Can you guys recommend me a good Star Wars novel?

I've recently jumped headfirst into my reading, last year I spent far to much time playing games and I think I read about one or two books. I have already cranked out my first book of the year, I would like to start a Star Wars book, but after looking it seems there are loads. Can anybody here recommend me some of the best ones?

Shadows of the Empire was a pretty good one I seem to remember.

@Imsorrymsjackson said:

Shadows of the Empire was a pretty good one I seem to remember.

Seconded.

I enjoyed the "Darth Bane" trilogy and the "Millenium Falcon" novel...

I really liked the book "I, Jedi" by Michael Stackpole along with the Thrawn Trilogy by Timothy Zahn. I haven't read any Star Wars books in a long while, but back in the day those were my two favorite authors. 
 
The trilogy I especially recommend as I couldn't put it down and read the whole thing within a night. 
 
Also the X-Wing series by Stackpole are really fun to read if you want to catch up on Wedge and those guys. Start with "Rogue Squadron" on that one.

Have you read any Star Wars books before? Do you like the Old Republic Era, Prequels or Classic characters?

I like the classic stuff so I think The Thrawn Trilogy starting with Heir to the Empire is a must read. Thrawn is an Admiral in command of the Empire several years after Return of the Jedi and with just brilliant military tactics, nearly takes over the galaxy for the Empire once again. Great character. I also love the trilogy of Han Solo books written by A.C. Crispin exploring the years leading up to A New Hope. I like Star Wars but don't find Jedi lore that interesting so I tend to like books that feature very few or even no Jedis.

It's dumb, but I enjoyed reading it so I also recommend Death Troopers. It's set shortly before the original film and features Han Solo and Chewie battling...yup, zombies.

The Thrawn trilogy.

Tales of the Bounty Hunters. It's a four (No wait...IG-88, Bosssk, Zuckus & 4-Lom, Dengar and Boba Fett...FIVE) short stories centering around the bounty hunters from Empire.

This thread may be of some help: http://www.giantbomb.com/forums/off-topic/31/star-wars-reading-question/571407/

Why can I hardly ever create links?

@Ravenlight said:

@Imsorrymsjackson said:

Shadows of the Empire was a pretty good one I seem to remember.

Seconded.

Is that based off the N64 game?

@SeanFoster said:

Have you read any Star Wars books before? Do you like the Old Republic Era, Prequels or Classic characters?

I like the classic stuff so I think The Thrawn Trilogy starting with Heir to the Empire is a must read. Thrawn is an Admiral in command of the Empire several years after Return of the Jedi and with just brilliant military tactics, nearly takes over the galaxy for the Empire once again. Great character. I also love the trilogy of Han Solo books written by A.C. Crispin exploring the years leading up to A New Hope. I like Star Wars but don't find Jedi lore that interesting so I tend to like books that feature very few or even no Jedis.

It's dumb, but I enjoyed reading it so I also recommend Death Troopers. It's set shortly before the original film and features Han Solo and Chewie battling...yup, zombies.

I enjoyed all of the Star Wars movies but I didn't enjoy the prequels anywhere near as much as the classic movies. I have also never read any SW book before.

I'm not well versed in this stuff, but I really enjoyed Ann C. Crispin's Han Solo books. They take place before the films.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Han_Solo_Trilogy

@Hizang: Shadows of the Empire is the inspiration for the SotE game.

I'm a fan of Star Wars: The Hutt Gambit.

@Hizang said:

@Ravenlight said:

@Imsorrymsjackson said:

Shadows of the Empire was a pretty good one I seem to remember.

Seconded.

Is that based off the N64 game?

IIRC, the Shadows lore was written by Lucas to bridge the gap between Empire and Jedi. The N64 game takes the events of that fiction and sticks the player in parts of it.

It also has the distinction of including the most difficult-to-input cheat code I've ever encountered.

