I love Star Wars, always have, always will. But the one thing that keeps failing me time and again are the idiotic, inane, pointless, plot-less, STTOOOOOOPPID Star Wars books. George’ first ones were not great in any sense, but they got the whole thing going- so kudos to him. But the subsequent authors have left me with a bad taste in my mouth the few times I’ve tried to read them.
“I, Jedi” got thrown across the room about halfway through after idiocy reared its ugly head for the ump-teenth time. I think it was the part where an assasin tried to knock off Luke, and was forgiven and told “just go home.” on the next page by Leia…Oh, yeah, try and kill the free-universe’s saviour and we’ll slap your little wrist, you jerk you. :rolleyes:
I forget the name of the next one I read, but Boba Fett dies at the end…I at least got all the way through it, but was still not impressed.
So tell me, are any of the S.W. books good? Any Author I should stick to, any I should avoid?
I like the Dark Horse comics, myself…maybe that style of book would appeal better to you. Some of my favorites:
Jedi vs. Sith: set 1,000 years before A New Hope, it’s about three young kids on their way to becoming Jedi during the last great war between the Jedi and the Sith. You get to find out how Darth Bane altered the Sith order into the “always two, there are” version, and see just how dang creepy the Dark Side is.
Darth Maul: Not a spectacular piece of writing, but it is a fun “bad guy” kinda book that shows just what a nasty customer Maul was.
Chewbacca: A posthumous retelling of Chewie’s life and death. It’s a nice anthology of short Chewie stories.
Infinities: A New Hope: It’s a “what if” type story where Luke’s torpedoes detonate just short of the Death Star’s reactor. The rebellion is crushed, Leia is corrupted by Vader, and Palpatine’s a very happy man. The ending falls a little flat (they changed artists mid-story), but the first two chapters were fun and the concept is enjoyable.
I also really, really recommend the Star Wars Tales series which is released every three months. It’s another anthology, and a fun mix of the serious (i.e., stories about Vader hunting down the last of the Jedi) to humorous (Yoda and Mace Windu in a restaraunt a la Pulp Fiction). The first eight issues have already been collected in paperback, and they’re well worth purchasing.
I’m not the hugest Star Wars fan, but I also enjoyed reading the Tales series. Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina was a romp, and Tales of the Bounty Hunters was good too. They’ll give you a little more history on some of the characters you see kind of flit by in the movies.
The books by Timothy Zahn are pretty damn good (he’s the author of the Heir to the Empire trilogy, I believe); he managed to create new characters that I thought blended nicely with the existing universe.
Most of the other books though…
:shudder:
I personally detest anything that Kevin J. Anderson wrote (like The Jedi Academy Trilogy), and I know it’s not just me, since a friend of mine who’s a MAJOR Star Wars nut hates his writing too. I think he completely ignores major character points and just uses familiar names to suit whatever plot point he wants to use.
Zahn is good. So’s Brain Daley’s Han Solo trilogy (if only because I read the hell out of them as a kid–wonder how well they age…?..). Every other one I’ve tried, without fail, is crap. Admittedly, I haven’t read too many others (attempted 4 or 5), but I scent a pattern here…
Shadows of the Empire was a good book (does my screen name show my bias too much?) and the Zahn books are OK, but the rest are so predictable and patterned. Just reading one gives you the plot for all the rest. Definitely avoid the Bounty Hunter Wars as that is not only a bad story, it is extremely poorly written.
That said, I’ll second ResIpsaLoquitor’s vote for the Dark Horse comics.
I was curious about the books myself, and I saw in another thread that the Zahn trilogy was probably the best of the lot, so I read them. I found them quite dull, with mediocre writing. Not unreadable by any means, but very disposable, IMHO. I haven’t bothered with the rest of the genre since.
Shadows of the Empire and Zahn’s trilogy are both available in comic book format as well. If you’re a novel purist or want more detail, go with the novels. If you like pictures and don’t mind shelling out the cash (a comic paperback will likely run $20-30, while a novel is typically $5-10), go with the comics.
I’d advise against the Kinghts of the Old Republic books unless you’re really curious. (They chronicle the ancient, ancient Jedi of 5,000 years past.) I found the artwork weak and the story too detached from the SW we know.
