Lit GENERAL QUESTION THREAD (What to read? Where to start? What's canon? What's not? Duros, etc.)

No, it just starts Jacen down the path to becoming a Sith and is pretty much a reset button for the state of the galaxy at the end of the NJO. Hence, why many people, such as myself, stop with the end of the NJO, The Unifying Force (TUF).

 

I figured the end of every trilogy/series would have its own issues resolved, not push you into a new series/trilogy, I guess that isn't true in the Star War EU. Not just with DNT, but with any Trilogy/Series in EU, some just have unresolved issues?

 

NJO builds up jacen, Dark nest, LOTF follows his turn to darkside, FOTJ follows the "why did he do it"

 

In the Bantam era, authors were more or less free to pick any era they wanted for their stories, which means they generally wrapped up their own storylines within that story. Some books like The Last Command left a dangling plot thread (Borsk's fear about Mount Tantiss' secrets) that Zahn knew he would pick up in the HoT duology, but that's about it. Once Del Rey took over, the plots became more streamlined between different authors.

 

There are so many plot lines from DNT/LOTF/FOTJ that aren't picked up. Its not even funny. It appalling how many there are.

 

Sorry, to clarify - I have already read most of the 'seminal' books in the Star Wars EU, so I've read the Zahn books and all of NJO and I read Jedi Academy trilogy once and I wanted my brain bleached. This was me mostly asking if there was anything in my abridged reading of the Star Wars EU that I'd missed that has really great Leia stuff in it.

I suppose I'm more interested in a character study. I've always wanted to know what Leia's life was like before ANH - failing that, the relationship between Leia and Vader. So far my headcanon has always been something like FernWithy's Father's Heart which is over in the TFN fanfic archive.

 

Heh, I must have missed your signature. "Read the NJO" indeed!

 

Comics may be your best bet for immediate precursor to A New Hope.

 

There isn't a whole lot of pre-ANH Leia material. There's The Force Unleashed, in which she plays a minor role, and she is also mentioned in Rebel Dawn. I don't recall her appearing in any other novels taking place in that time period. There are a lot of comics, however.

 

Okay, I just picked up Star Wars Scoundrels. I read through part of it and stopped at chapter 11, but I had to return it to the library, 7 day book and then life got in the way so I didn't have time to renew it or read on. This was back in July, now I've got a second chance to read it, I plan on picking up where I left off after I finish Shatterpoint and it is now a 3 week book. Problem is, I forget a lot of what happened as well as a few names what people do. The start of chapter 11 is approximately 40% of the way through the book. Would anyone be able to summarize what happened, including names and what the people do? Who's who in the Black Sun, etc?
And if your summarization goes further than what I read, don't worry about it, I understand that I may receive spoilers for asking. You may end up summarizing it up to chapter 13, but don't worry, because unless you are gifted you wouldn't be able to remember what went on chapter by chapter and stop your summarization at exactly the start of chapter 11. Plus I see it that if you go a little over my stopping point, I'm not far from it. Just don't summarize it to 80% of the book when I'm at the 40% point.
If anyone can provide me with a recap, that would be great, even if you go a little past what I read. And if this isn't the place for spoilers, message me a short recap.
And if I don't receive an answer, I wouldn't be too disappointed as I know what I'm asking for might be a little much.

 

Just wait another 3 days and you can get the paperback for 7-8$ and just reread the parts in your own time.

 

Restarting is not an option for me, unless I want to reread the books. Because right now there are about 50-60 other Star Wars Books I want to get through and if I read at a speed of 1 per day, that would take past New Years. And a speed of 1 per day would be an ultra fast pace for me.

 

Is there any other IU content in the SWK magazines other than the now-omnibussed comic strips to warrant tracking down all 20 issues?

 

I'm stuck on Star by Star....It has taken me a few months of casual reading just to get to about halfway through this book, and it isn't because I am a slow reader! Since I have opened this book, I have lost interest so many times that I have read Scoundrels, The Last Jedi, Kenobi, Choices of One, and Lost Tribe of the Sith, and now I am back trying again to plod through this giant of a crappy book! Well, giant as far as SW novels go anyway. Has anyone else had this problem? I would really like to get through it, but if all that is going to happen is just more description of how bad the young Jedi continue to get their ass kicked, then I'm probably not going to keep reading. The whole infiltration team thing is exhausting and there is seemingly no end in sight for this plot line even with the (spoiler, sorry) death of the leader of the team. If the only thing that this novel has going for it is the loss of a pivotal character then I'm out. They pulled that trick on me in the first book, and while that was shocking, and at first interesting and new for SW, 9 novels in, it's more like a sales ploy to sell paper. Please someone tell me if either this book gets better or if I can go ahead and burn and then piss on it.

 

Well, that seems a bit extreme.
However...
I can't say I particularly liked it, nor that (one special scene excepted) it got better towards the end. But then, I think the NJO is basically a morass of missed opportunities. The

Spoiler: Allston NJO Spoiler

Rebellion against the Rebellion idea,

for example, could have been really good, had they done anything with it. But no.
The scene I liked is more likely to be unspoiled for those who haven't read the story (than the hero's ending which everyone knows), and comes near the end.
In tags...

Spoiler

the death of Fey'Lya, being the one time I ever cared about the character.

 

I found getting through Star by Star a real trial. But once it was finished, it was pretty much all uphill from there.

 

Well, I found Star By Star to be an ambiguous novel.

On one hand, it depicts the darkest moment of the Vong war, and we're (finally) shown a real struggle of the galaxy against the enemy of incredible strength. From that moment the stupid detractions that were invented to make the good guys lose - stupid governments, indecisive Jedi Order, etc. - are (mostly) done for, and the good guys are finally strong, but are now in a genuine war against even stronger opponent. This gives oppotunity for the best part of the NJO to shine later on - Traitor, Enemy Lines, Destiny's Way.

However, the whole idea of a jedi youngling strike team was flawed from the start. It killed or otherwise destroyed like half of the new Jedi generation, meanwhile accomplishing almost nothing significant. (Let's send the future hope of the Jedi Order to death in order to... save Jedi from dying. Does this really make sense to you, Luke?). I realise that this all was done to give someone a proper heroic death, which has been ordered by Lucas himself, so the authors had no control over that. But still, I think it could've been done more elegantly.
Also in this novel we see the beginning of Denning's love for killing and gore, which became more and more influential in his later works.

 

Wasn't actually Lucas, if I recall. I think Leeland Chee cleared that up a bit, didn't he?

 

Heck, I think I'm one of the few that enjoyed Star by Star.

 

I love Star By Star as well. Nom Anor FTW!

 

Don't think so, Star by Star is quite popular. As far as I remember, in the Lit review rankings thread it was up there with the other top NJO novels.

 

Ah don't worry, I also liked it.

 

Okay, as soon as I finish a few books, I'll want to get to to the NJO eventually. I'm starting to read a few books after Return of the Jedi. Is there anything that can be skipped over between the two sets without missing a lot? The children's books JJK and YJK? Certain trilogies or single books?

 

Thank you all.
I feel much better now.

 

To clarify, not in a hurry, I just didn't know if any book between Return of the Jedi and New Jedi Order Series was considered horrible, besides Crystal Star, which I already read anyway. If they are all good, I'd take my time getting to it.