Darth Zannah from the Bane books.
This is my favorite scene from SW attesting to choie’s point. Note no fancy special effects just emotion and poignancy.
Add me to the Luke camp, with a healthy dose of Han. I was in high school when the original came out, and while it’s true I had a huge crush on Mark Hamill, it’s really Luke’s sweet underdog side that I root on.
But Han Solo is just far too cool to not count as a favorite. 
You know what I wanted to see? Yoda just standing there, perfectly still except for a crease on his forehead, in deep concentration, while his lightsabre flew around him telekinetically like a mosquito of death. It’s all about the Force, baby.
You know what I would have liked to see? Yoda not fighting at all. He didn’t even have a lightsaber in the original story. Neither did Pappy. Only their apprentices used weapons. They were both so strong in the force that they were beyond that.
Obi wan Kenobi. I do love HK-47, Carth Onasi, and many other characters, but to me, Obi Wan was by far the most interesting and had the most depth. He lost a father figure in Qui-gon. Lost a brother in Anakin. Lost all of his friends, peers, and associates when the Jedi were cut down, all but Yoda. He was left knowing he was not much more than a Padawan (what, three years maybe?) and one of the last of the Jedi. And lastly, nearly, nearly lost a son in Luke.
He had been a padawan for 13 years when Qui-Gon died on Naboo.
Admiral Motti. One of the few people bad ass enough to call out Darth Vader for being a screw up. Even if he did get forced choked for his efforts.
If Yoda DID absolutely have to fight - and frankly, it was stupid that he fought at all - it should have been in just one scene, and just him using the Force to absolutely lay waste to someone. Seeing him flip around and hang on to stuff trying not to fall and crawl through ventilation shafts like John McClane was a pathetic joke.
In “The Empire Strikes Back,” how many times do you see Yoda teaching Luke how to use a light saber? Zero. Yoda is about the Force; weapons should be beneath him.
Why was Wedge Antilles so tough? Let’s just say that as a child, he was known as “Wedgie” Antilles. 
Me, I’ll go with Obi-wan, with a side order of Qui-gon. Now if only the prequels didn’t suck so hard.
Sadly, I could never take Luke seriously as a character. My wife and I always laugh at the scene when he fires the torpedoes into the thermal exhaust port as it looks like he shits himself.
“But I wanted to pick up some power converters!”
The DorkFactor is high in this Thread.
That said.
Ahem.
Where should one start if one started reading the Star Wars books? Is there a Master List? ( It’s for my son. Really.)
Screw books, get yourself- ah, I mean, get your son the KOTOR comic series.
Thrawn. Easily. I’d have liked to read him meeting Prince Xizor and kicking the crap out of him. Or the Eye of Palpatine. I don’t know why, but that ship has stayed with me and seems creepier than most of the Sith.
Thrawn Trilogy, then the Hand of Thrawn duology.
First off, anything written by Timothy Zahn is worth reading. If your son has seen the original trilogy, he can get straight into The Thrawn Trilogy without any worries. His other works include Outbound Flight, a “Start of Darkness” novel for Thrawn set around the time of Episode Two, and the Hand of Thrawn duology, in which Zahn undoes some of the damage caused by some of the other authors to the franchise. Your son should probably wait until after he’s read at least the X-Wing novels before he reads Hand of Thrawn, but doing otherwise isn’t that much of a setback.
I’ve heard great things about Shatterpoint (Mace Windu) and Dark Rendezvous (Yoda), but haven’t got around to reading them yet.
The Tartakovsky Clone Wars cartoon is absolutely awesome, and can be watched any time after he’s seen Episode Two.
Most of the stories from the anthology Tales of the Bounty Hunters are quite good, too, and work fine as long as he’s seen the original trilogy.
Rebel Dream and Rebel Stand from the New Jedi Order series are both great fun, and don’t require much in the way of background from the earlier books. There are some spoilers for the earlier books, but apart from that he can just read these two on their own if he wants, any time after he’s read the Hand of Thrawn.
Don’t read:
[ul]
[li]The Legacy of the Force novels. They’re just a boatload of stupid and offensiveness.[/li][li]Anything by Karen Traviss except Hard Contact. She’s got a warped view of the setting, and mostly uses her novels to bash the Jedi and satisfy her Mandalorian fetish.[/li][li]Anything by Kevin J. Anderson.[/li][/ul]
Avoid Barbara Hambly too. She’s not QUITE as bad as Anderson, but she’s definetly taking notes from him.
Oh, and definitely read the novelizations – especially Matthew Stover’s Revenge of the Sith – he’s a fantastic writer.
Grumman alludes to the “X-Wing” series, which is a must-read for any Star Wars fan - especially those who, like me, always found the non-Jedi side characters (your Han Solos and Wedge Antilles…es) more interesting than the Magic Monk protagonists.
The X-Wing series itself is loosely divided into two sub-series, one written by Michael J. Stackpole and one written by Aaron Allston. Both are excellent, although markedly different in tone. Stackpole writes great action and intrigue, while Allston focuses more on character-driven humor and drama. Both sub-series feature some of the best starfighter battles you’ll find outside the movies themselves - not surprising, considering the novels are technically a spinoff of the awesome “X-Wing” video game series.
Personally, I think Allston’s “Wraith Squadron” books are better even than Zahn’s Thrawn Trilogy. I’m a sucker for well-developed, complex characters, and doubly so when they’re given some of the most consistently funny dialogue this side of the Discworld. As I said upthread, Allston’s development of the Wedge Antilles and Wes Janson characters is superb, and some of the characters he created (in particular, an Imperial intelligence agent-turned-Rebel starfighter pilot named Lara Notsil) are among the most compelling to inhabit the Galaxy Far, Far Away.
I quite liked Children of the Jedi! :mad: 
Why is she seen as a bad writer?