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Until recently I didn't know about the whole EU thing and how it was considered canon and from what I can gather it's pretty massive; also from the fact that in some threads I was reading some stuff that I had no idea what was being talked about. My question is, what's the best way to start reading some of this, or is there no real starting point and I should just pick one?

You might not even want to start- some people really hate it.

If I were you I'd start with novels close to the time of the films. Labyrinth of Evil and Dark Lord are both good, as they're a prequel and sequel to RotS, respectively.

You also can't go wrong with Timothy Zahn's books- Heir to the Empire was the first "real" EU book and a lot of people like his first book trilogy as the "gold standard" of EU.

Thanks, I'll see what I can find

Brian Daley's Han Solo trilogy, the first bit of EU I read and it remains my favorite

Han Solo at Star's End

Han Solo's Revenge

Han Solo and the Lost Legacy

If you just want to keep up debate-wise, I wouldn't waste time reading the hundreds of terrible pulp novels they stamp with the Star Wars brand. There are plenty of reference/synopsis sites on the internet - this allows you to research and be informed without giving terrible authors any money. If you find a good reference site, your eyes will bleed from the stupid, but it's a lot of fun to read just how crap it can be.

I concur with Vympel

Zahns bocks are certainly the best EU books, followed closely by James Luceno novels...

I can actually live quite well with most of the EU(I think I read it all), safe for the books of Kevin J. Anderson, and the Young Jedi Knights series...
these are possibly the worst novels I ever read

EnterpriseSovereign wrote:Until recently I didn't know about the whole EU thing and how it was considered canon and from what I can gather it's pretty massive; also from the fact that in some threads I was reading some stuff that I had no idea what was being talked about. My question is, what's the best way to start reading some of this, or is there no real starting point and I should just pick one?

Pick up: any novel written by Timothy Zahn. At last count I believe that's eight books; the first (and best, ever) Heir to the Empire trilogy, the follow-up Hand of Thrawn duology, and three stand alones that came out during the prequels (Survivor's Quest, set many years after ROTJ, Outbound Flight, set during the Clone Wars and in between AOTC and ROTS, and the latest one which is set between ANH and ESB)

I haven't read anything else by Matthew Stover but the ROTS novelisation. Out of all the Star Wars movie novels, I liked ROTS the most. Others have recommended to pick up James Luceno as well.

Avoid: anything with Kevin J. Anderson on the cover. Maybe anything by Michael Stackpole as well, but he's not as bad. Some people are boycotting Karen Traviss as well, but she's released two PT era novels about Clone Commandos, and though I haven't read them I have to admit a novel without any major character from the films certainly sounds appealing (and from memory, it's her online antics that have caused a stir here and elsewhere, not anything in those two novels - if I'm wrong then someone will no doubt correct me).

Aaron Allston is also a decent author for the EU.

Thanks guys, which are the best sites for reference, since I may not know the decent ones from the ones with stuff plucked from thin air.

Rodger McBride-Allen's Corellia-trilogy is a good read as is (in parts) the BlackFleet-Crisis by P.Kube-McDowell.

Avoid almost everything in the New Republic era like the plague. Specifically everything that occurs chronologically between the Wraith Squadron trilogy and the Hand of Thrawn duology (though I haven't read the Corellian trilogy, so I'm just being safe here). That scratchs off most of the really terrible books right there.

And be warned of NJO. Some people like it, some people hate it. You might be either.

I concur with what the previous posters have said.

I'd say go with books set in the Clone Wars first, but I may be biased because I like the Clone Wars era a lot. When it comes to novels, comics and games, I personally prefer EU set in the period between Episodes II and III. Shatterpoint, Labyrinth of Evil, Dark Lord and the MedStar duology are books I can personally vouch for.

Also, even if you aren't planning to read all six movie novelizations, pick up the Episode III book, if you can.. it adds a lot of depth to the story. This is often said: but James Luceno's Labyrinth of Evil, Revenge of the Sith novelization and Dark Lord: Rise of Darth Vader form a mini-trilogy of their own. Taking them in order makes for a satisfying read.


I can't say much for post-RotJ EU. I read the Thrawn trilogy (The Last Command trilogy) way back when, and I liked it. That much I can say.

In addition to what's been said, I'd add Republic Commando: Hard Contact to the list of decent reads. The author is a rather nasty person, and has done her best to subvert the established universe elsewhere, but her inital offering was a good read, and quite different from the normal Jedi-centric novels. I can't say anything about the sequel, though, as I refuse to read it.

Aside from that, my personal favorites are:

Shatterpoint
The Medstar Duology
ROTS Novelization
Dark Lord
The Thrawn trilogy
The Thrawn Duology

I also enjoyed a good portion of the New Jedi Order, even if many didn't like it. Nonetheless, if you want to try it, but are short on time, I suggest:

Vector Prime (not a particularly good one, but it is the starting point; you could pick up a plot synopsis and not lose much)
Star by Star
Rebel Dream
Rebel Stand
Traitor
Force Heretic 1
The Unifying Force

Noble Ire added an extremely good book i forgot to add: Republic Commando duology... both are really worth a read, although personne actually like the author

I also agree that the NJO was quite good and I want to add Force Heretic 3 and The Final Prophecy to his list...

Furthermore, you should check amazon.com as well... the reviews there are pretty decent for the most part

Now, Hard Contact is good, but I'm a bit ambivalent about Triple Zero. Whereas the first shows an isolated pod of clone commandos having their own unique brotherhood and mini-traditions, the latter has the entire fucking Grand Army singing fucking Mandowank songs and doing backslapping dances and garbage like that.

