In one of the last episodes of rebels " There’s always a bit of truth in Legends…" Ahsoka Tano

apparently the 6 books that made up the Jedi price series may well be plundered and parts turned Canon (as they are doing with Thrawn)

in the fastest Aftermath book "Life Debt" Wraith Squd is basically revisited (called Phantom Squad with wedge as the commander)

so it looks like Disney and Lucas arts a picking the best bits out and re using them minus the crap that ruined the old EU

ohhhh in the old EU if you can find a copy of it "Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina" is a fun read, its lots of short stories

It really is a lot like one of your favourite bands from the 80's announcing that they are re-forming and touring the world - there is that level of concern that they are now rubbish and might just destroy all the good memories.

Thanks for all the replies. I plan to follow up on many of them.

If video games are on your list of options, the Jedi Knight series is good. It gives you the story of Kyle Katarn and Jan Ors with the HWK-290 (which is sadly only in the first two games). Dark Forces and the Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II are somewhat dated in terms of graphics and design, but Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy are not too bad. Although you can get them on Steam, the games before Jedi Outcast can be a bit difficult to get to run properly.

ohhhh in the old EU if you can find a copy of it "Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina" is a fun read, its lots of short stories

I liked most of the "Tales" collections. The colour they add to the various background characters are great fun. "Tales of the Bounty Hunters" also contains the only Kevin J Anderson story I actually enjoyed (Therefore I Am: The Tale of IG-88). For some reason his stilted writing style works well for a story told from the POV of a droid.

ohhhh I also like the darth bane books and the millennium falcon story

start playing X-Wing, Tie Fighter and X-Wing: Alliance

The Bounty Hunter Wars was pretty bad. I was all excited about it having Dengar, but it was just Boba Fett porn.

Pick up "Heir to the Empire" the first of the Thrawn trilogy and really what got the ball going on the EU (now Legends.)

Skip the Thrawn trilogy. Whenever anyone mentions him, just roll your eyes and say "I hated art school."

Read Darth Plagueis, its amazing and doesn't contradict new canon, some elements evenmade it into Tarkin. That book shows you what a great story the prequels wanted to tell. It made me rewatch and to some extend enjoy episode 1 for the first time after my "wtf, I enjoyed this?!" moment.

I agree with many of the above. Start with the Xwing series, Thrawn trilogy, and the Tales books (Tales of the Empire and New Republic are the best imo).

Then avoid Crystal Star, it's by far the biggest pile of trash in the EU. Followed by anything Kevin J Anderson wrote.

This is my response. Word for word.

OK... A couple points to add.

Nothing in the EU was "literature". Some of it told good adventure stories with credible characters. Those are worth seeking out.

Some of THOSE give you quite a bit of background on pilots who appear in X-Wing Miniatures. I assume that's what prompted the OP. You want to know who the hell Tetran Cowell and Nera Dantels are, and why you should care.

1) Read all the X-wing books by Mike Stackpole. He's not a great writer, but his characters are solid, and the plotlines are probably the best thing that happened to the EU. The Aaron Allston books are optional. He's actually a better writer than Stackpole, but the material is lower stakes and unfortunately beholden to plotlines in "The Courtship of Princess Leia" which was possibly the ultimate nadir of Star Wars.

2) FIND THE DARK HORSE X-WING COMICS. This could be a little tricky.These are prequels to the X-Wing Novels.

3) The Thrawn trilogy by Timothy Zahn.

Those three series together tell a pretty good story about the Rebels pushing from Endor to Coruscant, establishing the New Republic, and their first (and by far most interesting) challenge in defending it. Since the X-Wing material in particular focuses on the pilots, you will meet the great majority if the in-game pilots from these books. (Mostly the Stackpole stuff).

4) Shadows of the Empire is responsible for Dash Rendar and Black Sun. It will shed some light on several of the S&V pilot. I'm not saying it's "good". I'm saying it is relevant background material.

5) I found AC Crispin's Han Solo trilogy to be underrated. It kind of sits in its own pocket in the EU, not impacting anything outside the Han Solo bubble and is, again, a credible space yarn with coherent if not brilliant characters and storylines. A low bar I know, but... compare to almost anything else in the EU. You're not going to find much info on pilots here though.

6) There are also the Han Solo Adventures. Written by Brian Daley in the late 70's. These are quite interesting. These absolutely happen in their own bubble and are almost completely ignored by later authors. They are quite a bit of fun though.

7) At this point If you LOVE Corran Horn, read "I, Jedi". The problem with this story is that it is concurrent to "The Jedi Academy Trilogy" by Kevin Anderson. THAT was crap. I mean... toilet poodoo of the highest order (and sadly, not even close to the worst part of the EU.) I Jedi is therefore beholden to many of that trilogy's plotlines. It improves them, radically, but still has issues. I sometimes wonder what might have happened if this book had been written in a world where the Jedi Academy trilogy didn't exist.

8) The Hand of Thrawn duology is a capstone that wraps up the major plotlines of the "New Republic" era and essentially settles outstanding disputes between the Republic and the Imperial Remnant.

If you read JUST those series, you'll get a "concise" (lol) history of the Rebellion and New Republic eras with very little baggage in them. Everything else I read from that era was garbage and is completely missable. In fact, your brain will be positively enriched by NOT reading "The Truce at Bakura", "The Courtship of Princess Leia", "Darksaber", (shudder) ... OMG THAT STUFF WAS BAD.

I stopped reading this crap around the time Attack of the Clones was released. Most new material being produced at that time was either prequel era stuff, (which I had no interest in) or "New Jedi Order" which takes place after the events above and is also highly controversial among fans for a number of well-documented reasons. FFG is pulling NOTHING from that era, so you don't need it for background anyway.

There are SOME later books in the prequel era that setup later events in the New Republic era. Most notably a couple of Timothy Zahn books give explicit history to events that would be referenced in the Thrawn trilogy. I never got around to reading them. Nobody seems to stand up and recommend them though, so I imagine they didn't make much of an impression even among Zahn fans.

NEW CANON:

The new stuff, in my opinion is on the whole MUCH better than the old EU so far. Chuck Wendig's polarizing writing style notwithstanding, it's pretty clear that the new canon is being guided by a much more centralized vision. Part of the problem with the old EU was that LucasFilm did not give any copulations whatsoever. They had a whole continuity division, but they didn't police tone, coherence or ideas - they just made sure there were no explicit contraditions.

It is BLINDINGLY clear that the new stuff is being guided by a central vision. The new books are finding distant ways to reinforce each other, and they are letting out hints that lead to TFA at very deliberate pace. Among the new books, "Lost Stars", "Bloodline", and "Tarkin" are solid stories in their own right, and very much worth reading. The Aftermath stuff.... it's not for everyone, but it ties into the overall story very cleanly.

The Jodo Cast podcast has an excellent podcast where they breakdown the different books in the EU.

http://www.jodocast.com/2016/06/05/jodo-cast-flashback-ossus-academy-9/

I tried listening to the X-wing series on audio book and couldn't get past 30 minutes of it. I just didn't like it at all.

Yeah, that's because Mike Stackpole, in terms of his "word-smithing", is a weak, amateur, juvenile writer. What he had going for him though were solid characters with credible motives, and the best overall plotlines of the entire EU. But... **** does his prose grate. I had a difficulty the first time I tried Rogue Squadron too.

And.... maybe too much in love with his own character (Corran).