I like S&V and imperial, what are the best EU books to start reading?

Don't have to be fighter craft based.

Honestly?

I probably wouldnt even bother now its all nebulous.

I found all the 'novels' i read to be pretty poor, then again i really dislike Stackpole as an author, his 'battletech' books are dross.

The only EU stuff i've really enjoyed is the graphic novels.

I'd recommend the 'dark times' books (set just before ANH) and the 'Crimson Empire' books (set as the empire is fracturing).

Avoid the 'legacy' ones, they are so far forwards in the star wars timeline they dont even really feel like star wars much.

'Boba Fett is Dead' is pretty cool too.

Some people love the EU novels, i'm just not one of them.

Some of them are frankly ludicrous (and trust me i've *tried* to like them), like, 'tales from the mos eisley cantina' is just silly.

*every* single person in there has some super galazy shaking connection to the main trilogy, some of them make no sense at all. No one can just be a dude having a beer in there.. everyone is either a rebel spy, has beaten han solos kessel run or is about to pull off the heist of the century... even one of the stormtrooper about to raid docking bay 84 or whtaeve it is 'lets solo escape' because hes annoyed as hes been demoted from ATAT driver to stormtrooper... why you ask... because in a simulator he makes the ATAT kneel down when attacked by airspeeders so they cant be tripped up... the imperials dont want this weakness revealed so hes sent to a stormtrooper unit to keep him quiet... which makes no sense at all, they'd just kill him and claim it was an accident.

So if you want books with really really tenuously linked characters and events that read more like fan fiction go for em!

Again i realise im goijngto get a backlash off EU fanboys but there is a reason Disney pretty much wrote off most of it because it was so contradictory, inconsistant and varied in quality from 'ok' to 'utter tosh'.

Now i'll qualify this in that i used to work in sci fi and fantasy publishing and it was my job to commission new submissions so trust me i've seen my fair share of naff story ideas

Gaunt's Ghosts, Double Eagle, Eisenho.....

Oh. Not that Imperial...

In all seriousness, its all a matter of taste. Tales of the Bounty Hunters may be worth it for some S&V stuff, as would Shadows of the Empire, but I love a chance to plug the Michael A. Stackpole X-Wing books and I, Jedi. They are Alliance/New Republic based AND mostly fighter based, so not really the material you were looking for, but it deals with the 'nicer' side of scum (Booster Terrik, Rogue Squadron operating as 'mercenaries' and I, Jedi gets you a look at some 'good' pirates).

Also, these aren't "good" books by any stretch of the imagination. To be honest, none of the EU books are terribly well written. But the stackpole stuff has a fun pulpy feel, and he writes dogfights well.

Heck, even the original EU (Thrawn trilogy) gives you an interesting look at 'good guy' S&V types like Talon Karrde.

Well, the Thrawn trilogy by Timothy Zahn is generally held in the highest esteem of any of the EU material. And it is certainly on what much of the EU bases itself. The only real downside to that is that it's extremely likely the "new canon" coming out soon (the new books coming out this fall - 'Shattered Empire', 'Lost Stars', etc) in support of Episode VII... as well as Episode VII itself... will completely over-write everything the Thrawn books did.

Gaunt's Ghosts, Double Eagle, Eisenho.....

Oh. Not that Imperial...

In all seriousness, its all a matter of taste. Tales of the Bounty Hunters may be worth it for some S&V stuff, as would Shadows of the Empire, but I love a chance to plug the Michael A. Stackpole X-Wing books and I, Jedi. They are Alliance/New Republic based AND mostly fighter based, so not really the material you were looking for, but it deals with the 'nicer' side of scum (Booster Terrik, Rogue Squadron operating as 'mercenaries' and I, Jedi gets you a look at some 'good' pirates).

Heck, even the original EU (Thrawn trilogy) gives you an interesting look at 'good guy' S&V types like Talon Karrde.

I proofed and edited a lot of the early Dan Abnett stuff. Some of his initial drafts were a bit weird and it was hard to get Dan to understand the '40k mythos' at times.