@CaptainTightPants said:

I'm not well versed in this stuff, but I really enjoyed Ann C. Crispin's Han Solo books. They take place before the films.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Han_Solo_Trilogy

I don't think I've ever finished a book before I found That trilogy in my 20's. I always found reading a chore and thought I'd never find a fiction book that could hold me beyond the first chapter. Man I devoured those books up. It got kind of strange with the cat people, but it was an overall good story that set up how Han became himself and how he met everyone. It's been years since I've read it but I think they end right before the movies. It ends right before Han meets Obi Wan and Luke.

Agreed on the Hon Solo Trilogy & Shadows of the Empire. That's about all I read before the slow transition to preferring reading stories from Star Trek over Star Wars.

@TruthTellah: Seconded of The Huttt Gambit, except that's the second in a trilogy of Han Solo stories.

If I was ever to suggest a book or serise it would be Star Ward Republic Commandos, of course the first book is tied to the game, after that it branches off and becomes it own thing. Delta squad is around however they follow the original cast of Omega squad. Since its original characters they arnt Gods and thusly can never be killed (hell Biggs has became like that and he only has a few lines in a film!).

Except...if I was every to recommend a serise to not read and get attached too....it would be Republic Commandos. As Goerge Lucas personally squashed it, with his Attack of the Clones cartoon series, and thusly tried to force Karen Traviss (same woman who writes Gears of War books and wrote Gears of war 3) to make the books fit with the cartoon...which is impossible as the books who have been written three years before it differs greatly.

Meaning its now considered none Cannon and Traviss had to welch on her contract.

After that I lost intrest in star wars books focused around MAIN! INVINCIBLE! CHARACTERS!".

I am tempted to suggest Legacy series which is set 40 years after Episode 4/ Battle at Yevon 4/BY/destruction of the first death star. Except there is a ton of stuff you wouldn't know a thing about.

Fun Fact

Kyle Katarn the hero of Shadow of the Empire and Jedi Outcast series is Canon in the Star Wars EU. Also Mara Jade.

I've actually never read any, but a close friend of mine has pretty much read every printed word having to do with Star Wars, and according to him, everything by Timothy Zahn is great.

@Undeadpool said:

Tales of the Bounty Hunters. It's a four (No wait...IG-88, Bosssk, Zuckus & 4-Lom, Dengar and Boba Fett...FIVE) short stories centering around the bounty hunters from Empire.

Seconded.

The Thrawn Trilogy (Heir to the Empire and its 2 sequels) by Timothy Zahn. Those are the only three Star Wars books you need.

@C0V3RT said:

@Undeadpool said:

Tales of the Bounty Hunters. It's a four (No wait...IG-88, Bosssk, Zuckus & 4-Lom, Dengar and Boba Fett...FIVE) short stories centering around the bounty hunters from Empire.

Seconded.

ill go with these too.

@Akyho said:

@TruthTellah: Seconded of The Huttt Gambit, except that's the second in a trilogy of Han Solo stories.

If I was ever to suggest a book or serise it would be Star Ward Republic Commandos, of course the first book is tied to the game, after that it branches off and becomes it own thing. Delta squad is around however they follow the original cast of Omega squad. Since its original characters they arnt Gods and thusly can never be killed (hell Biggs has became like that and he only has a few lines in a film!).

Except...if I was every to recommend a serise to not read and get attached too....it would be Republic Commandos. As Goerge Lucas personally squashed it, with his Attack of the Clones cartoon series, and thusly tried to force Karen Traviss (same woman who writes Gears of War books and wrote Gears of war 3) to make the books fit with the cartoon...which is impossible as the books who have been written three years before it differs greatly.

Meaning its now considered none Cannon and Traviss had to welch on her contract.

After that I lost intrest in star wars books focused around MAIN! INVINCIBLE! CHARACTERS!".

I am tempted to suggest Legacy series which is set 40 years after Episode 4/ Battle at Yevon 4/BY/destruction of the first death star. Except there is a ton of stuff you wouldn't know a thing about.

Fun Fact

Kyle Katarn the hero of Shadow of the Empire and Jedi Outcast series is Canon in the Star Wars EU. Also Mara Jade.

