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I have never so much as touched a star wars book. But, following recent debates, I would like to try some of the EU stuff. I've seen some of the rumours but, I've got to get round to it at some point. Any recommendations?

Some Favorites of mine

The Han Solo Trilogy, details Han's backstory

The X-wing novels Booklist here, set after the movies and follows the rebuilding of the famous Rogue Squadron, and then the formation of Wraith Squadron. The Wraith books I particularly enjoyed for being an excellent blend of serious and silly.

I Jedi, follows Corran Horn (from the X-wing series) as he becomes a Jedi, a very well written book

The Tales series (Tales of the Bounty Hunters, Tales from Jabba's Palace, Tales of Mos Eisley), which are collections of short stories about the background characters seen through out the movie.

The Bounty Hunter Wars, if you're a Fett fan, this is pretty much little more than a tribute to how badass he is.

Pretty much anything up to the Black Fleet Crisis is solid. KJA minimalizes things but most of it is all pretty decent. Once the Vong thing starts I checked out. I haven't read anything clone wars related.

Avoid the Vong... it will hurt your brain. To be fair I doubt NJO will do you any better.

Start with the Thrawn Trilogy. It's the bedrock of the EU. Then go and kick the heads off the current authors-

*Men in white coats run in, grab Striker and force him down, getting a straight jacket on*

*Ahem* As I was saying, the Thrawn Trilogy. Good place to start.

IDK about the books, but maybe you should start by figuring out your lightsaber style.
BTW, much to my surprise I most closely correlated with Juyo/Vaapad. Guess I have a dark, violent streak I didn't know about.

You Scored as Form II: Makashi

After Form I's proliferation as a saber combat technique, Form II or "Way of the Ysalamiri," came about as a means of lightsaber-to-lightsaber combat. It is described as being very elegant, powerful, and requiring extreme precision. The blade manipulation required for this form is very refined and requires much focus, but the results are extremely powerful. Count Dooku, from Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, has mastered Form II to the highest degree, fighting with the precision built into the ancient technique.

Dooku's combat style for me it seems, though I must question the relevance of some of the questions on that test. "Anakin and Luke Skywalker are the coolest!" WTF does that have to do with anything?

Before things go too far off course, my recommendations:

Zahn and Allston are easily the best I've read, and I've heard Stover and Luceno spoken of very highly. Drew Karpyshyn's Darth Bane trilogy is pretty good, and benefits from being one of the few not set around the film era. Kube-McDowell's Black Fleet Crisis is good for it's main politico-military arc, and some of the stuff with Lando, but it's dragged down by a very poor sub-plot involving Luke. Troy Denning is variable. Star by Star is very good, Striker's tendency to start frothing at the mouth whenever it's mentioned notwithstanding, but he's also responsible for the boring incoherent crap of the Dark Nest trilogy. KJA isn't as bad as some people say - he mainly gets a lot of flack (justifiably) for being responsible for Daala and the Suncrusher. There's also, of course, the standard "avoid KT at all costs" warning.

I do not froth at the mouth!

My eyes go buggy and I go to my 'special place'.

Tyyr wrote:Pretty much anything up to the Black Fleet Crisis is solid. KJA minimalizes things but most of it is all pretty decent. Once the Vong thing starts I checked out. I haven't read anything clone wars related.

I read a lot of Star Woars books, ball park about 50. However, then I started to read Vector Prime. It knocked me right out of the Star Wars Universe. I only got about 3/4 through it and have not read a SINGLE page of Star Wars books since. The Vong moved in and I got the heck out of Dodge! I switched to other series; Legion of the Damned, Halo, etc. But I really was not as into books anymore. The Vong not only knocled me out of Star Wars books, but basically out of books period.

Wasn't the Thrawn trilogy the series that started off the whole EU as we know it today?

Anyway it is a great series. Though I have heard some don't like it because they felt Thrawn was a bit of a Mary Sue.

I'd start off with that.

Avoid the Vong and anything afterwards. Though the Fate of the Jedi is somewhat okay. Which is like the difference between the smells of black shit and brown shit, they both smell like shit but one smells abit better.

Form V: Shien
92%
Form II: Makashi
75%
Form VII: Juyo/ Vaapaad
58%
Form VI: Niman
58%
Form IV: Ataru
50%
Form III: Soresu
42%

I think thats a pretty good mix to have.

Form III: Soresu
86%
Form II: Makashi
75%
Form IV: Ataru
75%
Form VI: Niman
67%
Form VII: Juyo/ Vaapaad
56%
Form V: Shien
50%

I can live with this, I like the "impenetrable" defense idea.

Jim wrote:I read a lot of Star Woars books, ball park about 50. However, then I started to read Vector Prime. It knocked me right out of the Star Wars Universe. I only got about 3/4 through it and have not read a SINGLE page of Star Wars books since. The Vong moved in and I got the heck out of Dodge! I switched to other series; Legion of the Damned, Halo, etc. But I really was not as into books anymore. The Vong not only knocled me out of Star Wars books, but basically out of books period.

I didn't get out of books but I stopped reading SW. I had read EVERY Star Wars book up until the Vong. To me they ignored the biggest problem, the EU was still inexplicably shackled to Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewie, and kept up with it while changing everything else up to and including core character traits. The original trilogy and the EU were one long bit of character development changing Han from the free wheeling smuggler of ANH to a respectable family man and leader. Then suddenly all that is thrown out to have him go all emo. They dropped a moon on Chewie to "shake things up," but the reality is that Chewie had been stagnant for two decades so knocking him out of the universe was easy as opposed to offing someone like Luke, Leia, or Han.

And the Vong, ugh. I really loathe bio-tech aliens. I don't mind some but when that's all they've got? Fuck that. Coral skippers... ugh.

Tyyr wrote:The original trilogy and the EU were one long bit of character development changing Han from the free wheeling smuggler of ANH to a respectable family man and leader. Then suddenly all that is thrown out to have him go all emo.

To be fair, they gave him a pretty good reason to go off the rails.

They dropped a moon on Chewie to "shake things up," but the reality is that Chewie had been stagnant for two decades so knocking him out of the universe was easy as opposed to offing someone like Luke, Leia, or Han.

Blame Lucas for that - Plan A for Vector Prime would have really shaken things up.