Lit Reading Jedi Apprentice novels until Rebel Force

I want to read the entire Jude Watson saga and also include the Clone Wars multimedia project
i will read first all the Jedi Apprentice novels the Jedi Quest novels Secret of the Jedi until I get to ROTS novel i will also read all the Dark Times era starting with the Rise of Darth Vader and Kenobi novel and also read the Last of the Jedi novels and Rebel Force since Ferus Olin Jude Watson character appears in those novels of course I also want to include Cloak of Deception Darth Plagueis the Darth Maul novels and Coruscant Nights novels in my marathon has anyone read the EU Prequel era chronologically? how has your experience been?

 

That's quite a sentence.

These are things I have literally meant to do since 1999-2005. I read the first two Jedi Apprentice books just a day or two after the release of TPM and whenever I intended to pick up and read the rest, I would re-read the early ones and just get bogged down in retreading past material. I did make slow progress up to #9 over the years, but I never finished the series. It's on my list now, after finishing off other timeline sections and the Old/High Republic, but who knows if I will get to it this year, next year, or whenever. My Star Wars reading waxes and wanes and I never quite hit a streak that compares with anything from my teen years when I would burn through twenty novels in a year.

I have read Darth Plagueis/Cloak of Deception/Shadow Hunter (the former just a few years ago; Cod and SH shortly after their paperback releases) and if you enjoy the prequel era, Palpatine, and the political machinations of the Sith and the corruption of the Republic, they'll be right up your alley, although Shadow Hunter is pretty much straight action and acts as a nice counterbalance to the heavy politics of the other two books. I intend to re-read them in their proper concurrent/chapter-order when I get to that section of the timeline again.

 

Yes reading all of the EU Prequel era is a big task but is fun i have already read some of these stories but not everything i will try to read the novels and comics in chronological order is a different experience i want to do the same with the Rebellion era the New Republic era until Legacy comics i want to know if other EU Fans have read any era in chronological order

 

I have attempted to do big chunks of each era many, many times, but the varying quality of stories, life, distractions, and excitement to jump to other timeline sections to read particular new stories is usually what throws me off. These days I try and manage my expectations and tend to jump between two or three eras at a time while still maintaining a through-line of at least several comics, games, or novels so I can see the overall arc of the time period and whatever connections may have been threaded by the various authors.

For example, reading the first dozen or so post-Endor Legends novels -- despite their being released across different years, book companies, and authors -- can be a lot of fun when you go in order from The Truce At Bakura to Vision of the Future, particularly the taking of the Core during the first several X-wing books and leading into The Courtship of Princess Leia, Tatooine Ghost, Dark Empire, and the Thrawn Trilogy. You get to experience the fracturing of the Empire, the resurgence from Thrawn, the reborn Emperor and Daala, and then the establishment of Luke's praxeum and his struggles with various students, all while Han, Leia, and Lando face their own challenges and the Solo kids grow up. Zahn's Hand of Thrawn duology was really a nice little bow on the end of the Bantam run, just before TPM and Vector Prime changed everything that was to come in '99.

The original Essential Chronology guide made that whole post-trilogy time period extra fun by smoothing over some of the gaffes and tying up loose knots that were otherwise left dangling or were just plain confusing. (The New Essential Chronology from 2005 was more or less the same text from 5 BBY-20 ABY, but filled out the Prequel Era and New Jedi Order Era with everything released in the interim.)

 

At least you read EU novels and comics on its original release date i'm a new fan but i'm still reading everything and enjoying it

 

I have a lot of good memories associated with the Jedi Apprentice books. I was 10 when the first few came out, and it was the first time I even knew Star Wars books existed. My dad had taken me to see Phantom Menace, and we went shopping after at a local department store. I liked to look at the books and video games section whenever we went there, and as soon as I spotted Star Wars books that day I knew I had to have them. The first two of the Jedi Apprentice series were there, and my dad got them for me. I read them probably 3-4 times that summer. The next one didn't come out for several months, and then I think they were every ~2 months or so after that.

