Lit The Most Important Bits of the EU

That would be amazing. Out of all the books I have read I believe outbound flight was the most well rounded. I loved everything about it.

 

Survivor's Quest. That was another favorite of mine.

 

Zahn is a good writer, what can we say?

 

1. The Golden Age of the Sith
2. The Fall of the Sith Empire
3. KotOR
4. KotOR 2
5. Revan
6. SWTOR
7. Bane Trilogy
8. Plagueis
9. Hard Contact
10. Shatterpoint
11. Medstar I and II
12. Few TCW episodes (like Mortis)
13. Labirynth of Evil
14. The Force Unleashed
15. Shadows of the Empire
16. Thrawn Trilogy
17. New Jedi Order (most important: Vector Prime, Star by Star, Traitor, Unifying Force)
18. Legacy of the Foce
19. Fate of the Jedi

This is my EU - most important things. I threw out all bad things (like ****** Legacy), old post-RotJ books and other less important things. It's my must-see to understand what SW and EU is.

BTW I don't understand why you guys forgot about The Golden Age of the Sith and The Fall of the Sith Empire - I think those GREAT comic books are essential to understand this universe and later works like Fate of the Jedi and The Old Republic. Everything that goes [TGAotS and TFotSE --> KotOR I and II --> Revan --> The Old Republic --> Bane Trilogy --> Plagueis --> MOVIES] is essential to better understand Star Wars Saga...

 

Matter of opinion but I fall under the Support Zahn Camp. Why do you like Zahn if I might ask? I like the feel of his books. They feel the closest to the movies. The original Thrawn trilogy has similarities to the movies but are different. Karrde is like Han, Luke and Mara rescue Karrde from a Star Destroyer, I like Thrawn etc. I also like the fact that his books open on a Star Destroyer and whatever it is in Outbound Flight.

 

That's pretty much how I feel about the Zahn books- that said, I've enjoyed most of the SW books I've read, on some level.

 

add maybe Jedi Apprentice and Jedi Quest because they both depict Obi-wan Kenobi's apprenticeship in the former and Anakin's in the latter which explains how he went from a little boy to such a whiny person.

 

I totally agree about zahn. His books feel to me most like the movies. So many storyline and it pops from one to the other seamlessly. Especially in Outbound Flight. That book was so complex and had so many stories going on, but not once was I like okay wtf... It was just super clever from start to finish.

 

Zahn's characters just like Stackpole's and Alston's feel as though they belong in the Star Wars Universe. He was one of the first writers. He knows how to create a character. Rather than make another human admiral, he creates the Chiss and on top of that, he makes the guy a genius. He creates the Noghiri. It isn't this is what they look like... It is this is their culture, their names have unpronounceable ahck sounds in them like meechkam and such... Same goes for the chiss. Anytime he is creating something, he spends time explaining it without making it sound like a trading card. Name: Mithraw'nodo"Thrawn" Species: Chiss Profession: Military Genius...

 

In other words, Zahn does what the post-NJO has completely failed to do, world building.

 

Exactly, you do not need an essential guide to species or characters or planets to figure out what is going on. It is simply the Star Wars you know from the films plus his additions

 

Zahn made me care for the Characters, new aliens and world etc. I still feel that for the characters and other things post NJO but nowhere near as much.

 

*SPOILERS FOR POST RotJ Books Ahead* (for you JediRob)
I think it was slowly lost the farther we got from the films... You have Stackpole and Alston creating entire squadrons where we are upset when a single pilot dies, yet rooting for the Imperial of the week to go down. Zahn the same way, you have Mara, Talon, Thrawn, the Noghiri, Joruus Cbaoth, and more. He wrote them to feel like they fit in. They all had back stories. Even Kevin J Anderson introduces us to new Jedi that aren't Mara, Corran, or Kyp and makes us like them.
Del Rey takes over, NJO introduces characters. However anytime a character becomes well thought out they kill them off. Anakin Solo becomes "the next leader of the Jedi" gets the kill order from Lucas. Ganner Rhysode has a heroes journey from self absorbed narcissist to selfless Jedi knight. Killed. Jacen fills in for Anakin as the new hero. Falls to the dark side and killed. Mara... ditto. Bazel Warv... ditto. I was actually nervous for Valin (one of my favorites) because he was becoming too well thought out to live.

Now when we get introduced to a character it is, this is Vaala Raazelle, she is an arcona Jedi who guards a door. I don't expect them to break down and give me their life story, but at least give me some more "meat".

I think the reason for the lack of development is the rotating authors. Granted they can come out faster that way, but what if... you gave Denning a book with Tekli Raynar Tesar and Lowie, and said have them go on a mission, no killiks. Then let Alston do his Jedi creations Valin, Doran, Jysella, Kolir, and crew... While Golden does Jaina and Jag. Kemp writes Jaden Korr. Maybe let Zahn write a Ben book, (I know Mara isn't around, but maybe Ben has to work with Karde, who reminds him of Mara more than Luke). And not just Kolir is a quippy Bothan Jedi, but more her motivations and important life events, ect...

