Weekend Update: How to Read Star Wars
It is time. The long-promised navigation post for Star Wars books!
What I thought I'd do is talk about how I'm getting back in the groove and the method I'm using, and then I thought I'd share a few tips for navigation. Sound good? Then let's get started!
When I first started reading Star Wars books, it was about…1995? It was right before the Special Edition videos were released, definitely after the Zahn trilogy was released, but it was right when the Expanded Universe was picking up steam. A couple of weeks ago, I spent hours visiting sites like TheForce.net, Wookieepedia, and most useful was Star Wars Books. It was amazing to see just how quickly these books gained in popularity, just by seeing how many EU books were published in a given calendar year. But because I started reading right about the time of the take off, I didn't have a lot to catch up on (about ten), so I essentially got to read all the books as they were released, in publication order.
Now that I'm utterly behind, that's how I plan to catch up: by publication order. There are a couple of great sites that list this, but I'm going with Star Wars Books because it leaves out all the children's/teen books, which other chronologies leave in and it gets a little confusing. I'll talk more about the children's/teen books later, but for now, let's stick with the adult fare.
If you want the publication order for the Star Wars books, just click here.
Some things to note: everything published before 1991, before Heir to the Empire is suspect. Splinter of the Mind's Eye is sheer crap, and it was written after A New Hope, before the other two movies came out, before it was revealed that Luke and Leia were twins. You might want to read it for shits and giggles, but whatever you do, don't start there.
Also to note: the novelizations for the original movies are also bad. Maybe I just have something against the time period, but I've yet to read something from that time period that really captures my interest or imagination when it comes to Star Wars. So don't start with anything written before 1991. Please. For the love of Yoda, do not start with anything pre-1991.
Why go publication order? Because while there are different authors playing in the Expanded Universe sandbox, each author builds on what was written before in order to keep continuity from book to book, from trilogy to trilogy. I'm not going to sit back and say the continuity is perfect, mind you. It's been YEARS since I've read these books. But when you consider that everything that's written took into consideration what came before, you realize that you're looking at one very long-running series.
However, there are easy places to jump in. I'll get to those in a moment, as well as some do's and don'ts.
If publication order doesn't interest you, you can also consider timeline order, and by that I mean when the books take place in the Star Wars timeline. For that order, just click this link.
Why timeline order? Well, it'll give you a sense of development as the characters and the Republic/Empire/Whatever changes. You won't have much whiplash if you're reading the New Jedi Order and the next book that was published takes place before Return of the Jedi, you know? The biggest con to this is that books are being published every year, and you may get through a particular era (say, The Old Republic) and you're well into the Rise of the Empire Era when a new Old Republic book comes out.
So it's your call.
Now, where to start?
DO: decide what speaks to you the most. Are you interested in the Prequel Era stories and what came before? Or the Original Trilogy stories and what came after? If you're interested in EVERYTHING, bless your heart, and just do publication order. Otherwise, pick one or the other.
DON'T: pick up in the middle of a series. If the book is labeled something like "Jedi Academy Trilogy" or "Fate of the Jedi: Apocalypse," don't read the books out of order. Remember what I said about books building on what came before? Reading a "Fate of the Jedi" book before completely "The New Jedi Order" series will spoil the hell out of the NJO stories, and frankly, you don't want to read the NJO stories until you read the books marked from the New Republic Era. You'll spoil yourself, you'll confuse yourself, and you probably won't want to read another EU novel ever again. Also, please don't read a book labeled as #3 of a trilogy before you read books #1 and #2. That's just logical. :)
DO: decide if you want to read the books in publication order or timeline order (depending on your choice of prequel stories, original trilogy stories and beyond, or both).
DON'T: bother with the "Tales of…" collections of short stories. I'm not saying they're bad, but even when I was a rabid reading fan of the EU novels, those stories never held any appeal for me. Unless you're just a DIE-HARD fan and/or interested in short fiction and/or interested in some of the super-minor characters that make up the SW universe, save these for a really rainy day.
