Star Wars Novels -- Should I read them in order?

Kaspar_Hauser · April 15, 2003, 4:32pm

I just finished reading the Han Solo trilogy. I was surprised how much I enjoyed it, so I figured I’d try my luck with some more SW novels. However, these were the first ones I’ve read since that Timothy Zahn trilogy came out in the mid-90s, and I only read part one of that, and there have been what, two or three dozen more published since then? So, I’m a little behind.

My question is – should I read the other books in order, and if so, in what order should I read them?

By publishing date. That would mean starting over with the rest of the Zahn trilogy, which takes place much later in the series’ history than some of the newer books. I’m wary that it might get annoying to keep jumping all over the place – from five years after ROTJ to in between ESB and ROTJ back to seven years after ROTJ, then to one year after ESB, etc.
Choronological. There’s a million timelines available on the net, so that would be no problem. But will I miss any important surprises or in jokes that you could only get if you read the books according to publishing date? Are the stories that tightly woven? This is the order I’m inclined to follow, especially since I just finished the Han Solo trilogy, the earliest in terms of choronology.
Some other order, maybe by quality. By all accounts, the Zahn books are the best. They’re also the earliest published, but some of the latest ones chronologically.
It doesn’t matter, they’re just some damned kiddie movie tie-ins, just pick the one that looks the coolest. I’d definitely take this one under advisement.

Also, which ones should I avoid altogether due to sheer stinkiness?

Help a geek out!

Amdusias · April 15, 2003, 7:41pm

Go for chronological. I’ve read a LOT of them and there’s nothing you’ll be missing if you don’t read by publishing date. The authors probably don’t check what the authors just before them did other than trying to get the story and have it be coherent, and then, they’re not going to read the whole books, only summaries.

The history of all the Star Wars stuff is really cool, so go for chronological order, and if one looks stupid (like the whole “Young Jedi” series or whatever it’s called, which were written for children). If you see a book that looks stupid or you don’t like the author (do NOT read Children of the Jedi; Barbara Hambley is a horrible author), just pick up Star Wars: The Essential Chronology and check out the summary, which is placed in chronological context. Buy the book either way of course

By the way, the books are NOT little kiddie addons or however you refer to them. Most of them are serious novels by serious authors. Just because they’re related to a group of PG movies does not mean the books are intended for the same audience. Vector Prime, for instance, was written by R. A. Salvatore. The author who wrote the Demon Wars trilogy, a very dark and mature work (and very good by the way).

Hope I’ve been of assistance!

MrThompson · April 15, 2003, 10:01pm

The Star Wars thing has got sort of crazy in that there’s the original Bantam novels and for the last few years there’s been the New Jedi Order, a gigantic massive long continuous thing, that you definitely want to read in last and in order.

My advice is to read more or less what you feel like from the Bantams, and in addition definitely the Zahn books. Then when you’re bored of them move onto NJO, and go all the way through. The more reading you’ve done before the more characters you’ll know and care for, but it’s not the end of the world if you don’t recognise someone.

Essential continuity is

the first Zahn trilogy
the Jedi Academy trilogy (unfortunately its fairly badly written, and so if I were you I’d ignore it)
the Zahn duology

So, uh yeah, basically just Zahn then.

Second_Star_to_the_Right · April 16, 2003, 12:34am

First of all, read the rest of the Zahn trilogy. Great stuff.

Books not to waste your time with: The Truce at Bakura, The Courtship of Princess Leia, Children of the Jedi(and thank goodness someone else didn’t like it- I thought maybe it was over my head or something.)

The Jedi Academy trilogy. Eh. I liked the story, mostly, but as MrThompson said, the writing is less than stellar. YMMV. Fairly important for continuity, so might want to give them a try.

Good stand-alones: The New Rebellion, Shadows of the Empire, Splinter of the Mind’s Eye(oldie but goodie). The novelizations of the original films are pretty good, too- lots of little things here and there not included in the movies.

delphica · April 16, 2003, 12:38am

You are correct when you say there are tons of lists online, but I would highly recommend the info over at
http://www.theforce.net/books/
which is nice because you can toggle back and forth between chronology and order of publication lists.