I found the Jedi Academy Trilogy and a few other miscellaneous EU books at a local used bookstore that summer for a couple bucks each and got those as well, but they were still a little dense for 10 year old me so I didn't enjoy them as much at that time. But I must have found an online release schedule or something for the Jedi Apprentice books, because I remember going to Waldenbooks in our mall (both the bookstore and the mall closed years ago now) when each one came out to get it and being so excited. One of my good school friends would borrow whatever the latest one was as soon as I finished it and we'd talk about it and come up with theories for what would happen in the next one.

The next couple summers before Episode II came out, I'd spend some of my mowing/chore money on the other prequel-era releases as well. I remember for sure having Cloak of Deception, Darth Maul Shadow Hunter, The Approaching Storm, and Shatterpoint (which is still one of my all time favorites). I'm sure there are a couple I'm forgetting but those stand out in my memory as having in that time period at least as far as prequel era books go. I collected more miscellaneous and started the NJO probably around the time of the summer after AOTC came out and I joined here.

 

Here and there, mostly in the '90s. From 1999 and onward I was a bit scattershot with how often and how much EU I consumed, falling quite a bit off the horse as the prequels continued. (I've still never read the New Jedi Order.) By the time of RotS (and having been consuming most EU since 1994), I had reached Star Wars burnout, which was mirrored with my lack of presence as a moderator here (where I had been extremely active from 2000-2002, hitting 10,000+ posts in just those few years.) Since nobody knew more Star Wars movies or TV was coming down the pipeline -- at least until Lucas announced Underworld and The Clone Wars around the time of Celebration III -- RotS felt like the end of the Saga and I felt like I needed a good long break, so I almost completely walked away from Star Wars (aside from occasionally watching the movies with friends/girlfriends) for the next nine years.

With the Disney acquisition and the trailer for TFA, in the words of George Costanza, "I'm back, baby!" Aside from reading the occasional Canon work, a lot of my time has been in revisiting the Legends material I first experienced in the '80s and '90s, as well as everything I had missed along the way, including older games. It's taking multiple years to finish, but I'm midway through my first playthrough of KotOR and in the last four years finally played all of Battlefront I and II (and the reboots), X-wing Vs. TIE Fighter, Mysteries of the Sith, Jedi Outcast, and Jedi Academy. Some of those I had sampled as far back as '99, but now they're completely beaten.

I think people forget just how popular the Jedi Apprentice series was. The Lit boards here were on fire with discussion about them through the early 2000s. I was double-checking on the Wook and they ran from '99 to March 2002, with the Jedi Quest series picking up the threads and continuing through late 2004. I remember grabbing up a huge stack of those, marked down at a local mall in Flagstaff, Arizona during a road trip with my buddy on our way back from Celebration III. I have yet to read them.

 

I'm in the middle of a massive chronological readthrough / stitching-together project myself; I've done the Clone Wars (though I'm currently adding some later TCW novelizations that I only just managed to get a hold of) and the Dark Times all the way through the Battle of Yavin. (Some reports of my experience & thoughts are in this thread.) At the moment I'm chewing on the timeline snarl that is the immediate post-Yavin era, and slowly working my way towards the return of Ferus Olin

 

I skimmed over the linked thread, cthugha, and there are some very cool observations in there. Since I tentatively intend to delve into the Clone Wars material by early next year (just before the 20th anniversary of RotS), I'll take some closer looks and add some timeline notes to my own material from what you've written.

 

I’ve been meaning to reread the Jude Watson books for a while, YJK as well

 

I think the EU Rebellion era is harder to follow than EU Clone Wars era since it's more confusing and i'm going to add the original Marvel Star Wars comics because Lumiya is introduced there speaking of Xanatos i think that character would fit very well as a Villain for some episodes of Tales of the Jedi show

 

Yeah, Jedi Academy Trilogy, Crystal Star (oowch) and Darksaber were among the first Star Wars books I ever read, circa 1994 - along with the Thrawn graphic novels.
But I actually have only ever read the one Jedi Apprentice novel, so far, though (The Captive Temple, and very recently too)

May prefer to dig up Secrets of the Jedi or Legacy of the Jedi instead, sometime - be a bit more compact.

