I’ve been a Star Wars fan since I was 2 years old (my oldest memory is going to see the first movie), and have recently discovered the Star Wars RPG (the d20 version from Wizards of the Coast). I absolutely love the game idea, and much of the game book material mentions the Expanded Universe, which I’ve come to understand is the novels. So my question here is, are any of these novels any good?
I’ve read the Phantom Menace novel, which was forgettable but not bad, and the first Star Wars movie novel, which was ok, but I’m wondering if that’s more a reflection of the respective quality of the movies they were written for than the writing itself. Either way, our DM lent me Heir to the Empire, which I just started reading and which seems good, but I’m wondering if the other novels compare. Any opinions from fellow Star Wars geeks out there? Are all the novels crap? Some good, some bad? I’m not necessarily talking about HG Wells calibre or Tolkien calibre in terms of writing, but I’m looking for something that is not in the bland-and-pointless to execrably-awful range that the Forgotten Realms novels have become (which I used to read but gave up on after the silly and utterly ridiculous Return of the Archwizards trilogy made me roll my eyes all the way around).