Lit Books to read before The New Jedi Order

Hi,
So I want to read the New Jedi Order series of novels (all 19, I'm in it for the long haul folks), but after listening to the opening chapters of the Vector Prime audio-book, there are already established characters from other EU stories (like Mara Jade and the children of Han and Leia). So what are the best books to read before the New Jedi order series.

I'm going to guess the Thrawn trilogy is a good starting place.

 

The Thrawn Trilogy is a perfect starting place. A great ending place is the Hand of Thrawn Duology, the last major series before the NJO starts. That's all you need to know most of the players and status quo for the galaxy. In between, though, I would recommend the X-wing books, followed by I, Jedi. They will introduce you to several more supporting characters who play a prominent role in the NJO, and are some of the EU's very best books. If you're interested in reading even more books than that, I can let you know of a few more that would be useful, but those will give you everything you absolutely need to know in a nutshell, and they're fantastic reads besides.

 

That's great, thanks. What more books could you recommend?

Havac

 

The Jedi Academy Trilogy is poorly written, but contains some very important events and introduces many significant characters. The only reason I left it off the first list is that I, Jedi covers much of the same events from a different perspective. If you want to know more about the Solo kids, there are young adult series that cover them, set right before the NJO. Young Jedi Knoghts for the twins, and Junior Jedi Knights for Anakin. They're not brilliant reads and there are a lot of them, so they're not a starting recommendation, but if you want the kids that's where you go. The Corellian Trilogy is a set of adult novels that feature the kids pretty strongly and also introduce characters and settings used in the NJO. The Courtship of Princess Leia also introduces elements that would go on to be used.

Additionally, I woukd recommend Rogue Planet, a prequel-era book that turns out to be very significant to the NJO.

 

Jump straight into NJO.

Don't fear that there are characters you haven't met and have had prior adventures, they have minimal effect on the story.

If anything, I suspect NJO would have worked better for me without having read the earlier stuff!

 

You could also read the comic Union, just because that is the story of Luke and Mara actually getting married.

 

Jedi Academy is still fun light reading.

But you should read The Thrawn Trilogy and Hand of Thrawn mostly.

I wish I could go back and read TTT for the first time again.

 

I've wanted to read the NJO for a long time now, but I'm trying to read pretty much everything for that. I've still got most of the X-wing series to read, and the Black Fleet Trilogy and the Correllian trilogy.

**The Callista Trilogy is almost a usless read, except a really cool scene with Dorsk 81 in Darksaber.

 

So, starting the NJO series soon? Good luck. It's one heck of a ride. One of the best series' in SW imo. It's an emotional gauntlet though. Emotionally draining but the ending is very satisfying imo.

The Callista trilogy will come in handy for the FOTJ series at least.

The Corellian trilogy deserves a look through. Characters and stuff that appear in the NJO series get their start here.

 

I wanna read the whole Bantam era of Star Wars so I'm starting the Calista Trilogy now. Not really looking forward to Planet though.

The Calista, Black Fleet, and Bounty Hunter trilogies plus Crystal Star are all I have left from that era

 

Planet of Twilight has its good points - mostly involving Leia though. She has her own "Dark Side cave" type of experience - and unlike Luke, she doesn't lash out. She passes the test Luke failed in TESB - though it's handled a little differently - not a "Vader coming at her" test.

And then there's the lightsaber duel.

Crystal Star also has a pretty interesting Leia, and gives us a first real look at the personalities of her children (whereas in Jedi Academy Trilogy there isn't as much difference between Jacen and Jaina).

And Black Fleet Crisis has an interesting political story, as well as a fun Lando subplot - (we don't often get to see Lando and Lobot interact the way we do here) and for once Chewie gets the spotlight (in the third book).

Bounty Hunter Wars is OK - if you like Boba and Dengar, at least. Xizor's also got a prominent role.

 

Well I just read Children of the Jedi in one sitting...

Was a combination of boring and strangely enthralling

 

Just because you keep soap in the pantry doesn't make it food.

 

Palpatine's seed.

 

It gets a high rating here:

http://hanleiafanficwriters.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/children-of-jedi-review.html

but that's more for the Han/Leia factor than the Luke factor.

 

Reading Darksaber now.

Essentially the entire Imperial chain of command:

Palpatine = Ronald Reagan
Admiral Thrawn = GWB
Bickering warlords = Every GOP 2016 candidate
Daala = Donald Trump

 

Children of the Jedi fascinates me. It's got some great character work, some very good ideas (a conspiracy surrounded Palpatine's supposed son, the bizarre dream world that is the Eye of Palpatine, the cool environment of Belsavis), but the ideas aren't executed in a very gripping way, and the languid, dreamlike way Hambly writes her stories allows for very interesting character moments but robs the story of any momentum and makes them feel just terminally boring. There are great details, fascinating bits to unpack, but the experience of reading the book is just a slog because the moments don't add up to a compelling story. It's close to being a Rogue Planet-style otherworldly character-study masterpiece, but it falls short because Hambly can't bridge that gap of making her ideas add up to an engrossing story.

 

THIS. BOTH OF THESE.

I just finished doing a re-read (for the first time since it came out when I was a kid) of this too. And this is... a great summation of my experience with this book. There were moments where I was like, "I'm loving this prose. Ooh, that's an interesting idea. I like how this character is written.", followed by pages and pages of...


I too am trying to go through and finish off the Bantams before doing a first time NJO read. I read like 70% of the Bantams when they first came out, but missed the final lap (X-Wing books and Hand of Thrawn) on first go, so I needed a refresh. I'm up to Darksaber now chronologically, with the exception of the Rogue Squadron books, which I've chosen to read along with the Rogue Podron podcast, because it's fun.

 

I hadn't heard of this podcast and I've never read a book along with something like this. Perhaps it's time to revisit this series ...

 

Mid-way through the Bantam Era, I'm half way into The Crystal Star.

On one hand I think we are getting some of the worst SWEU (Children of the Jedi, Planet of Twilight, The Crystal Star). But! On the other hand, I think it's incredibly interesting because of the fact that these are some of the very first EU novels written. This was before the EU was really established and the Prequels showed how the Jedi Order operated. So this really helped Luke's search for the old ways. His ideas were similar but quite far from the exact ideas the Jedi Order had. I think while reading it, because the authors didn't know these things either, Luke's search is really quite good.

 

That sounds like a podcast I need to check out!

 

I wince when I think back to reading Planet of Twilight ... but I like your positive spin! It'd be even more fascinating to read those novels after the prequels and TCW have crystallized our image of the Jedi Order.

 

Finished my digital copy of Planet of Twilight.

Wow... once again, great ideas marred by just sheer boredom. Especially coming off of Darksaber, if KJA lacks in prose he really can write a snappy scene and make an overall entertaining book.

Everything about Nom Chorios is great in concept, and I loved the more bizarre Dark Tower/Mid World feel of it, but... I literally had no idea what was going on in the Droid and Han subplots because I couldn't keep my focus for more then a few seconds.

Probably the worst SW novel I've read so far... still has its entertaining values. Anyway, onto Crystal Star

 

Hahaha I couldn't agree more. Planet of Twilight really makes you appreciate Darksaber. I just finished The Crystal Star. I think all around it was better than POT, but I'm interested to see what you think.