Discussions Your Essential Ten Pieces of Star Wars Literature

Thrawn Trilogy, Darth Bane Trilogy, and Darth Plagueis.

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I have read some of the first one. Just got so busy it kinda got put aside a long time ago.

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Brian Daley's Han Solo adventure books are easily my top 3. Add in the X-wing books to fill out the top 10.

 

If we can allow entire series as a "piece" the 10 essential stories for me are:

Tales of the Jedi comics, Darth Bane Trilogy, Darth Plagueis, Republic, Heir to the Empire Trilogy, Dark Empire Trilogy, Jedi Academy Trilogy, YJK, NJO and Legacy.

Yep, not a single Canon work, i'm biased, i know, and mostly post-Endor lol.

If i had to cut this down i would have just Legacy and Plagueis.

I consider KOTOR comic to be on par with Legacy in quality but it's not really essential to furthering the storyline of the main saga and it's characters like these are.

But if we can only have individual books it would end up being my favorite Bantam books, in order of how dear they are to me:

Jedi Academy Trilogy.

Corellian Trilogy.

The Courtship of Princess Leia.

And the Thrawn books.

With that they are 10 novels, 9 of which are parts of trilogies.

 

Shatterpoint, Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor, Darth Plagueis, Thrawn Trilogy (the original), Wraith Squadron trilogy, NJO, Legacy comics, KotOR comics, Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter, Young Jedi Knights

 

They are not 10 stories but they are stories that are underrated for me in the EU

Young Han Solo trilogy is very underrated i liked more that Han Solo origin more than the Solo movie origin those novels also connect with Dark Empire

Dark Forces 2 novels i like how they expanded the game story

SWTOR novels very underrated EU novels the Darth Malgus novel was very good

Knight Errant novel the only novel set during the New Sith Wars before Darth Bane

Jedi Apprentice and Jedi Quest expanded the Prequel characters into unseen eras like the era before the Clone Wars and the Pre TPM era

Republic Commando novels very good stories about the Clone Troopers in the EU

 

The funniest thing is this: if you put this set of readings in chronological order and add the six films, you end up with a universe that is already coherent in itself.

 

The original Thrawn trilogy
Hand of Thrawn duology
Survivor's Quest
Balance Point
Master and Apprentice
Choices of One

Unifying Force

 

To make things a bit more fair I decided to only include one novel from each series, otherwise NJO might have utterly dominated the list...

1. Tarkin I hate, hate, hate, the Sheev thing, and the way it`s revealed, but simply too much of my fanfiction with now 17 main stories and countless companion pieces is build on this book and the world building within it.
2. Kindered Spirits I was thinking about including Dark Disciple here, because it's an amazing book but there are some elements in it I don't like, so I go with the acompanying short story here. Generally Ventress and Lassa Rhayme is just a fun duo and I wish we would see more of them together.
3. Aftermath I just like this one, just a fun, pulpy adventure plus putting the focus away from the OT main cast was apprechiated. Also I really like the interludes and the glimpses they give at the wider Galaxy.
4. Lords of the Sith Similar to Aftermath just a cool pulpy Star Wars story and it also includes some nice world building about Ryloth under Imperial Rule. Wouldn't mind further novels of "adventures" of Palpatine and Vader as master and apprentice.
5. Phasma Best New Canon Novel, sadly utterly wasted by the movies. Great world and character building, Vi and Cardinal make an intresting contrast to the story on Parnassos (and then also get wasted into the backstory of a theme park...).
6. Outbound Flight Such a great exploration of the Unkown Regions and the Chiss as a species. And I will never get over the fact that TOR then threw it all into the trash to make Chiss a playable race in the game!
7. Labyrinth of Evil In germany there is a actually an audiobook of this with all the movie voice actors, which is really cool. And a great story with some good world building to boot.
8. Darth Plagueis I have a love hate relationship with the book, as I love pretty much all the Palgueis stuff but am not much of a fan of the Palpatine aspects (that`s Palpatines freudian excuse? An abusive dad? The most clichee villain sob story in existence? Either it should have been something creative or just say he was born from the dark side or something)
9. Traitor I don't think I need to explain this. The only thing that I despise about the book is that Ganners death is basically named "the most noble sacrifice in the history of the GFFA" when that title should without question go to Lord Hoth and his one hundred Jedi who not only gave their lives but their souls too.
10. Shatterpoint In my opinion the best SW book. If you only read one SW book in your life it should be this one.