Like in one book he put in 'bolt action auto rifles'... It took me ages to get him to understand that a rifle is either 'bolt action' or its 'automatic', you cant have a 'bolt action auto rifle'.... i have a funny feeling after spending ages over that issue we left it in as he was getting upset about us changing it

Well, the Thrawn trilogy by Timothy Zahn is generally held in the highest esteem of any of the EU material. And it is certainly on what much of the EU bases itself. The only real downside to that is that it's extremely likely the "new canon" coming out soon (the new books coming out this fall - 'Shattered Empire', 'Lost Stars', etc) in support of Episode VII... as well as Episode VII itself... will completely over-write everything the Thrawn books did.

My point exactly.

Its highly likely that 90 per cent of the EU will be written off as a bad dream Luke had after eating too much grilled cheese before bedtime

Hmm... There's the classic EU and the post-New Jedi Order EU.

The classic EU by bantam spectra has a couple of highlights. The Thrawn Trilogy by Timothy Zahn is responsible for the EU. As a result, it's also self-contained- You don't need to know anything about the rest of the EU to understand anything. This is where I'd start out. Zahn's Hand of Thrawn duology is also pretty good, and a lot of fans prefer to think of it as the finale of the EU and ignore the New Jedi Order and beyond.

The X-wing series by Michael Stackpole and Aaron Allston is reasonably popular as well. It's also relatively self contained until Book 5-7 (Where Aaron Allston took over), which deal with events from The Courtship of Princess Leia (Far better than said novel itself does). Corran Horn does catch some flak for arguably being a Marty Stuff, and Stackpole's prose is a bit bland for some people's taste. It's the best dogfighting action of the EU, though.

The rest of the written EU I know less well, although the Han Solo trilogy is well regarded.

The New Jedi Order has... Caught a lot of backlash. A lot of people see it as "mediocre-grimdark," but I leave you to make your own decision. The events of various previous EU books are heavily referenced (Every participating author brought some of their old characters into their books).

Well, the Thrawn trilogy by Timothy Zahn is generally held in the highest esteem of any of the EU material. And it is certainly on what much of the EU bases itself. The only real downside to that is that it's extremely likely the "new canon" coming out soon (the new books coming out this fall - 'Shattered Empire', 'Lost Stars', etc) in support of Episode VII... as well as Episode VII itself... will completely over-write everything the Thrawn books did.

Zahn is an excellent place to start the thrawn trilogy has plenty of imperial stuff without being unbalanced.

There's always the x-wing series it's a little kiddy but I don't remember hating any parts of it, corrans a bit Marty stue but those books flesh out the universe quite a bit.

Well, that's the real problem with a lot of the EU stuff after that original work.

Pre-Thrawn-Trilogy, the EU almost came off better for the rarity of materials in it. Believe it or not (you had to be there), 'Star Wars' wasn't perceived to be the enormous cash-cow that it is, today. For almost the entire 90s, it was only something someone wrote for out of a labor of love, and books were rare (a year or more apart).

Once it became obvious how much money was in it, LucasFilm started letting anyone who could open up Word knock out a book (exaggeration: but it doesn't really feel like it, sometimes).

Even Timothy Zahn, himself, saw a bit of a decline in quality of his later works as they started getting more 'rushed out the door'. And as to Michael Stackpole, Karen Traviss and the like....UGGGH.

So... yeah, stick with the Thrawn trilogy, and you'll be good to go for a while.

Will just watch the prequels tonight then......

Reading the Rogue Squadron series would be fun. Lots of good characters in there, some of which we play with in this game.

Also, I did like the most recent big series that Luke and his son Ben had. The lost tribe of Sith was pretty cool.

Jacob

Oh, and the Thrawn series is pretty much a necessary read for any Star Wars fan. In my books, it's what starts and really encapsulates what EU material can be.

Jacob

In regards to the Thrawn trilogy, I would like to add that it includes a lot of imperial stuff (Paelleon is one of my favorite characters), and fringer stuff with all of Karde's activities.

