're referring to the Knights of the Old Republic computer games based on a heavily modified version of Wizards' d20 game, I own the first and love it to bits, and have played the second and disliked it very much. And finally, if you mean the Star Wars Galaxies MMORPG, I have never played and likely never will, because of my irrational dislike of people in general and people on the internets especially. (Persons are okay, people, no thank you.)

[EmeraldRose]

I've read many of the books, and enjoyed a few, though others were absolutely horrible...

To change topic just a bit, I really enjoyed both Knights of Old Republic I & II. For some reason, I had gotten rid of both discs...but now I want to play them again!

My son and I enjoyed playing the Lego Star Wars games. Unfortunately there was a problem with the disc on the one of the first three movies, so we were unable to complete the game. It kept getting stuck the first time they met up with Maul...ah well...

[Rare Pink Leech]

This is basically where I stopped reading, as the writing had stopped being, well, Star Wars. I found it difficult to suspend disbelief for an unstoppable, incredibly powerful menace literally appearing out of nowhere and wreaking havoc on the galaxy only to be ended by a giant nomadic Deus Ex Machina.

I too stopped reading Star Wars novels during the New Jedi Order series. I read seven or eight of them, but then it just got to be too much: too many books, too much plot, too many storylines to keep track of, too many authors (which meant the writing quality and style varied too much to make the series enjoyable and coherent), and so on.

The New Jedi Order series fell victim to the same thing that plagues comics: there's just so much stuff going on now that it's difficult for any but a hardcore fan to be able to get into reading the books, much less keep track of it all.

I probably shouldn't be coming down so hard on NJO, but that was the last set of Star Wars books I read. I think most of my criticisms can apply to the rest of the Expanded Universe novels as well. If it were up to me, I'd probably strike most of the novels from the "main" EU continuity, and set up several continuities.

[Jerthanis]

While I hated New Jedi Order as a whole, Star By Star and Traitor are two among my favorite Star Wars books in the entire history of Star Wars books. I can't say that they make up for the first 8 books of the implacable alien race coming in with nonsensically powerful technology (Biological black holes, WTF? And that's not even talking about the whole violation of the laws of Thermodynamics inherent!) and basically godmodding their way across the galaxy, nor does it justify the 6 books after it of Deus Ex Planet, bringing the series to a profoundly unsatisfying conclusion. Still, I've given Traitor as a gift to friends who haven't read any Star Wars books, with only a few sentences long description of the Yuuzhan Vong, and found the book works fairly well as a standalone, despite being a bridge book directly in the middle of an ongoing series.

I skipped Dark Nest, I can't remember why, but I wasn't sucked in by the first few chapters when I went back to see if I missed anything. My opinion of Legacy of the Force is colored by what I see as massive character derailment of one of my favorite characters. The essential goodness of him was so strong that he survived a Matthew Woodring Stover book with his optimism intact. From what I can tell, subsequent authors simply didn't understand what Traitor was really about, and thought that the only way to justify a philosophy more interesting than their breathtakingly simplistic "battle of good and evil" motif was to hand wave it all away as a Sith trick. My thoughts are that it's just an excuse to not have to challenge themselves and write up to the level that MWS is capable of. Also, Aaron Allston is a hack and his prose is painful to read.

Other than that, my opinions of Star Wars novels are pretty much what everyone else says, many of the standalones are really good, particularly Courtship of Princess Leia. It somehow crams two of the coolest cultures in the EU in with the love story of Han and Leia. Avoid the Crystal Star though, that one was pretty bad. I'm not as much a Tim Zhan fan as everyone else, but I liked his books alright. They didn't feel much like Star Wars as I think of it... lots of strategy and planning, manipulation, political subterfuge... only a little bit of heroics, but it was still alright.

I'm currently running a Star Wars: Saga Edition game in the KotOR era and we're two sessions in. So far the party has met and have embarked on a journey to search for one of the last of the Jedi Masters, a quest leading them to war torn Iridonia.

The KotOR series of games is also very good, particularly KotOR2, which is proof once again that good writing is the most fundamental building block on which RPGs rest. The fact that these games tell a story better than almost any story told outside The Original Trilogy have cemented these games almost as central to the Star Wars experience as if they had been movies themselves. (IMHO).

[Turcano]

From what I can tell, subsequent authors simply didn't understand what Traitor was really about, and thought that the only way to justify a philosophy more interesting than their breathtakingly simplistic "battle of good and evil" motif was to hand wave it all away as a Sith trick.

Yeah, not only is that lame, it smacks of executive meddling.


The KotOR series of games is also very good, particularly KotOR2, which is proof once again that good writing is the most fundamental building block on which RPGs rest. The fact that these games tell a story better than almost any story told outside The Original Trilogy have cemented these games almost as central to the Star Wars experience as if they had been movies themselves. (IMHO).

I would actually like to see KotOR as a film trilogy (that, or the Thrawn Trilogy). Of course, much of that is a desire to see HK-47 on the silver screen. And Jolee Bindo. And Canderous.

[Hunter Noventa]

I'm a fairly large fan. I've read and enjoyed ost of the X-Wing Series, though I think I enjoyed the exploits of Wraith Squadron just as much if not more than Rogue Squadron. The Zahn trilogy is brilliant and deserves to be put ont he bi screen by someone other than Lucas.

I read Vector Prime, the firs NJO book and it was ust plain mehtacular. I really could not get into it, and now after hearing all the other crap that's happened, I have no desire to continue.

A lot of the stand alone books are good, but as noted, The Crystal Star is fairly lame.