Lit Best of the Bantam novels/duologies/trilogies?

Which are the best of the Bantam novels/duologies/trilogies?

 

Zahn, Stackpole, and Alston. 'Nuff said! (But I would add Crispin's Solo trilogy too.)

 

Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy is number one with Stackpole/Allston's X-wing series a close second.

 

I thought of including more, but decided to limit to just those between ROTJ and NJO that were published before NJO (also the poll only allows so many options).

 

No complaints on my part -- you made it easy for me! Haha! That said, If you had included the Solo trilogy, I'd probably have to pic kit over I, Jedi. I'm a big Corran Horn & Stackpole fan, but the Solo trilogy is more story and AC Crispin wrote it so well.

 

Fixed

 

While I don't consider a single one of the X-Wing novels the "best" Star Wars novel, as a whole I have more good memories from scenes in that series than any other.

 

Looking at the post-ROTJ Bantam books, X-wing and TTT are the two obvious highlights, the 800-pound gorillas. TTT was a pitch-perfect followup that introduced outstanding new characters, an iconic villain, and a genuinely evolved setting, with the New Republic. It's really engaging and captures the spirit of the movies perfectly while moving the narrative forward. X-wing is just incredibly good, two authors with different but complementary styles developing all these fantastic characters operating at a more ordinary level, taking us through exciting campaigns and dramatic events with extremely well-developed characters we care a lot about, without the shields the main characters have.

My other two choices are a little boring, as they're outgrowths of both choices. I, Jedi follows up X-wing by taking the richest, most human, most developed character in the EU, Corran Horn, and taking him through Jedi training, doing a better job of illustrating that training than the actual JAT did, while also giving us an undercover pirate storyline in which Corran's ever-present hubris once again gets its comeuppance. It's a really great, character-rich story. And I'm a big fan of HOT, a TTT follow-up which introduces a bunch of fantastic new ideas -- internal political tensions, an ingeniously deceitful Imperial ploy, peace negotiations, exploring the Unknown Regions -- and wraps them up together into a great thriller that brings the era to a suitable close while also projecting a new path forward.

The one series that I would have liked to recognize, but just missed out with there only being four options, is the BFC. It's an excellent, maturely considered take on Star Wars, with serious geopolitical dilemmas, real personal crises for the characters, and a really cool sci-fi relic-ship plotline. It's got an all-time villain, some really striking ideas, and one of the best serious takes on the New Republic's challenges. But it doesn't make the top four because its Luke plotline, while incorporating really interesting ideas about Luke going through a kind of midlife crisis while searching for his heritage, is very draggy, and the three plotlines never merge as well as they should to justify being in the same trilogy.

Other than those, there aren't a lot of post-ROTJ Bantam books that I would even hold up as being particularly good. Truce at Bakura is a good, solid novel with some interesting ideas, but I don't think Tyers gets the pacing quite right and it ends up being good, but not great. But it's the only one left I'd feel comfortable really calling good. COPL is ridiculous, terribly plotted, and much more fun than it ought to be, with a lot of good ideas mixed in with a lot of terrible ones and some pulpy fun amidst a general feeling that the book is a bloated drag. JAT is KJA's typical mix of really interesting underlying ideas with terrible, juvenile execution, and so is Darksaber. COTJ and POT both have the same Hambly characteristics: really interesting underlying ideas and themes buried under a foggy, languorous prose style and a plot that never musters any energy. Hambly sucks all the pulp energy out of her books without elevating her literary ideas to the level that would compensate for the books' total dullness. The Crystal Star has its fun bits, but it's a bizarrely-conceived, juvenile, unconscionably dull adventure. The New Rebellion is probably the outright worst of the lot, with idiotic plotting and premises married to dull writing. And the Corellian Trilogy is terribly paced, with a lot of pulpy good ideas mixed in with some lousy ones, unremarkable writing, and a general sense that RMA is just not getting the most out of his ideas. There is a lot to like and enjoy scattered throughout the Bantam era, but it's often contained in books that are badly flawed and often don't read that well. A lot of those ideas come off better in retrospect, or in Essential Guides where you can appreciate the idea of uniting the warlords into the Imperial Remnant without having to read KJA's prose.

 

Putting in my usual plug for the X-wing series: it's satisfying on a level that not many series are, because it's its own little corner of the Star Wars universe, only two authors really worked on most of its characters, and those authors mostly were on the same page and knew what they were doing. There isn't a never-ending stream of authors looking to get their hands on Wedge Antilles and Corran Horn and write the next chapter in their life like there is for Luke, Leia, and Han, which means you don't get a bunch of different and contradictory portrayals of them, and they aren't put through the same never-ending wringer for dramatic purpose as these others.

