I've never read an EU book until I just read the Darth Plagueis Novel. It was great and I am interested in another. What is the best follow up book. Something that is similarly good and near the same time frame? Anything between TPM and AOTC? Or perhaps right around TPM? Any recommendations. Any help here would be hot. -T
Yes, I would go with Cloak of Deception and Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter. You will get the whole picture behind the political events mentioned in Darth Plagueis.
These two, definitely. One thing to note, however, is that Cloak of Deception is mostly geared towards the political side of things. It's a fantastic book, and does indeed have some great action scenes. If you liked the political sections of Darth Plagueis, you'll love Cloak of Deception. Shadow Hunter is a pure thriller, really fun book to read. One thing you'll probably really enjoy about these two novels is that they're referenced quite extensively in Plagueis. In fact, one scene from Shadow Hunter is actually in Plagueis, just from a different point of view.
Also, there's a Darth Maul short story in the new paperback edition of TPM that's worth tracking down. It deals with the fallout from Darth Plagueis, from Maul's point of view. TC
In addition to the other recommendations people have given around the TPM era, all of which are good, for this era you can try Rogue Planet and Outbound Flight. Rogue Planet is a rather different novel from the Star Wars norm, more slow and deliberate. Opinions are somewhat divided on it. Outbound Flight I enjoyed quite a bit, and it follows up on Rogue Planet in a few important ways. And both, like Darth Plagueis and Cloak of Deception, are quite nice at capturing the atmosphere of a Republic at its peak and just about to fall over into the abyss, which is something I really miss from the AOTC era onwards.
Wow. Thanks for all the help. I picked up Cloak of Deception at the Library a little while ago. I DO like the politics a lot. So that will be good. Heres my next question? Are there contradictions between a lot of the books or anything. I've never read any EU as I said, and I keep hearing people hate on the EU a lot and talk about how theres no continuity between any of them. Since I am extremely familiar with Prequel Haters and how they are like 90% blowhards who exaggerate most issues, so I assume its a similar issue.
Star Wars EU is actually great for its continuity, its one of its biggest strengths. Sometimes there are naturally mistakes or inconsistencies, but those are usually fixed ("retconned") in later books. Luceno himself is the master of the retcon, so since you read Plagueis first you'll probably not even notice the small inconsistencies. There is an issue with the timeline of the Clone Wars right now, but that's later. And that's only because there were books which came out describing it first, then years later the TV show came in and started moving dates around. That will all be fixed someday, once the TV show is over.
The odd continuity issue will come up if you were to read EVERY Star Wars book, but you won't find any between Cloak of Deception, Darth Plagueis, and Shadow Hunter, mostly because the former two were written by the same author.
EU haters are the same way. They read one or two bad novels, think the entire EU is the same quality, and make grand assumptions based on poor word-of-mouth recommendations. And when their errors in thinking are pointed out to them, they switch gears and claim the entire EU somehow invalidates the story or point of the movies. And finally, when they can't come up with any other arguments, they take some quote from Lucas out of context and think that the entire EU is not actually a part of the same universe as the movies. It's really tiring dealing with those EU bashers.
Different authors tend to have different viewpoints on various topics. Sometimes this is more a matter of emphasis rather than contradiction. However, there seems to be significant disagreement among various authors on topics such as the structure of the Force and exclusivity of powers to either side, while a particular author doesn't like the Jedi very much. There are also a fair number of simple mistakes here and there, sometimes arising from an apparent lack of familiarity with the minutiae of the films or the timeline, which should just be overlooked when encountered. Authors often throw in references to other EU works in an attempt to give their work added credibility, but the problem is that some elements were conceived as previously unknown by the source which introduced them, and this tends to be forgotten, so you see things popping up in a timeframe where they're not supposed to appear. Also ( and this problem is to some extent cut from the same cloth ) several authors seem to have fallen into the lazy-thinking trap of assuming that the characters know everything that the audience knows. And the "editors" basically have no clue about SW, so the books end up being author-edited by default.
Actually, Darth Plagueis contradicts the order of events depicted in Shadow Hunter. IIRC, Pavan is killed before Valorum decides to send Jedi to Naboo in Plagueis, whereas in Shadow Hunter Pavan is killed after the Jedi are sent to Naboo. Or vice versa. But even a botched continuity reference indicates that the intention is for everything to be relatively consistent, even if that's not always the result. TC