While it doesn't contradict other sources (it's possible that the clone troopers do their song and dance and use weird mando words when the out-of-universe camera isn't watching), it does contradict the feel of how clone troopers are portrayed everywhere else.
Notice how Delta Squad in the computer/console game Republic Commando doesn't use mandowank song, dance and terminology, either? Clearly the whole load of Mando crap comes from just the author of those two books. She shouldn't have put Delta Squad in her books, either. Their characterizations are nothing like in the game. Shouldn't have touched.. nay, desecrated them.

So yeah, that whole Mando'a shit really grates on me, and so does the three million clone b.s. Now, I tried skipping over it and ignoring that stuff so I could enjoy the rest, but there it popped up on just about every page. I couldn't stomach Triple Zero.

Are you seriously recommending a Karen Traviss novel? Karen "rip out their tracheas" Traviss?

While we're on the subject of bad EU authors: Vonda McIntrye. Crystal Star and Children of the Jedi were some of the most mind-boggling drek that even I, when I was a rabid SW-loser fanboy, found difficult reading...

RedImperator wrote:Are you seriously recommending a Karen Traviss novel? Karen "rip out their tracheas" Traviss?

Her nuttery doesn't really show up in the first book; I don't see why the novel should be abandoned for the later idiocy of it's creator. Of course, I can understand refusing to buy the book on the principle of not funding her, but I can't see a problem with simply reading it (borrowing or getting it from a library).

I'd always thought that Shadows of the Empire was the first step into reading the EU.

While I agree that the Thrawn trilogy is a good start, you could also start in the other end and read the novels according to the timeline, starting with Cloak of Deception by James Luceno (or the e-book Darth Maul: Saboteur, also by Luceno). However, this approach can prove to be a bit messier.

Cykeisme wrote:Now, Hard Contact is good, but I'm a bit ambivalent about Triple Zero. Whereas the first shows an isolated pod of clone commandos having their own unique brotherhood and mini-traditions, the latter has the entire fucking Grand Army singing fucking Mandowank songs and doing backslapping dances and garbage like that.

While it doesn't contradict other sources (it's possible that the clone troopers do their song and dance and use weird mando words when the out-of-universe camera isn't watching), it does contradict the feel of how clone troopers are portrayed everywhere else.
Notice how Delta Squad in the computer/console game Republic Commando doesn't use mandowank song, dance and terminology, either? Clearly the whole load of Mando crap comes from just the author of those two books. She shouldn't have put Delta Squad in her books, either. Their characterizations are nothing like in the game. Shouldn't have touched.. nay, desecrated them.

So yeah, that whole Mando'a shit really grates on me, and so does the three million clone b.s. Now, I tried skipping over it and ignoring that stuff so I could enjoy the rest, but there it popped up on just about every page. I couldn't stomach Triple Zero.

Sorry for going off, but every time I see this I have a hard time to decide whether to laugh or cry:

Insider #84 wrote:There is no greater authority on the clone forces of the Republic than authors Karen Traviss and Ryan Kaufman.

[rant] The fact that they forgot about George Lucas aside, they actually called Traviss (and Kaufman) the "great[est] authority". Yeah, a person who hates reading and haven't read a single Star Wars novel and who writes an article whose contents is contradicted by the novelization and the movies. No, regardless of what Traviss or any editor at Licensing says, I won't accept that the clones sings Mando'a crap and uses Mando'a etc.[/rant]

Children of the Jedi is from Barbara Hambley, not Vonda N.McIntire. Changes nothing, that they're additions to the SW-verse are horrible (their ST-novels are a lot better).


Yoda:DarkRendevous by Sean Stewart is also a good read.

Everyone whines about how "horrible" Kevin J. Anderson's work is, but I honestly didn't mind him one bit. His Jedi Academy trilogy was fun, and Darksaber was the only bright spot in the otherwise terrible Children of the Jedi trilogy, which had the opening and closing books done by Barbara Hambly.

As for a reference site, I heartily recommend Wookieepedia. It will fulfill all of your Star Wars reference needs, and is constantly being updated and improved.

FTeik wrote:Children of the Jedi is from Barbara Hambley, not Vonda N.McIntire. Changes nothing, that they're additions to the SW-verse are horrible (their ST-novels are a lot better).

I wasn't aware that Hambly wrote any ST novels.

Again, I concur with what most people said, about Zahn and Luceno being the best. Stover is a very good author, but Shatterpoint was not his strongest work. Traitor and the ROTS novelization are excellent, though.

Rodger McBride-Allen's Corellia-trilogy is a good read as is (in parts) the BlackFleet-Crisis by P.Kube-McDowell.

It's extremely minimalistic, though. However, if you intend to follow the most recent EU (the LOTF series) Corellia plays a big role, as does Han's cousin, Thrackan Sal-Solo, so you might want to read it just for that reason.

The Clone Wars era novels confuse me greatly... somehow, the authors took exciting stories and turned them into boring books. The only exceptions are the Medstar duology, and Labyrinth of Evil. Dark Rendezvous was interesting at times, but didn't really grab you.

If I was starting in the EU, I'd just read books in chronological order, starting with Cloak of Deception. (If you don't want to read the children's Jedi Apprentice series.) And have the Chronology on hand to get through the worse parts. Unfortunately the Chronology ends with Dark Nest: The Joiner King, so you'll have to rely on the internet to get summaries of what happened in the Dark Nest trilogy. And you don't want to read it. Trust me.

Maybe the EU quality will get somewhat better than it has been over the past few years because, with the release of ROTS, there now can be more intertrilogy stuff, and the authors can't recycle plot points in that era as easily as they could post-ROTJ.

GSF

For the technical stuff.
It is quite good.

To be fair, we do see a bit about Clone Training that involves certain kinds of dance to teach attack rhythms and the like in The Cestus Deception, one of the Clone Wars novels. However, it certainly isn't "Mandowank."