 

I voted for:
- Corellian trilogy, JAT - fun adventures with surprising worldbuilding
- HOT - political thriller/mystery that somehow feels like a precursor to LOTF (wonder if the Bantam/Dark Horse invasion storyline which this was supposed to foreshadow would have been that good; by the way, the UR threats give me a strong Chapterhouse Dune / Foundation and Earth ending vibe)

I also read from that list:
- TTT - could barely focus, sorry, tried it again last year and couldn't even finish HTTE
- Darksaber - same as JAT, would have voted for it if it were alone
- I, Jedi - bored to death

 

In truth, we are missing some of the gems of the era in the poll:

Crispin's Solo Trilogy
Jeter's Bounty Hunter Wars Trilogy is right up there near the top.
Shadows of the Empire novelization is a classic.

And the Tales book are GREAT fun, if each story in isolation could be a mixed bag.

 

Gonna Play a little MadLibs with @TCF-1138 's post

 

I still need to finish it, but I'm reading Black Fleet Crisis for the first time. It's a bit technical at times, but it's a breath of fresh air on the heels of some other more esoteric Bantams I've been reading lately.

It doesn't feel like a movie as the Thrawn Trilogy did, more like a persistent and real place I'm hanging out in, so I voted for it.

 

I will give Black Fleet Crisis credit...it went to scale in a way other authors up to that point had struggled with.

We often saw villains with a handful of ships and a few systems under their control.

The Yevethra took over a star cluster and an entire fleet, in addition to their own ships.

Add in the Galaxy spanning politics...Luke and Lando's separate Galaxy hopping adventures. It felt like the author knowingly used the benefit of 3 books to go big, as opposed to others who may have kept an eye on scale should the book be turned into a film script.

 

@Jedimarine You're exactly right. It feels like he really did his homework and charted out the entire story from the beginning. Which is obviously the case, as the books all released a couple of months apart.

His small anecdotal histories of colonies, species, and individuals feel natural as well.

It reminds me of what Stephen Barnes attempted to do in Cestus Deception to a lesser degree of success. Maybe Shatterpoint is a closer relative.

 

Which other Bantam series seem closest to this?

 

Yikes...not much.

Probably the X-Wing series, just because of the ongoing changing in missions and locations and adversaries.

Perhaps the Corellian Trilogy, with the greater implications of the plot beyond the revolt in the system itself...mostly with regard to Centerpoint Station.

But in both cases, it is more about shifting focus. With the Black Fleet Trilogy, you were pulled in several directions, all over the galaxy, at once.

I guess HTTE did some of that once the Big 3 break up...Luke after C'baoth, Leia with the Noghri, Han with the smugglers, etc. But still, Thrawn was dangerous, but shockingly undermanned/shipped for the scope of events he was hoping to complete.

 

I feel the Jedi Academy Trilogy is the one where the world and characters felt the most alive, and combined all the aspects of the EU that were around at the time in one single story, the expansion of the ancient Sith Lords by introducing Exar Kun, also seeing Luke as a Force Ghost (albeit temporarily), and the way Kyp's fall to the dark side was written were both great.

Kyp's character in particular was one that resonated with me a lot, from his relationship with Han, his tragic backstory of being one of the many victims of the Empire, which pushed him to the Dark Side to combat the evils of the galaxy.

The Suncrusher is ridiculously powerful, it's pure rule of cool in all it's glory, as well as being a terrifying weapon once Kyp falls and gets his hands on it.

But the one aspect that suprised me and elevated the trilogy for me was Ackbar's story.

This trilogy is what truly hooked me into this era and made me want to read all of them.

 

Don't mind me, I'm just here to drop my usual "Brian Daley was the best SW author ever" post.

 

Definitely one of the best SW authors, but still no Brian Daley.

 

@Ghost

I'd say the first four X-wing books come close. It's a tight arc about a specific military campaign. I think Stackpole was churning those out every couple of months as well. X-Wing is narrower in scope, but that's a strength. It deals a lot with Coruscant, which was fun on my first read through during the Prequel releases.

Maybe it's just Kube-McDowell's particular style, but the sheer world building of Black Fleet Crisis is wild. Does it have an equal in the Bantam era in that regard?

 

The three people who voted for crystal star are the real ones