Actually surpised it ends up being an even split between old and new canon but I am happy with the list.

 

Hahhaa yeah if you read all of those you basically have a core version of the entire timeline.

 

Agreed

 

Yoda: Dark Rendezvous, Labyrinth of Evil, Isard's Revenge, Starfighters of Adumar, Tales from the New Republic, Vector Prime, Agents of Chaos 1 & 2, Edge of Victory 1 & 2

 

1 Shatterpoint
2 Yoda Dark Rendezvous
3 Labyrinth of evil
4 Decived ( an old republic novel)
5 Traitor
6 The remaining books are the Thrawn trilogy and the hand of Thrawn duology

 

Crimson Empire

And everything published under Dark Horse Comics

 

I mean, if you absolutely force me to take only ten, then... the X-wing series. They're my favorite, and there are exactly ten of them.

Only possible modifier is that I might exclude Mercy Kill and swap in I, Jedi. I adore both, but I, Jedi feels like more of a companion piece to the other nine, being that it's set in the same era and has the same main character as five of them, while Mercy Kill is intentionally a whole generational reshuffling and so much has happened in the three or four decades since the last book.

 

Drew Karpyshyn's Darth Bane Trilogy
and
James Luceno's Darth Plagueis

 

10. I, Jedi
9. Darth Bane (Trilogy)
8. Star by Star
7. Han Solo Trilogy (Trilogy)
6. Bounty Hunter Wars (Trilogy)
5. Crimson Empire
4. Dark Empire (At least 1)
3. X-Wing (Series)
2. Heir to the Empire (Trilogy)
1. Courtship of Princess Leia

 

Individual Books

1. Heir to the Empire.
2. I, Jedi.
3. X-Wing: Wedge's Gamble.
4. Shadows of the Empire.
5. The Phantom Menace.
6. Kenobi.
7. Dark Forces: Rebel Agent.
8. Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina.
9. Specter of the Past.
10. Vision of the Future.

Series: X-Wing.

 

I’m all for the Wedge’s Gamble love, that’s my favorite of the Rogue books

 

I recommend reading the entire post EU ROTJ timeline is much more satisfying than what the Disney Universe did with the Skywalkers, especially Luke

 

Path of Destruction
Rule of Two
Dynasty of Evil
Darth Plagueis
Labyrinth of Evil
Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader
The Rise and Fall of Darth Vader
The Life and Legend of Obi-Wan Kenobi
The New Essential Chronology
The Essential Guide to Alien Species

 

Mine will skew older since I grew up with more of the older material and read most of it. Still catch up with new but making the time is hard.

And if we’re doing literature in general, what I liked and helped world build for me were:

Shadow of the Sith — nearly tied together sequel trilogy loose ends

Zahn’s first Thrawn trilogy — Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, The Last Command — the original great continued adventures of Luke Skywalker

Tales of the Jedi — Dark Horse comics — the original 5 issue arc. Now that was world building history

Tales of the Jedi — Dark Lords of the Sith & The Sith War — 12 issue maxi series. It was ambitious and kind of went of the rails near the end but still essential.

Revenge of the Sith (novelization) — Matthew Stover wrote, in my opinion, an epic conclusion to the prequel trilogy novelization. For me, it hit hard when I turned the page and read the final section titled “Chiaroscuro.”

Dark Empire — somehow palpatine returned here first.

Marvel Star Wars (1980s) — Zeltrons, and hoojibs, Vance, House of Tagge, Lumiya…oh my.

Star Wars: Legacy (Dark Horse) — Star Wars 2099 complete with Skywalker and solo descendants and androgynous Hutts.

The old EU Essentials series was mentioned earlier — and I agree. To have someone bring all of the EU together and have guides to visually represent novels or characters only imagined, was so exciting to read.

Shadows of the Empire — just the sheer effort of the multimedia event — and a whole new soundtrack — was awesome and I ate up every bit of it. The setting of the book fit neatly at the time. Pity we haven’t seen Xizor return.