The Dark Empire series is a judgment call. (Clone emperor? WTF?) The artwork is unnaturally dark, and the story lingers at times. It’s a notable work for two reasons: 1) the fan community became split on whether resurrecting Palpatine was a good idea, and 2) the final chapter features the birth of Anakin Solo, one of the most notable Jedi from the NJO series.
Another vote for the Zahn books, they rocked, especially the original Thrawn trilogy. “Shadows of the Empire” was decent. “Truce at Bakura”, the Dark Horse comics, and the Jedi Academy Trilogy sucked major ass. That’s all I’ve read.
Another vote for the Zahn books, they rocked, especially the original Thrawn trilogy. “Shadows of the Empire” was decent. “Truce at Bakura”, the Dark Horse comics, and the Jedi Academy Trilogy sucked major ass. That’s all I’ve read.
Anderson sucks. At the late Bantam Boards we called him “Burger Boy”.
Hmmm, I LOVED I Jedi, but then, I love Stackpole and Corran is one of my favorite characters. And yeah, Kyp sucks big time. But Stackpole couldn’t fix that, since it was Anderson who wrote the original books with those events. He just told it from Corran’s point of view.
I would read the X-Wing series-9 books in all. Especially the three with the Wraiths. The Wraiths RULE. I lust after Face Loran.
And don’t forget, “Lt. Kettch”?
Yub Yub, Commander!
And Starfighters of Adumar, the last X-Wing book, is one of the funniest books I’ve ever read in a long time. I love Wes and Hobbie.
Another vote for the Zahn books, they rocked, especially the original Thrawn trilogy. “Shadows of the Empire” was decent. “Truce at Bakura”, the Dark Horse comics, and the Jedi Academy Trilogy sucked major ass. That’s all I’ve read.
I agree with Brondicon. Tales from Jabba’s Palace, Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina, and Tales of the Bounty Hunters are great reads, as long as you skip the Jerico stories. Tales of the Empire and Tales for the New Republic didn’t impress me much. I also really liked the Bounty Hunter Trilogy, but did get a little tired of all the Boba Fett is the best… Boba Fett is my idol… Boba Fett is God… I want to slob Boba Fett’s knob…
I’m surprised no-one’s mentioned Alan Foster’s Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, a novel that takes place between Star Wars and Empire. It doesn’t fit too well into the storyline, except in one sense: during the light-saber duel between Darth Vader and Luke, Vader gets his arm cut off.
Well, I read as many as I could before they finally broke me. I mean no offense to the others on this thread, of course, but these are not good books. I suppose the Timothy Zahn books come the closest to being “good,” but there’s so much awfulness in them (the Force-sucking ysalimiri, which were the dumbest idea I’d ever heard until George decided to pee on his own movies with that Midochlorian nonsense; and all the goofy clone stuff) that I can’t recommend them to anyone.
Most of them are tolerable enough. The Rogue Squadron series is actually kind of entertaining. The most awful ones that I read: The Courtship of Princess Leia and Shadows of the Empire. Shadows is the one that finally broke me. See the thread on “writing that made you groan” for examples.
Here´s the umpteenth vote for Zahn, The Heir of The Empire trilogy is great and his Hand of THrawn Duology is good as well.
All the books in the X-Wing series are pretty good as well and worth reading.
I think that the New Jedi Order series has turned out to be pretty good as well.
You can skip the Kevin Anderson books. Also avoid female authors, can´t remember their names right now. One was Barbara Hambly I believe and one of the books was called Children of the Jedi.
First of all, the barve who wrote the bounty hunter trilogy needs to have some barves come by his house and beat his barve until his barve falls off. Or at least beat his head until barve is removed from his vocabulary and he doesn’t use it every third page. And then maybe he won’t throw out all Zuckuss and 4-LOM established continuality because he is too lame write Zuckuss correctly. Dirty barve!!
But the Tales from Mos Eisley and Bounty Hunters were cool, Shadows was sort of okay, but suffered from standard trap of writers trying to make their villians badder than any the Star Wars universe has seen previously. Just the plots of several books have made me laugh.