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Here is a list of the books to read first, if you haven't read any. Plus which books are decent and those you should stay away from. I'll give a little Bio of each one and my reasonings for picking it, plus the new characters it introduces:
1.) HEIR TO THE EMPIRE TRILOGY
- incredible NYT #1 best seller, features Thrawn, Mara Jade, Joruus C'Baoth, Talon Karrde, Gilad Pallaeon, Borsk Fey'lia and Garm Bel Iblis. After the first 5 chapters your hooked, I didn't put the books down for a week!
2.) SHADOWS OF THE EMPIRE
-START HERE, this book is not part of a trilogy and comes between ESB and Jedi. It most resembles the movie and Vader/Palpy are alive. Features PRINCE XIZOR, Dash Randar
and Guri, was supported by Lucas.
3.) THE HAN SOLO TRILOGY
-Great series, for fans of Han, Hutts and criminals. A young Han as a smuggler. features Bria Tharen, Shug Nix, Mako Spince and the Hutts Jabba, Durga and Jiliac. Xizor has a small rule, shows slavery and the orgin chwewie's
life debt.
4.) CORRELIAN TRILOGY
- Havn't read in a few years, great plot and storyline goes into Han's homeplanet. Features Han and Leia's kids in a great way. UBH seems to like them
5.) THE JEDI ACADEMY TRILOGY
- Second coming of Thrawn trilogy but less dinamic, goes into Jedi training and the Dark side, plus spice mines and the creation of super weapons. Features Admiral Daala, Kyp Durron, Moruth Doole, Jedi students, Qwi Xux and Exar Kun
6.) DARKSABER
- Does to JA trilogy what Shadows does to the original trilogy, but not as dynamic. Features Hutts and JAcademy stuff, Durga, Bevel Lemelisk and an awesome Daala/Pallaeon hookup w/ a super star destroyer.
8.) THE ROUGE SQUADRON SERIES
- Not suggested for those of you who want to see a strict plot line with the core characters, but it's loads of fun w/ Wedge and his X-Wing pals getting into scraps and dog fights.
9.) THE TRUCE AT BAKURA
- I liked it, but not suggested if you don't REALLY love EU, gets confusing at times but is real techno and intelligent. features Gareal Caprison, Ssi-Ruuk aliens and a Empire/Rebellion alliance to defeat a greater evil.
10.) THE BOUNTY HUNTER SERIES
- A rockin series that switches back and forth between Boba Fett and events after Jedi(and the Sarlacc) and Events after ANH. XIZOR, Vader and Palpy are featured spinning webs of lies and using the crumbling BH's guild to hurt the rebels. Many surpriding revelations as you go.

Decent books:
I, Jedi
The Courtship of Princess Leia
The New Rebellion(from what I've heard)

Not Suggested:
Children of the Jedi(I'm glad Kev Andrson eliminated Callista, Luke's "love intrest"
The Crystal Star
The Sheild of Lies Trilogy(You ca't get through tese books, I'll commend anyone who has)
Vector Prime(Chewie dies, not a lot else happens )

Start with: Shadows, then Heir, then the Solo trilogy. If you still like the novels follow the chronological order you'll find in any EU book and go from there, avoiding the books I don't suggest. If you don't like to read AT ALL, read the Tales of Jabba's Palace before trying out Shadows. I hope this long topic was helpful to those of you who want to read, but don't know where to start.

I apologize for my spelling and stuff above. I wrote a lot and will go back and edit later.

Corellian Trilogy


'Nuff said.

What about Rogue Planet?I haven't finished it but so far its cool.It's like the Episodes 1-2's Shadows.

Have you read Shadows? I'll re-read the Corellian trilogy(I last read it in 95 or 96) if you promise to read or re-read shadows.

Corellian Trlogy

Yes you said that. NOW ANSWER MY QUESTION!!!!!

ok

Ok, lets see:
1.The JA series
2.The X-wing series
3.I,Jedi
4.The Hand of Thrawn Duology
5.The Han Solo Trilogy
6.Tales from Jabbas Palace
7.Tales of the Bounty Hunters
8.Mission to Mount Yoda
9.Prophets of the Dark Side
10. The Young Jedi Knight Series

That is silly, have you read Shadows or the Thrawn trilogy??? Put those as your 1 and 2 and the rest of your list would make sense. How was the Thrawn duology? I need to read those.

I never read Shadows, I've played the game though, I like it.I've only read the Last Command, Can't say that I Liked it that much.

Corellian Trilogy is the best.

Whats the book that Mara Jade first appears?I want to read that.

Assault at Selonia!!!!

Either UBH needs to buy some new books, or it's been longer since I read the Corellian trilogy than I thought. EvilJedi, Mara first appeared in The Heir to the Empitre trilogy. Merc, you need to read the first 2 books in the trilogy to understand/enjoy the 3rd!!!!

