Between The Last Command and Specter of the Past

I just finnished reading the Thrawn trilogy, and have started reading the Hand of Thrawn (Specter of the Past) and I wonder if that was a dumb thing to do. I mean should I have read somthing that take place between them? (Because I noticed Luke has grown much stronger in the force and that it says somthing about Exar Kun)The reason I started on Specter of the Past is that im not very fond of reading but i loved the Thrawn trilogy and since both the Thrawn trilogy and Hand of Thrawn is by Timothy Zahn (and the books in between are not) I thought that i might not like the books in between.

 

You should really have read The Jedi Academy Trilogy and Dark Empire, which are probably the most important and referenced stories between Zahns stuff. But you should get through them fairly well.

 

no offense guys, but personnaly iwas disgusted by anything written in the time frame between the Thrawn Trilogy and the Duology, basically Zahn opened a can of worms by saying the Empire was fighting an attrition war slowly and he closed the can of worm by his Duology. thus forever closing the worst part of EU, IMHO

i love Zahn and i despise KJA

 

The key part of that post..

 

yes, the key part and the best part

i have read some X-wing novel for what is worth, they are fun to read!! althought the author doesnt know how to write a military novel grand in scope, than just x-wings wiiing against impossible odds.

i loved four out of five of the NJO harcoverbooks, eventhough i generally dont like vilians with dominant oraganic technology

 

ok...so, in wich order shall i read those books then? or can i just continue me specter of the past reading and read them later???

 

You might as well keep reading Specter, personally i was very young when i delved into the EU and have never followed it chronologically, and i can say it's been very interesting piecing things together and i mean the Clone Wars EU has been very recent, and Star Wars material will continue to be created in multiple Era's. So basically don't worry! read the Hand of Thrawn and if theres references in there you arn't familiar with, then you can research them and find out what they are covered in, thats the fun!

 

I'm kind of the same way as Feezior--I've usually read the books whenever I could get ahold of them, rarely in any particular order. I haven't read the Jedi Academy trilogy or Dark Empire [although the latter is in the mail], and I got through them alright. Good books, in my opinion.

 

Don't bother with the Jedi Academy books, they'll hurt you with the scope of the mundanity.

I, Jedi covers the important bits without making you stupidier for having read it.

E_S

 

Please do read JAT. Its a fun, fast-paced romp in the style of the OT. Besides what can it hurt to give it a try, then make up your own mind about it?

 

It can hurt your wallet and your brain.

 

Who else sees this turning into another Zahn v. KJA thread?

Anyway, my 2 cents:

Go ahead and finish the duology. The Bantam era novels (pre-NJO) were more or less independent of one another. Then, if you decide you want to continue reading Star Wars, pick up the Jedi Academy series and the Courtship of Princess Leia.

 

Despite the Rogue Squardon books taking place before TTT there are charactors in HoT duology that come from them, so I would recommend reading them.

After them read I, Jedi, then you can skip Dark Empire and JAT without losing much.

If you read the Jedi Academy Trilogy you might as well read Dark Saber, though whatever you do you can safely skip Children of the Jedi, Planet in the Twilight and Chrystal Star. The New Rebellion isn't so bad, but doesn't really have anything to do with the later books.

Of the Black Fleet Crisis and Corellian Trilogies the later is better, though as with NR you won't miss continuity if you skip them. BFC trilogy is probably the least "Star Warish" of all the books. I tried to reread them and didn't make it a few chapters. One of the bright points of the Corellian Trilogy is bring Mara Jade back into the larger scheme of things.

Though if you want to make this a TZ vs KJA thread, you must realize that KJA used Kyp Durron and Admiral Daala as TZ uses Thrawn and Mara Jade. As Stackpole used Isard and Corran Horn. The "Zahn-haters" don't seem to realize that all writers that come up with there own Supervillian and tag-a-long Hero.

 

Well, it depends. If you're happy for KJA to **** you without buying you breakfast you need to read JAT. If you prefer your dignity intact, Mr Stackpole's I, Jedi covers all the essential details sans banality.

E_S

 

Don't get me wrong, I like Stackpole...but if you read I, Jedi without the JAT, you can watch Corran **** Luke and skip breakfast, because Corran knows all. Read JAT and make up your own mind.

 

Ok, my first point here is that if you're not fond of reading, then maybe you might not want to read any of them at all. Absolutely not something I'd suggest because I think people should read and read as much as they can. I hated to read in school with only a few exceptions, but that was because I didn't like being forced to read. At home I'd pick up a book that intrested me and say to ********** with most of the stuff I had to read for school. About the only teacher I ever actually wanted to read for was my tenth grade teacher, but then he had a way of making things very intresting and causing you to want to read what he'd assigned just so you could keep up. But with most of my teachers unless I actually wanted to read the book, which was about two or three books, it was a chore just to read. Since I'm no longer in school reading is much more important to me and is often a greater joy than watching tv, playing games, listening to music, riding my bike, or virtually most anything else I enjoy. You may not feel the same way, or after a while you may find that you really enjoy reading more than most other things. Sometimes the only way to find out is to keep doing something you're not fond of. So do try to keep reading rather than not reading as you may find plenty you enjoy that you can only get from reading.

My second point is to ignore everything we say about which books are good and which are not. None of us are you and so we don't truely know what you may enjoy and what you may not. I've seen plenty of folks in my times on the forum say this book is a treasure and this one is garbage so you should read the treasure and stay away from the garbage. You should read them both and decide for yourself what you find to be the treasure and what you find to be the garbage. Maybe you'll agree with them and maybe you'll find it's the exact opposite for you. Or maybe both will be a treasure to you or both garbage. Only you can truly decide what you like and the only way to do that is to actually read the material and form your own opinion about it.

 

ok...i think ill finnish hand of thrawn first and then check out the other books...i just hope it wont get too weird...

 

Don't bother with I, Jedi. I couldn't stand it and by the end of the book, I was just skimming through to finish it off.

 

This is Star Wars, one of us could be his clone.

But seriously knight, that was very well said. Too many people get ripped apart for what author they like and such, and it's kinda sad. Why can't we just stick to ripping apart the characters we don't like?

 

Double Post

 

I, personally, am probably going to read(when I get to the sequel era):


Truce at Bakura
Rogue Squadron comics(possibly)
The X-Wing Novels(besides possibly the 9th one)
Courtship of Princess Leia
Tatooine Ghost
The Thrawn Trilogy
Dark Empire 1, 2 and Empire's End.
JAT
CoTJ
DS
Crimpson Empire and Jedi Academy: Leviathan(I got these for cheap)
The Corellian Trilogy(I've heard they have something that's part of the NJO later on and even Excellence likes 'em)
Thrawn Duology
The first six Young Jedi Knights books(I've seen omnibuses of them)

 

>>"(besides possibly the 9th one)"<<

Why not the 9th one, it's the best one.

 

Because it doesn't really add much to the overall story. But I guess the same could be said for the Boba Fett comics and I think I'm going to read them(I forgot to put them I think) so why not? I guess I'll read the 9th one aswell.

 

Let me put in my two cents:

I LOVE everything I have read that Zahn writes and I thought the Jedi Academy Trilogy was the least interesting set of EU novels I have read (and I've read everything up to but not including NJO, I plan on getting to those soon). The only thing I really thought they were good for was as a background to I, Jedi (but I love Stackpole too...so take that as you will).