Wait did they retcon it with the 2003 series or the new one? and how

I thought a nice book, Death Troopers. A Zombie story on a Star Destroyer, good enough for a lone read.

@connerthekewlkid: The new CGI one.

All Spoilers here.

What does the Disney acquisition mean for this extended canon? Does it still hold stock? Has it been addressed yet?

@HistoryInRust said:

What does the Disney acquisition mean for this extended canon? Does it still hold stock? Has it been addressed yet?

Speaking as someone who has read way, way too many Star Wars novels and comics, I hope Disney burns the expanded universe down with a blowtorch. There've been a handful of decent Star Wars novels over the past 20 years, but yesh, considering where they took that universe... If I hear even a mention of a Yuzzhan Vong in Episode 7, I'm leaving the theater.

Seconded anything by Zahn and Stackpole. I love the X-Wing Saga; it was set in the universe but focused on Wedge and his crew after RotJ, but still had the main three characters from the films as side characters. The Tales... books were all pretty good too, if you're looking for some one-offs.

I stopped reading over a decade ago. I've been meaning to check some recent books out, but never got around to it.

@Kevin_Cogneto said:

@HistoryInRust said:

What does the Disney acquisition mean for this extended canon? Does it still hold stock? Has it been addressed yet?

Speaking as someone who has read way, way too many Star Wars novels and comics, I hope Disney burns the expanded universe down with a blowtorch. There've been a handful of decent Star Wars novels over the past 20 years, but yesh, considering where they took that universe... If I hear even a mention of a Yuzzhan Vong in Episode 7, I'm leaving the theater.

I worked in a bookstore a few years back and distinctly remember a Stormtrooper-themed zombie novel having been released.

Like . . . what?

@Akyho said:

I thought a nice book, Death Troopers. A Zombie story on a Star Destroyer, good enough for a lone read.

@connerthekewlkid: The new CGI one.

All Spoilers here.

SPOILER WARNING: Click here to reveal hidden content.

Oh there was not chance of Retconning. Right so Mandalorians feature a big part in Republic Commandos, the story takes you to the home world Mandalore. We have seen it in Old republic and it hast changed much. Open green prairies and overall a farming world, were it is a clan mentality. There is only one true city on the planet and mostly its jsut farms. Karen Traviss wasn't the first person to write about Mandalorians and Mandalore in such a way.

Lucas with Attack of the Clones CGI, has Obi Wan and such visit Mandalore to negotiate them coming to the republics side. While Separatists tries to persuade for their side.

However Mandalore is has been at peace for 200 years after the great nuclear war that has turned most of the planet into a desert and the Mandalorians survive in domed cities. Through the Separatists trying to get the Death Watch the controlling force of mandalore, causes them to break there 200 years of peace and go to war. With Fenn Shysa becoming the new Mandalore as they need war minded leader.

Fenn Shysa was a character Karen Traviss wrote in Republic Commandos as he too becomes Mandalore.

Meaning EVERYTHING about Mandalorians history Karen wrote about is utterly destroyed. There is no way to retconn it from this point on. Come Imperial Commando we are on Mandalore in a house on a nice lush green world!

Also Jaster Mereel the adoptive father of Jango Fett who was Mandalore before Jango took the mantle. His war with the Jedi and Death Watch before hand is either ignored or retconned to "Oh that crazy bastard and his mini war."

To a fan of Mandalorians Lucas has obliterated them. I wasnt onboard with "Take Star Wars away from Lucas like an abused child!" untill this happened.

Karen Traviss herself had this to say.