Why do I suggest this? Because Denning can write those characters, but when he writes the Horns, they come off as teens like Ben when they are in their late 20s early 30s

 

Though Zahn isn't my absolute favorite EU writer, him and Stackpole definitely can take credit to a huge amount of the world building post-ROTJ. Unlike almost every other SW author, they truly emphasize the "expand" part of the EU. My two favorites (Stover and Luceno) specialize more in taking what they're given and making it awesome, and in Luceno's case connecting it with everything else.

I really enjoyed the smack talk, since it was a deliberate attempt to anger Kar Vastor, get him to lower his guard in the future. Calculated anger, really. Shatterpoint was a breath of fresh air for me, since I read it fairly late, and was glad to see a Jedi not being characterized as a cardboard cut out (you'll start to notice a very typical Jedi characterization as you read more EU from that era). Even from what we see in the movies, Mace comes off as a confrontational person, to me at least.

I do think Stover nails the "Jedi" characterization, though, with Obi-Wan in Revenge of the Sith.

 

Zahn, Stackpole, Allston, Anderson and the rest of the Bantam era writers made the Universe fun, exciting and expanded it. They made us care for pretty much everything they brought in. That's what I look forward too. Do I enjoy it? Is it cheesy etc.
The NJO wasn't as fun as the Bantam era but they gave us new exciting good guys and bad guys. They gave them wonderful character arcs. The NJO was billed as a new era and it was. The NJO was fresh and exciting with how different it was. No one was safe and you felt that. Did I hate it when I first read it? Absolutely. The death in Vector Prime got to me but I used it as a learning moment. I got over that and read the series to its conclusion. I never stopped believing that they could get this. I read the rest of the series because I wanted to see how the good guys won! There was hope!
Now the Post-NJO books, I still care about the characters and all but there is no hope! How can they wrap up the Big 3's storyline successfully and make it a happy ending? As far as I can tell, they can't. They needed to go back to the old Bantam era days of fun and exciting. Okay that might get old real quick so a mix of Bantam and NJO would be perfect. Not NJO increased like it is now.

 

The wonderful thing and also one of the weaknesses of the Bantam era was the Moff of the Week that the Big 3/4 would face. It was a matter of getting us to love to hate/fear the enemy. NJO was a welcomed change. However after a major war. We could still be living off of mopping up the lost Yuuzhan Vong fleet, the Peace Brigade Remnant and a new dark Jedi academy by Welk and Plo instead of things like Dark Nest. But it would be even better if we could let go of the big characters. I would be thrilled to have Ben and maybe 3 other Jedi walk into the council, have them assign him a mission. Have a father son moment back in private quarters then go on mission. When he returns, another father son moment...

 

Focusing on the area most likely to be affected by the ST, I think the best we can really hope for is something like this:

22. RotJ
23. The Thrawn Trilogy
28. The Thrawn Duology
31. Vector Prime
36. Star by Star
44. Sacrifice
56. Apocalypse

In other words: Thrawn happened, Solo kids were born, Empire defeated in 19 ABY, some manner of alien invasion happens and kills Chewie and Anakin, Luke's wife dies, Jaina makes Master and marries an ex-Imperial. Reborn Palpatine, Darth Caedus, Vestara? Never heard of 'em.

Not that a lot of other stuff couldn't still fit into canon by virtue of not making a huge splash - what I'm saying is that this is the maximum amount of story baggage I think the ST could handle - fifteen more years of Civil War, Luke as a father and widower, Jaina lost a sibling or two in a later conflict.

 

Yeah. There wasn't a mastermind villain behind everything in the Bantam era. Just that most of them were Imperials. They should not have done those time jumps after NJO and DNT. That's 10 years roughly (I think) wasted that we could have had stories. I'm ready for the Big 3 plus the other OT characters to walk off into the sunset and Jaina, Jag, Ben and the others take over.

 

The biggest harm done was jumping the Solo Twins from Teens instantly to late 20's early 30's. They act differently but we don't know why

 

I think I read somewhere that they wanted to get Ben older. Get him from baby to teenager. Yeah jumping the Twins from teen years to late 20's/early 30s was a bad idea. The 20's were some of the most action-packed years of the Big 3's lives. Jacen's Force trip would have been an amazing trilogy or more. Jaina taking down Pirates and rogue Vong, meeting up with Jag on occasion and other Jedi missions would have been great as well.

 

I heard Zahn wanted to write a Skywalker family tale, perhaps directly before LotF with Ben with lightsaber and all. Two Jedi masters and their son who is in training fight an old enemy of whomever

 

Something like that anyway