Strangely enough, you really don’t miss that much by reading them out of order. When I started reading them, my goal was to stick to the chronology as best I could, but even when I skipped around, everything was fine.

I agree with the poster who said Zahn was essential. I would definitately give the first Zahn trilogy another shot.

Now, prior to Zahn (chronologically speaking), there’s The Truce at Bakura, and The Courtship of Princess Leia. After some serious consideration, I would say you could skip those and go straight to the Zahn, because frankly, TaB and CoPL just aren’t great books, and the Zahn Thrawn trilogy will probably do more to hook you in. (see, once you’re hooked, you’ll read any SW book no matter how bad it is).

A bigger conundrum is the X-wing series. The events in that series for the most part pre-date the stuff that happens in the Zahn Thrawn trilogy. On this one, I would say read whatever floats your boat. The action of the X-wing books and the action of the Zahn trilogy are not so interconnected that you would be confused or missing out either way.

The Jedi Academy series, unfortunately, isn’t all that hot, but it is rather crucial to understanding the whole Jedi thing, particularly as it relates to other books, including of course the most recent New Jedi order books. I, Jedi is better, and I would lump it together with the Jedi Academy books (for content, not quality).

Hopefully, at this point you’ll be hooked, which might give you enough momentum to make it through the next bunch of books that come chronologically. This is really not the brightest supernova in the Star Wars universe, as it were. There are some real stinkers in here, although even the bad ones usually contain something moderately interesting in terms of character development or backstory.

Or, you could really skip them, especially Children of the Jedi and The Crystal Star. Most people don’t like the Black Fleet series too much either, although I rather enjoyed it (maybe it just seemed so much better at the time!).

Finally, you come to the next set of Zahn books, The Hand of Thrawn duology, which are brilliant and a fantastic reward for slogging your way through some of these other novels. Zahn deserves some sort of special award for wrapping up all the weird and loose ends from the previous books in a way that makes some degree of sense, no small feat considering what he had to work with.

At that point, you should take stock in your life and decide if you are ready to commit to the New Jedi Order, and for the love of all that is holy, you must read those in order.

Oh, I forgot to mention all the books that take place sometime during the timeline of the movies. I think those you can just pick up at any time. Sometimes they are a little frustrating because you’re not getting very much information that moves the story of the galaxy far far away along too much, because obviously the events in those books are capped by the stuff that happens in the movies, so you already know what happens.

markdiscordia · April 16, 2003, 1:36am

I’ve read them all, as they were published, since 1994 or so (making up for the prior ones in between.) I would suggest a chronological approach; most of the subtle jokes and “mysterious new character X is actually…WELL KNOWN CHARACTER Y!” stuff refer to the movies; this holds true for books taking place before as well as after the original trilogy.

The chronological approach also means that (once you get past the prequel-era books) you can, in no time, be reading L. Neil Smith’s Lando novels and Brian Daley’s Han Solo novels, both of which are still among the best Star Wars has to offer.

I wouldn’t skip anything if you plan to read most of them; EVERYTHING comes into play again during the NJO, and you will miss references and backstories at that point. Yes, Planet of Twilight, The Crystal Star, and Young Jedi Knights are pretty bad, but you can get them at the library and read them in a few hours, so you’re not losing much.

Also, you’ll want to try to read the comics; they are integrated into the latest storylines often. The X-wing comics and the Dark Empire cycle come up the most, but I’d recommend just about any of the comics; while the books are, with a few exceptions*, on the low end of passable by the standards of literature, the Star Wars comics are some of the best that the funnybook industry has to offer.

*The aforementioned Smith and Daley books and the recent Troy Denning and MW Stover books in the NJO may be compared to the great literary sci-fi of the past, in my opinion.

Guinastasia · April 16, 2003, 3:11am

If you don’t read anything else, at least read the X-Wing series. It is the best of the whole EU, especially the ones about Wraith Squadron. It’s also hysterically funny-especially the last one, Starfighters of Adumar!

I like it because it’s more about the pilots, the “every man” rather than the Jedi. I mean, I like the Jedi, but sometimes I get sick of them.

Kaspar_Hauser · April 16, 2003, 3:15am

What have I gotten myself into?