I finally got Shadows...

I like I, Jedi. This has to be one of my all time fav. books.

I,Jedi is very good. Dim:That's great Merc: Pick up Shadows. UBh, due to your bellows about the Corellian trilogy I will re-read the books after I read the Thrawn duology. You still didn't tell me if you liked Shadows.

It was spiffy!, alright I'll get serious, I liked it But I liked Corellian Trilogy best of all.

Glad to hear it. You forgot to yell "Showdown at Centerpoint."

I must say that The New Jedi Order books are quite good. It is true that Chewie was killed in the first book, Vector Prime, but they are good books none the less. It deals with an alien force from outside the galaxy who are taking over worlds, and they cannot be seen with the Force. There are about a 100 Jedi or so and they can hold there own, but themselves have suffered casualties. It takes place about 20-25 years after Endor. Some other great SW books are
The New Rebellion
The Thrawn Trilogy
The Courtship of Princess Leia
Shadows of the Empire
The Jedi Academy Triloghy
Rouge Planet
The Truce at Bakura

Yesh, those books are all real good, I'm glad to see we have a new member that likes the books as well. I haven't read Rouge planet, but have heard mostly good things about it. Something that doesn't make sense is where it seems you say that their are 100 Jedi in Vector Prime, is that true?

These are my top ten picks. I don't list them in order of favorites because I don't have time to read (even speed read) all these again and evaluate everything I liked/didn't like. You be the judge on what you like in these awesome picks. Enjoy!

Dark Empire 1,2,3 (Empire's End)
Heir To The Empire Trilogy
Jedi Academy Trilogy
Tales of The Jedi (ALL THE SERIES)
Truce At Bakura
Shadows Of The Empire
Crimsom Empire 1,2
Hand Of Thrawn series
Darksaber
Jedi Apprentice series

Yes, there are about a hundred or so Jedi in the New Jedi Order series. And they have gone back to the one master, one apprentice routine, but still have the academy at Yavin 4. The only Jedi to obtain master status are Luke, Mara, and Kyp

I thought Kam Solusar and Streen were also Jedi masters.

That sounds really cool. So this is after the Hand of Thrawn series and Luke and Mara are married right? Henious, have you read Shadows? I agree that all the books on your list are great. Except dark Empire, I didn't like these because they were basically big comics, they also went against, in my opinion, SW's literature rules. You don't kill major characters that were alive at the end of the OT, and you don't bring back characters Lucas killed. Cloning the emperor was stupid, even Tim Zahn thought so because he had Mara mention here disdain for that whole scene in the Hand of Thrawn Duology. Anyhow I'm rambling, read Shadows, either again or for the first time, it's a great book.

What are the books after Vector Prime like?

I was told that they were crap and not to bother reading them, apparently really badly written or something...what do you guys think?

The two after VP are pretty good, the next two, Agents of Chaos are not very likeable, and the best so far is Balence Point which came out recently.

1.Thrawn Trilogy
2.X-wing Series
3.ORIGINAL Han Solo Trilogy
4.Balence Point
5.The Truce at Bakure
6.Hand of Thrawn Duology
7.Tales books
8.Newer Han Solo Trilogy
9.Shadows
10.Spinter of the Minds Eye

good list, the Thrawn trilogy is by far the best. Shadows is kinda low though, maybe b/c it's so short, only one book? I also think the newer Solo trilogy blows the other one out of space.

Yeah I guess so, but Crispin had a lot more material to work from than Brian Daley had back in '80 or whenever he wrote those books.

"Yub yub, commander." -Various Lt.Kettch personaes

He wrote them that long ago? These are the ones with him in the corprate sector right?

Yeah, Star's End 1979, Revenge 1979, Lost Legacy 1980. Unfortunately Daley died a couple of years ago .

Thats a shame, I need to get around to reading those books again, it's been like 5-6 years since I looked them over.

I'm gonna have to butt in and set some people straight about the NJO book series. First of all Vector Prime is a superb and gutsy book. Come on people, people die, lets face it Chewie had to, think about it - how hard is it to write for a character that doesn't have the ability to speak English. The whole point about reading a book is not knowing what's going to happen next and with characters dieing let right and centre gives the whole feeling nothing is safe anymore. The expanded universe novels were getting a bit stale and needed something new, granted i would have done things stightly different(to many jedi!!), but never the less makes thing a hell of a lot more interesting. As for the other books: Stackpoles two are great(Onslaught - Ruin), James Luceno's Hero's Trial is the best of the bunch, but his second isn't as good, Kathy Tyers Balance Point is pretty good but not as good as VP or HT. Then comes the two books from Greg Keyes(Conquest - Rebirth) which are superb because they do not take place on a grand scale, only a confined space(if you get my drift). Then comes Troy Denning's Star By Star, one of if not the longest of all Star Wars Novels(606 pages) and pretty good , but again to many jedi!! As for future novels Dark Journey, Rebel Lines 1-2 and others including one called Traitor we'll have to wait and see. Any way heres my top reads:
The Thrawn Trilogy
The Bounty Hunter Wars Trilogy
The Han Solo Trilogy
Hero's Trial
Vector Prime
Conquest
Oh yeah i nearly forgot.. BRING BACK FETT!!!!!!