Read Tarkin. Great book. And it's canon.

Thrawn and x-wing series are both pretty good.

It's not cannon now though, so it's not as enjoyable to me.

If you're playing this game? XWing series, totally.

Tarkin is a good start.

Try these:

Thrawn trilogy by Timothy Zahn (what most of us read first from the EU)
X-Wing series by Aaron Allston and Michael Stackpole (Loads of X-Wing pilots you'll know from the game)

Shadows of the Empire (Dash Rendar and co)

You might like the "Tales from..." books as they flesh out characters from the films, such as the other bounty hunters from Empire Strikes Back. I can see the above points though, that it's a bit weird how every single character has an important back story.

Avoid these:

Bounty Hunter trilogy by K.W. Jeter

Black Fleet Crisis trilogy by Michael P. Kube-McDowell

New Jedi Order series and anything that comes afterwards

The Thrawn Trilogy was pretty good. The Alliance is now the New Republic, and it is struggling to establish a galactic infrastructure. Meanwhile an Imperial Grand Admiral returns and aligns the scattered Imperial Remnants (who had been battling each other for control) into a singular force, an begin employing the hit & run tactics previously used by the Rebellion. With Jabba the Hutt out of the way, power in the underworld shifts into the hands of some previously minor players. And a Dark Jedi returns from a hidden world (they didn't use the word Sith much before the Prequels).

It's worth reading to see where the EU and the resurgence of Star Wars was born. There were some proto-EU books put out in the 80's, but they're a bit more "kiddy" as I recall.

There were a few good stories in the X-wing comic series. There's an Omnibus collection that collects all of the key stories that you might like to check out. It has stories featuring Wedge, Tycho, Hobbie, Ten Numb, Ibtisam, Soontir, and Turr.

Tarkin was okay but a little dry, understandable given the subject.

I agree with Gadge's first post. Most of the EU is total garbage.

Having said this, I recently re-read the Stackpole X-wing novels and enjoyed them. It was a walk down memory lane .. and a fun one. No, he won't win a pulitzer, grammy, nobel or even a McDonalds encouragement award for his writing but if you put yourself in the headspace of a 14 year old lad who loved Top Gun .. It's fun.

In truth, I would drop the EU novels and read something else.

You look at any franchise there will be some good books a few great ones and alot of meh.

I was at where you are at about a year ago. I'll also state that I have only done audio books as I don't have time to actually read, but get lots of time to listen to books (driving, chores, etc).

I listened to the The Thrawn Trilogy and really enjoyed it. Is it incredibly well written? No, but it was fun and kept things in the flavor of the original movies.

I started the X-wing series, but it was not good as an audio book. Too many characters and too much happening at one time to really get into it. I think it would be an awesome graphic novel. I should check my local library.

I did listen to Tarkin and the new Star Wars Rebels audiobook. I liked both of them. I thought they were pretty entertaining.

I started the 2nd Zahn trilogy and really didn't care for it. I stopped listening to it.

Oh, and I did listen to the Bounty Hunter Wars series. It was not bad. I had a stretch of time with nothing else to listen to. It wasn't great, but not bad.

I've read all three of the 'new canon' books and they were ok. The Rebels prequel 'A New Dawn' was probably my favorite.
Followed by Luke's book and Tarkin - both of which I found to be a bit 'meh' except for bits and pieces. I am interested to see if there were any easter eggs planted in any of those three that will in some very minor way pay off in E7.

But yeah, as some have said before, it depends on how crazy it will make you if you read something only to have Disney completely ignore it or change it later. If something like that will make you angry, probably best to just start your reading with the new official things. There are two more books coming soon for a total of 5 - that's plenty of 'official' things to keep up with without worrying about content that they have deemed irrelevant imo

I have found the Rebels book very dull and struggled to finish it. Less than 200 pages to go now. In between that I have read Heir and Tarkin. Tarkin was probably my favorite but Heir was really good to. Looking forward to Lords of the Sith in a few weeks. I only read the canon books.