Help me give the order of EU Novels to be read.

Lonestar · Post by **Lonestar** » 2003-07-27 07:31pm

There's a buddy of mine who's starting to read the SW novels, his goal is to read damn near all of them. So much he bought a bunch of them from amazon.com. ( I shuddered when I noticed he picked up Children of the Jedi).

Apperently, he intended to read them in chronological order. I'm of the opinion he should be reading the Thrawn Trilogy first, since that's a cental point of the EU. What can I do to convince him of this?

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2003-07-27 07:38pm

Read him exerpts from The Approaching Storm. He'll think twice.

Lonestar · Post by **Lonestar** » 2003-07-27 07:41pm

Hmm...true, true.

Darth Garden Gnome · Post by **Darth Garden Gnome** » 2003-07-27 07:45pm

If he wants to read it in chronological order from the very beggining--including the atrocious Jedi Quest books--I would just give him a mercy killing right then. Spare him the horrors.

I would suggest he start chronologically from the post-ROTJ era myself. Truce at Bakura, Alston/Stackpole X-Wing novels, then CoPL ( be warned, this one really sucks ass), Thrawn trilogy, Dark Empire, skip anything by KJA...skip BFC trilogy, skip anything except the Hand of Thrawn, and then we're up to the NJO. Start off at SBS, skip Dark Journey, read the rest and I think he'd be set.

Brother-Captain Gaius · Post by **Brother-Captain Gaius** » 2003-07-27 07:57pm

Darth Garden Gnome wrote:If he wants to read it in chronological order from the very beggining--including the atrocious Jedi Quest books--I would just give him a mercy killing right then. Spare him the horrors.

I would suggest he start chronologically from the post-ROTJ era myself. Truce at Bakura, Alston/Stackpole X-Wing novels, then CoPL ( be warned, this one really sucks ass), Thrawn trilogy, Dark Empire, skip anything by KJA...skip BFC trilogy, skip anything except the Hand of Thrawn, and then we're up to the NJO. Start off at SBS, skip Dark Journey, read the rest and I think he'd be set.

If he wants to read them in chronological order methinks its because he wants to read about all the events outside of the movies. Skipping that many books, however sucky some of them may be, is not a good idea. I didn't read Vector Prime and I was confused as all fuck for several books.

Darth Garden Gnome · Post by **Darth Garden Gnome** » 2003-07-27 08:01pm

JediNeophyte wrote:

If he wants to read them in chronological order methinks its because he wants to read about all the events outside of the movies. Skipping that many books, however sucky some of them may be, is not a good idea. I didn't read Vector Prime and I was confused as all fuck for several books.

Bleh, that's what I did (for the most part) and I turned out OK. Sure, was a tad confusing, but with a little help from the Essential Guides (they're your friend!) I was able to catch up quickly.

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2003-07-27 08:24pm

The Essential Chronology, from what I've heard, is good if you want to skip all the kiddie shit.

Solauren · Post by **Solauren** » 2003-07-27 09:14pm

Point him to http://www.theforce.net/TimeTales/

That will save alot of the painful reading

Lord Pounder · Post by **Lord Pounder** » 2003-07-28 03:01pm

Solauren wrote:Point him to http://www.theforce.net/TimeTales/

That will save alot of the painful reading

http://www.theforce.net/TimeTales/ wrote:Document not found
The requested document /TimeTales/ was not found on this server. This could be for a variety of reasons, including:
You followed a broken or out-of-date link.
You entered the URL incorrectly.
The file no longer exists.
If you followed a broken link, please inform the owner of the referring document.
If you have any queries about this error, please e-mail sysadmin@snowball.com.
Document: /TimeTales/ | Remote host: 62.254.32.4 | Server time: Monday, 28-Jul-03 12:00:19 PDT

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2003-07-29 05:01am

I liked CoPL. Its my favorite stand-alone to read when I'm feeling down. That, or any of the X-Wing books. Sorry, but any planet full of Rancors and force-witches is at least entertaining.

Stay away from Children and Twilight, and you'll be fine. I've read most of the books 2 or 3 times, but I've only read "Twilight" once.

Darth Garden Gnome · Post by **Darth Garden Gnome** » 2003-07-29 05:03am

CaptainChewbacca wrote:I liked CoPL. Its my favorite stand-alone to read when I'm feeling down. That, or any of the X-Wing books. Sorry, but any planet full of Rancors and force-witches is at least entertaining.

Perhaps the story is entertaining (although I might debate that) but our heroes were written horribly out of character by Mr. Wolverton. Change a few names around, and you wouldn't even recognize its Han or Luke talking.

Darth Fanboy · Post by **Darth Fanboy** » 2003-07-29 05:07am

If he wants chronological he could take a look at some of the later EU novels produced, they usually have timelines in the first few pages.

Equinox2003 · Post by **Equinox2003** » 2003-07-29 05:11am

Where in all this would the Jedi Academy books fit in? I do not know
who wrote them. Would anybody recommend those?

Darth Garden Gnome · Post by **Darth Garden Gnome** » 2003-07-29 05:14am

Equinox2003 wrote:Where in all this would the Jedi Academy books fit in? I do not know
who wrote them. Would anybody recommend those?

Depends, do you like your that gray matter in your noggin totally incinerated, or just horribly disfigured and scarred for life?

Stay away from the Kevin J. Anderson written JA Trilogy; not just for your health, but for your IQ.

Equinox2003 · Post by **Equinox2003** » 2003-07-29 05:34am

Wow...seems like there was not even one redeeming factor...
I will most certainly pass on the JA series.

Darth Fanboy · Post by **Darth Fanboy** » 2003-07-29 05:38am

jedi Academy Royally Sucked, but chronology wise it (along with I Jedi) would fit in almost right after "Empire's End" and the Dark Empire Trilogy.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2003-07-29 12:48pm

If he wants to read the series in order but doesn't want to read everything, he should read the works by the three core authors.

First he should read the first four X-Wing books by Stackpole. Then he should read the next three X-Wing books by Allston. Next he should read the Thrawn Trilogy followed by the 8th X-Wing book by Stackpole. Then he should read I, Jedi, next he should read the 9th X-Wing book by Allston. To finish up the standard EU he should read the HOT Duology. This gives him a good grounding in the entire EU by its three main writers. In all thats 15 books.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2003-07-29 04:42pm

Equinox2003 wrote:Where in all this would the Jedi Academy books fit in? I do not know
who wrote them. Would anybody recommend those?

They'd make fine toilet paper. Just watch out for paper cuts.

Soontir C'boath · Post by **Soontir C'boath** » 2003-07-29 07:10pm

You'd need to be a 10 year old kid to read the JA books and live through it.

~Jason

YT300000 · Post by **YT300000** » 2003-07-29 08:42pm

Soontir wrote:You'd need to be a 10 year old kid to read the JA books and live through it. ~Jason

Then why are most of us alive?