This year it was announced that George Lucas's disregard for canon has gone to a new atrocious level. First elaborated by renowned Star Wars novel author Karen Traviss (Legacy of the Force, Republic Commando) , a massive retcon has taken place regarding the warrior culture of Mandalorians. Traviss has revealed the following: "When I was finishing 501st in January this year, I was told about a significant continuity change coming up in the Clone Wars cartoon. (As was mentioned and shown in a couple of books that came out in the summer - this is not confidential information of any kind now.) I was told that the Mandalorians were being revamped as long-standing pacifists who'd given up fighting centuries ago and that Mandalore was now a post-apocalyptic wasteland devastated by war. I was told not to refer to (recent) Mandalorian history because of that, as it was obviously at odds with the old continuity in my novels. That's fairly common procedure for any franchise - but unfortunately it wasn't that simple in practice. The two Commando series - and quite a few older books and comics, come to that -were based entirely on that original history, and basic logic meant that the fundamental plot of the series could never have existed if this had been a pacifist society. Neither could any of the characters or their motives have existed, because they were wholly based on a global warrior culture living on a non-nuked Mandalore. I had some discussion in January with the editor about possible ways around the problem, but after that, I heard nothing to indicate that the position would change, so the plan went ahead to wind up my existing storyline in the two books that were already in the pipeline. It was too late for me to rewrite 501st even if the changes hadn't made that pretty well impossible.

She could not finish Imperial Commandos due to it and her own disgust over the situation had her break her contract and just leave the Star Wars EU.

She is a big fan of star wars and of course Mandalorians so much so she and a linguist were working to make Mandalorian a fleshed out language like Klingon. I know its stupidly geeky, however I liked it.

So we will never get Imperial Commandos 2. Its gets me so angry, as Lucas had even went on record saying along the lines ofI dont care about the EU it is its own thing. I care about the video media, that means the movies and TV shows.

Also I was reading through the novel version of A new hope as the book is like the unedited script. The first 10 pages is dominated by an interview with Lucas in the 80s for a newspaper. He was asked about special effects said along the lines of ,There is a point were effects takes away from the story, the immersion. Id rather not rely on SFX. As its the story that matters and if you dont have a good story to begin with and instead rely on SFX then its not going to be a good film. Which instantly made me think back to the prequels and scream "YOU HYPOCRITE!" this was just as my dislike for Lucas's direction of Star Wars was coming to as boiling point. And killed my love for Star Wars at the peak were I loved it it the most and was consuming so much 2 years ago.

So I open my arms to Disney.

but didnt they kinda damage control that with the whole deathwatch thing?

I recommend the first X-Wing series (4 books) by Michael Stackpole. It stars a new hero unseen in the movies, but also strongly features Wedge Antilles, the only non-central character in all three original movies.

@connerthekewlkid: The damage control with the death-watch does not fix centuries of pacifism and a post nuclear world that doesn't match the past stories.

"Shatterpoint" by Matthew Stover is very good. Interesting story for Mace Windu.

Death Star is a pretty good novel.

The hell with all of you, I thought the Yuuzhan Vong Wars were great.

'star wars: path of destruction' by Drew Karpyshyn, also known as 'darth bane trilogy'. these were books i thoroughly liked.

i will say that drew's simplistic writing style makes the books a whiz to read through, which always bothered me. try not to let it tamper with your experience, he's simply trying to appeal to the overarching star wars crowd.

@HistoryInRust: That was Death Troopers. Its a decent one off,however it is blatant zombie exploitation.

A little bit of topic but still relevant. A book that really helped me enjoy Star Wars fiction even more, and other similar fiction as well: The Hero with a Thousand Faces

Everything but the one where Chewie died.

Rest in Peace, brother.

INTERACTIVE ELECTRIC NOVELS ARE THE HOT NEW SHIT THESE DAYS, BUDDY.

@Undeadpool: There's a whole book devoted to IG-88? The fuck. *goes to Amazon immediately*

(as a fan of assassination droids... this will be heaven.)

@project343: Not precisely, it's a book dedicated to all five of the bounty hunters (well there are six of them, but Zuckuss and 4-LOM get a single story), but IG has one of the longer tales.

@C0V3RT said:

@Undeadpool said:

Tales of the Bounty Hunters. It's a four (No wait...IG-88, Bosssk, Zuckus & 4-Lom, Dengar and Boba Fett...FIVE) short stories centering around the bounty hunters from Empire.

Seconded.

ill go with these too.