Thanks for the advice, everybody. Some comments:

Don’t worry, just a little self-deprecating fanboy humor. I’ve been a huge SW nerd for 26 years!

I forgot about those. I read them all in elementary school. I even did a book report on Han Solo at Star’s End. Those are pretty much standalone, right? I guess I’ll dig them up out of my parents’ basement and reread them.

OK, the concensus seems to be that chronological order isn’t absolutely necessary, and if I skipped a few of the acknowledged clinkers for now, I really wouldn’t be that lost, correct? Except for the Jedi Academy Trilogy, which most seem to think is essential but mediocre. Gotcha. Or unless I want to read the NJO, in which case I need to read as much of them as I can.

I have a bad feeling about this…

I think I’m going to start next with Shadows of the Empire. It’s short, seems to be well-liked, and since it was one of the earlier new novels and takes place in between the movies, it’s probably going to be less problematic, continuity-wise (did I mention that I’m avoiding the prequel-era books for now?). Plus, I just bought it…

Then I’ll tackle the first Zahn trilogy. What originally turned me off of the first Zahn book was, IIRC, the mention of some kind of worm or something that blocked the Force, which, at the time, seemed to me to be incredibly contrived and ridiculous. Now, of course, having been exposed to the concept of “midichlorians,” those little worms seem downright inspired.

Re: the comics. I read some of the earliest Dark Horse SW comics when they first started making them in, I think, 1994, and I agree they were quite excellent. I particularly liked Dark Empire, the one with the cloned Emperor. Has that storyline been referenced in any of the books?

And in a slight tangent, has anyone been reading the DH collections of the old Marvel series? Great, cheesy fun. I feel six years old again.

Second_Star_to_the_Right · April 16, 2003, 3:35am

Shadows of the Empire is a fun read. It’s great if you’re a Vader fan(which I am) because he’s a major player in it.

I can’t believe I forgot Dark Empire. IIRC, there’s a reference to it in the first book in the Jedi Academy trilogy(Jedi Search), but I don’t know about any others.

SolGrundy · April 16, 2003, 4:26am

Yes, you should read them in order to completely drive any love of Star Wars out of your system.

Sorry, I guess that’s a cheap shot since there are a lot of fans out there. And some of the books are decent reads, but even the best have moments that just made me groan. The Timothy Zahn books started out all right, but by the third he was coming with goofy plot twists that make midichlorians look inspired by comparison. For example:

The completely lame force-bubble projecting ysalimiri (with an insulting attempt at a scientific explanation, to boot). And Obi-Wan Kenobi’s evil clone!!!

I liked Splinter of the Mind’s Eye a good bit, and I *loved the Daley Han Solo books. I was expecting more of that – a writer tries to tell an original sci-fantasy story in an established universe. Instead, nowadays the writers seem intent on stretching things out into this elaborate opera that just spends most of its time rehashing catch phrases and scenes from the movies. At least Zahn introduced some pretty interesting characters that didn’t feel out of the place – Thrawn, and Mara Jade.

Speaking of which, it’s still best to finish the Zahn stories first if only because it introduces the Mara Jade character, who has become pretty solidly entrenched in all the “Expanded Universe” stuff.

Also: Shadows of the Empire is one of the worst books ever written. To each his own and all that, but I’m stunned that anyone would admit to actually liking it, much less recommending it. For starters, while the rest of the books at least have the good intention of continuing the story, this book was part of a crass multi-platform book, videogame, comic book marketing tie-in. The villain was ludicrous, the new “Dash Rendar” character was a laughable Han Solo rip-off, and the story as a whole was pointless. Plus it was badly written. It’s got one of my favorite bad-book passages ever, while Leia is watching the rogue pilot Dash Rendar perform some stunt:

Plus, I don’t want to ruin the book in case you do still plan to read it, but the evil villain Xizor

Uses PHEREMONES to seduce Leia in one of the cheesiest fan-service sections of any book I’ve ever read.

P.S: I just saw the preview and read Kaspar Hauser’s post that mentions the ysalimiri/midichlorians comparison. So it looks like I’m not telling you anything new. Anyway, it’s still boneheaded.

SolGrundy · April 16, 2003, 4:39am