Lances Top 10

10. I, Jedi

9. Courtship of Princess Leia

8. Hand of Thrawn Duology

7. Young Jedi Knights Series

6. Correlian Triology

5. Han Solo Adventures (not the Han Solo trilogy)

4. Star Wars Epiosde 1 TPM (it adds more to the story)

3. Truce at Bakura

2. Thrawn Trilogy

and the numero uno of my list

1. New Jedi Order

I made a top ten list before, but I think that if I made one up right now they'd be diff........
I like the YJK series....they're good, easy read, kiddie books, and they talk about the Solo twins

JJK is just ok....a bit young even for me....but nice if one wants to learn about Anakin Solo and Tahiri

NJO is absolutely awesome!!!!!!!! Though I can't say that I've enjoyed the endings of them all....I love the series. They hand picked some of scf fi's best authors to feed us more star wars....
VP- ok....nice start of...sad ending
Dark Tide I- II decent
Agents of Chaos I-II decent
Balance Point good focuses on Jacen Solo's inner struggle I enjoyed the fact that when it came to saving his mother... he used the force
Edge of Victory I-II very very good. Conquest focuses on Anakin and a bit on Tahiri.....interesting Rebirth adds a new member to the Star Wars cast: Ben Skywalker
SBS - great, nice and long sad dev but a chaotic story with some key events
DJ - very good. doesn't have much to do with the overall story, but interesting nonetheless......brings back Tenel Ka Lowbacca etc. Don't care for one or two dev, but I hope they'll be straightened out in Rebel Dream. Focuses on Jaina Solo and her walk on the Dark Side

Jedi Apprentice.....good books....short easy reads tells you all about young Obi Wan and his relationship to Qui Gon

I love books!

I just finished Dark Journey that was a pretty cool book although i havent read any of the other previous books with the yvongh. So im kinda clueless as to how the whole vong thing happened.

Well then you need to go find a copy of Vector Prime. It's the first in the series that will end up being 25 books long.

Do you really think they'll stick to the originally planned 25 books???? I thought they had cut the number down.....I hope I'm completely wrong, BTW.

The last I heard the were still doing the 25. I hope they would do more though.

I'll second that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1.shatterpoint 2.Darth Maul the shadowhunter. 3.weapon of doom. 4.Zahn trilogy. 5.splinter of the minds eye.

Just finished 'The Unifying Force' the final NJO book. It was pretty cool way to end things.

But the Thrawn Trilogy is still number 1 by a long way

I didn't get too far into Star Wars books, but I did get "Tales from Jabba's Palace", and also some of the comicbooks. I enjoyed "Tales", found the writing kept my attention.

The best one's the one with the story about the Stormtrooper who goes

"Look sir, droids!"

Isn't that like the only book in the entire EU about an Imperial?
Prove me wrong people!

Top Ten?
Okie dokie, I list my favourites, in the order I read them:
Star Wars: A New Hope Novelization
Splinter of the Mind's Eye (Now a "What if" story)
The Empire Strike's Back Nivelization
Return of the Jedi Nov.
The Han Solo Trilogy
The Thrawn Trilogy (Heir to the Empire, etc.)
After ^ I stopped for a few years.
Shadows of the Empire
Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina
Tales from Jabba's Palace
Tales of the Bounty Hunters
The Mandalorian Armour Trilogy (Um..bleh, Slave Ship, Hard MErhandse)
The other Han Solo Books
The Lando Books
Truce at Bakura
The Courtship of Princess Leia....etc.etc

I've been warned away from the NJO series and now refuse to read them.

X-WING SERIES ALL THE WAY!!!!!!!!!
Heir to the Empire and stuff is good, and I love the introduction of Mara into it all; she's become one of my favourite characters... although the whole Luke/Mara thing does get to me a bit. Does anyone else think that its just the slightest bit WRONG?

......if you've read the Xwing series (and enjoyed them) then I strongly suggest the NJO series.

But here's a new question NJO Vs Xwing which is best?

**mutters about no edit button

I don't mind the Luke/Mara thing though I would have much prefered Luke and Calista

for some reason....calista just urked me as a character.....I dunno...Mara's much cooler:-)
Tales from the New Republic was pretty good....

NJO definately...there were a few flops, but most of the 19 books were great

I can't get ahold of the Thrawn series anywhere! I looked all over! I finally ordered them off amazon.com but every place I went said they were really old. How old are they??