Social: Member's Bookshelf

[colls]

September has 5 weekends, so that means we have a FREEBIE.
This weekend I thought I'd make a post to talk about Star Wars books in general. Novels, junior series, comics, EU, Disney canon.... anything goes.

+ What books have you read?
+ Which ones do you recommend?

Our October theme will be "Published in the 00's". Do you have any recommendations that would fit that theme? Or ideas of which book you might select for yourself to read?
For reference, here's a list of novels by release date from Wookiepedia

Comments

[barbiejedi]

I was big into the novels in high school and college, and read as much of the Bantam era as I could get my hands on-- especially loved the X-Wing books, the short story "Tales From" books, and Zahn's Thrawn books-- and kept up with the New Jedi Order in real time as it was being published by Del Rey. I fell out of love with the EU about halfway through Legacy of the Force (they did my baby girl Tahiri real dirty and I'm still mad about it) and the only thing I read after that was X-Wing: Mercy Kill until Disney made it all Legends. Since then I only dip in very occasionally to the new canon when it seems to align with things I enjoyed in Legends, like Zahn's new Thrawn trilogies.

For recommendations, I can always rec the X-Wing series, and the Tales From books. I just love a story that fleshes out more of what the non-Jedi get up to in the Galaxy Far Far Away. Anything Aaron Allston wrote is pretty much going to be a good time-- he's the only reason I got as far into Legacy of the Force as I did, and his X-Wing books simply can't be beat. Oh! Also Matthew Stover's novelization of Revenge of the Sith, and NJO: Traitor if someone decided they were going to tackle the NJO. (I can't rec the whole NJO series, it's just so damn big and had a handful of books that I just didn't vibe with, but there are several books in the series that I really enjoyed. Traitor and the Enemy Lines duology specifically.)


Hmmm, if I were going to rec something published in the '00s... honestly I would love to have a reason to reread the NJO to see how it holds up 20+ years later, but it's nineteen books and that's a LOT, and it's really not designed to dip in and out so it's hard to rec it. Traitor was just SO GOOD though! And so was Stover's Revenge of the Sith novelization-- he just has such a way of pulling you inside the characters' moral struggles. (the quote in my icon above is from the opening chapter and it gets me every time)

Oh shit, Zahn's Outbound Flight!!!!! That's the one I would absolutely rec from the 2000s, because it was the first time I saw linguistics and language learning as a plot point in the EU, something that's usually handwaved with protocol droids, and it's still absolutely delightful to me. Plus it's a standalone novel (though there are elements that tie in to Survivor's Quest, it's not essential) so a much quicker read.

[colls]

I liked the first "Tales from" book, but it didn't do well in the polls here (when we were doing polls). I'd like to read the second as well.

The X-wing series sounds like it'll be a fun read - I enjoyed the couple we've read here in this comm.

I thought the NJO was all 2000's but see that the first one is actually published in 1999. I might... make a mod decision and read that one next month anyway. I know it's 19 books, but it's the biggest gap in my Star Wars reading and I may as well dive in at some point.

Zahn's books always do well in the Star Wars universe. ;)

[barbiejedi]

I liked the Tales books that collected short stories from the West End Games Star Wars Adventure Journal, which I think were just the Empire and New Republic volumes-- I can't remember if I read the Mos Eisley Cantina, Jabba's Palace, or Bounty Hunter ones.

I wish there was some kind of e-book anthology that collected all the SWAJ stories, not just the ones that made it into the Tales From books. I've toyed with creating one based on scans of the old Adventure Journals but I haven't had the time to sit down and actually go through with it.