And someday I may finally play Jedi Academy, as I never got round to it.

 

Secrets of the Jedi was among the first Star Wars books I ever read, but I didn’t remember the name of it for some reason and I didn’t figure out what it was until a few years ago

 

Although not that surprising. 2000s versus now is a way different ball game. How many LGBT characters even got into legends? Like 3? I know there are those two mandos but those are the only ones I can recall. Oh also that companion from KOTOR. Juh something or other.

 

The Jude Watson books were actually the first Star Wars books I ever read. They have a very special place in my heart. I did a little bit of rereading of some of them recently and I was very impressed at how tightly written they were. Each book has a concise story with a definitive beginning, middle, and end. But they all tie into an overarching story arc.

And the best part is that it feels like you can start with any book and not feel that you are missing anything. The references made to previous works are quickly recapped in an efficient manner without detracting from the story of the individual book. Which means you can enjoy the book and be enticed to read more in the series.

One thing that Jude Watson's books did very well was build on Obi-Wan's and Anakin's relationship. It wasn't as warm as what we saw in the later Clone Wars show, but you could see that they really did care about and respect each other.

At the same time, you could see the miscommunication between the two slowly building up a barrier between them. You could see why Anakin didn't feel he could confide in Obi-Wan.

So, yeah. Jude Watson. Good stuff.

 

I started on the EU in 1994 too (as a whole; I had a couple of Marvel issues in the '80s), so a lot of those same stories were among the earliest I read. I actually obtained The Crystal Star in hardcover about two months after its release -- being too impatient to wait until the paperback -- and even back then I was left underwhelmed, having just recently finished the Thrawn Trilogy and the Han Solo Adventures. (I still poke fun at TCS, but I've since reconciled it's unique story and world-building attributes after a couple of re-reads through the decades.)

Speaking of Jedi Academy, I only recently played and beat it for the first time about two weeks ago. I've been slowly working my way through the various 2000s LucasArts games in tandem with the current EA stuff.

 

One of the biggest real-life Star Wars mysteries to me is the identity of Alex Wheeler, Rebel Force’s author. No information about them exists online, and Judy Blundell, aka Jude Watson, has explicitly said that despite Wheeler picking up many of her plot threads and characters, they are a different person.

 

I'm almost finish with Jedi Apprentice i'm reading the EU Prequel era in chronological order

 

I remember these. I only read about 2 or 3 from each series (mostly cause they weren't easy to find), but I enjoyed them. Good characters and good stories. Xanatos was a stand out. And his kid was fun as well.

 

My sister and I read the heck out of these when they were released, and it was fun being able to talk about the original characters and the twists and turns. They were released on I think a bi-monthly schedule between Episodes I and II; since we didn't really have access to the comics it was pretty much the only regular release we had to tide us over between films. Even knowing that we'd get another book in just a few months, the wait between cliffhangers was agonizing.

After Episode II came out I still kept up with Jedi Quest as it came out, of course (and later Last of the Jedi and Rebel Force as well), but by that point we were both older, the series was shorter, and the time between releases increased to the point where the momentum just didn't build in the same way. 1999-2002 was a great time to be a young adult Star Wars reader.

 

This is one of those series that I've always wanted to get to someday, but man, it's long... Which means no library I've checked has anywhere close to the complete list of books, and I'm balking at buying the set from Amazon because, well, $250.00 or so.

 

$250? I've come across individual used copies of just about all of the Rebel Force and Jedi Apprentice books for $1-4 each. Amazon Marketplace generally has insanely inflated prices on certain items, influenced by what people think things can sell for based on a few eBay auction battles that get blown out of proportion. Even some of my local thrift shops have begun pricing some items like they're suddenly hot eBay commodities, which is ridiculous.

 

This is probably one of those situations where a flea market/thrift store or patience for a well timed ebay lot will serve you well.