Lit Should new EU readers still bother with the "Legends" continuity?

And the new foreword, don't forget that! That's worth at least $5 right there.

 

I'm relatively new to the EU and very new to this forum, and here's my first post.

Around the same time that it was announced that Disney had bought Lucasfilms, I happened across a huge lot of EU novels at a yard sale. Always wanting to read the EU but never getting into it, I took the plunge. That one haul - about 30 hardcovers in great condition for about a buck apiece, plus a few dozen paperbacks for practically nothing, plus a few trips to the used bookstore and I found myself the proud owner of the vast majority of all novels published to date, with a few exceptions. I decided I was going to read the whole damn thing in publication order, so I started with the novelizations of the films, Splinter of the Minds Eye and the original Han Solo novels. I started to read the Lando adventures but I didn't get very far into it before I put it down because it was boring me to death and Thrawn was calling my name.

So I recently finished the Thrawn trilogy and right around that same time this whole canon/non-canon debacle began. I found myself sitting on all these books not knowing what I should read next. So I come to the Jedi Council for advice. Now that pretty much my entire collection has been "uncanonized", should I still stick to my plan to read everything in order of publication? I started Truce at Bakura but I'm only about 100 pages into it and so far could take it or leave it. Then there's the Jedi Academy trilogy, the rest of the stand-alone novels, X-wing books, its almost overwhelming. While I know I could read books that take place in any era, its the post-Empire era that interests me the most. Reading about how Luke Skywalker struggles to become a Jedi Master without having finished his training, how his relationship with Mara Jade develops, how the new Jedi Order is established, all that stuff is what I'm most interested in, and its also the material that is most likely going to be excluded from "Legends" because it would be the material that would potentially contradict whatever plot the upcoming films are going to have.

I found myself slightly annoyed, after just finishing the Thrawn trilogy, that the next book to come out takes place 5 years earlier, so Luke hadn't yet met Mara, Han and Leia weren't married yet, it was jarring. So I was about to skip Bakura and Courtship and those early books and go on to the Jedi Academy series, except in the first few pages of Jedi Search the author alludes to a clone of the Emperor, which seemed pretty significant so I decided to put it down and went back to Truce At Bakura since that was the only novel to have been published prior to Jedi Search that I hadn't already read. But going by the plotline so far, it doesn't seem to have anything to do with a clone of Palpatine, just some random lizard aliens that are wreaking havoc in the outer rim and the rebels go to help them out because the Empire was in shambles. Did Kevin J Anderson just make that up off the top of his head or was it based on something in the Dark Horse comics? I haven't read the comics and probably won't.

So, long story short (maybe too late for that, sorry) what would you guys recommend I read from the "heretical" EU, and what should I skip? Or should I just abandon it altogether, start reading "A New Dawn" (which is not a hoax, I bought it the other day), watch the new Disney channel cartoon series, and wait for the next "canonical" SW novel to come out? I'm sure there's some really great stories that I'd be missing out on, but I know I'm gonna be pissed when the movies come out and storylines that I've read are completely contradicted. And by the way, is there a list of which EU novels are being preserved as "Legends"? Because that could help me decide what to read from what I already own. Not to mention which first editions might be worth a little something once they're republished as "Legends"... So what does the Jedi Council recommend I read?

 

It was a comic arc:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Dark_Empire

I'd say the Legendsverse is worth reading for itself.

Between Truce at Bakura and TTT, the X-Wing series is probably of most interest.

 

Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor

 

I figured that one was new enough it might not crop up in yard sales. Still, it's very good as well.

 

And if he is doing it publication order wise that one won't be read for ages. Still had to throw that one out though.

 

...and of course Mindor, along with Shatterpoint and a few others from that time period, are some of the only gaps in my collection

 

yeah Mindor, and the njo series