DO: read the prequel novelizations. While the original trilogy novelizations sucked, the prequel novelizations were quite enjoyable, and written by well known authors in fantasy and SF (Terry Brooks, R.A. Salvatore, and my favorite, Matthew Stover). Not only that, but they flesh out the stories of the movies very nicely. I'm not saying you should start here, but if you're a fan, these shouldn't be missed.
DON'T: start with Vonda McIntyre's The Crystal Star (which sucked; Luke, Han, and Leia were not portrayed well) or Steve Perry's Shadows of the Empire (which took place between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi; unless you're a fan of the video game that was based on this book, this is just a weird, weird story that didn't sit well with me when I read it).
DO: consider the X-Wing series, which is surprisingly good despite not featuring the main characters from the movies. Except Wedge Antilles. Once you read this series, you'll find the phrase "Yub, yub, Commander" the most hysterical thing ever.
DON'T: start with The New Jedi Order or anything that comes after it on the timeline. Like I mentioned above, you'll be missing out on too much set-up.
DO: consider the YA series Young Jedi Knights. Granted, I was literally the target audience when I read these, but they feature Jacen and Jaina, who are Han and Leia's children, training at Luke's Jedi Academy on Yavin IV. They're fun, and they introduce characters and situations that are still in play in the adult novels.
DON'T: disregard all of the children's SW books. Some are crap, yes, but some are quite enjoyable in a bubblegum, lazy afternoon read kind of way. Anything by Jude Watson (the Jedi Apprentice series) is quite enjoyable, and the Junior Jedi Knights series is important to the timeline too; it features Han and Leia's youngest son Anakin, and also introduces characters that have starring roles in later adult EU books.
DO: when looking at the prequel era books, make sure you read book descriptions, make sure the book speaks to you. There's a lot that probably won't, so there's no shame in skipping those.
DO: read Yoda: Dark Rendezvous. It's the best damn SW prequel novel ever. You think it would be ridiculous, but it's not. It's also the first time I sought out an author's non SW work, it was written so well.
That's all great, right? But where do you START? Okay, okay, here's my two cents:
If you want to do publication order, and you want to continue to read about Han, Luke, and Leia, you can't go wrong by starting with Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy. In order, you want:
Heir to the Empire
Dark Force Rising
The Last Command
However, if you want to do a timeline read instead of the publication order read? Start with The Truce at Bakura and go from there. The Courtship of Princess Leia was a little weird, I'll warn you, and I really wish they'd gotten a woman to write that one, but again, it introduces characters and situations that are utterly prominent in later EU novels.
What if you're more interested in the prequel era novels? I've only read a handful of them, but if I had to recommend a reading order, I strongly suggest doing publication order. It'll give you stories that take place closer to the movies, so you can find out what happens in the gaps between the films (I've always said that The Phantom Menace should've been book only, with the Episode I being Attack of the Clones and the book, The Labyrinth of Evil be Episode II with Episode III as is). With the prequel stuff, there's lots of internal series too. There's a Darth sub-series, an Old Republic sub-series, and even a Clone Wars sub-series (no relation to the Cartoon Network). For the prequel stuff, you want want to cherry pick what interests you the most and go from there. Some of the prequel stories, because they don't feature any of the main characters from the movies, really read like regular SF novels, except there's usually talk of Jedi and the Force, which is kind of fun. I should also note: I've learned that Cartoon Network's Clone Wars animated series is considered outside the canon of the books and the movies. According to the Star Wars Books site, it's a separate timeline.
Whew, what a ride! I know that not everyone is a fan of Star Wars, and even if you are a fan, you may not want to get into the books. Some people feel like these books are nothing but fan fiction, but isn't that kind of a moot point? Let's be honest: media tie-in novels are just that: authorized fan fiction. And in the case of Star Wars, it's all part of a canon, so if you're interested, why not enjoy yourself? Not every book is OMG-AWESOME. Some are downright bad. But the good thing is, there's always a new author writing a different book, so there's bound be to some books you love.
Feel free to use this post as a message board to talk about what you've read, what you'd like to read, and to ask me any questions that come to mind. Now that I'm starting to read the EU books once more, you'll see some reviews, but don't hesitate to bookmark this page to have non-spoilerific discussions about the EU universe, favorite characters, and whatever else that comes to mind.
May the Force the with you!