Printable View
Hey all, what's your favourite Star Wars novel? Could be canon or legends, doesn't really matter, as long as you enjoyed it!
My favourite is one I've been wanting to read for a while but only got around to it recently: Death Troopers.
Something about Star Wars and Zombies caught my attention, and I had a lot of fun with this book.
Heir to the Empire. I know, probably the least imaginative choice, but I still like it.
From the new canon I'm fond of Claudia Grey's work. (Although "Lost Stars" did ocassionally drift into "Small universe" territory a bit) in particular Bloodlines, which details how Leia wound up becoming the leader of the resistance (and also has a few other hints about what happened with Ben, although that 'full' story hasn't been released quite yet). James Lucenco's stuff is also pretty good in both canon and legends.
My favorite overall is the Legends book [I]Kenobi[/I]; Miller did a darn good job with that one, telling a really interesting story in a limited setting and creating some really good characters. It's one of the handful of Legends novels that I think is accessible to new readers and is self-contained in a way where it feels timeless, unlike some of the bigger Legends novels that were about bigger galactic-changing events. There was even a canon sequel in the [I]From a Certain Point of View[/I] anthology, something that we don't get a lot of.
From canon, I think that the R1 novelization is the best I've seen to date. Unlike other novelizations, it really reads like an original piece of fiction and adds a lot of depth to the story. I really liked the analysis we got of Jyn Erso and I think that it made the story and the movie more impactful. Compared to other tie-in novels, it really reads like it was crafted with more care then just transcribing the movie on page. I think it's the closest we've ever gotten to [I]Star Wars[/I] being literature. (I know a lot of people would say that about ROTS, but I found the poetic prose made me feel more distant from the story and that it drained the emotion out of the story. Fair enough if you disagree, but it seemed too clever by half; I felt like the author was more interested in the style then the substance, if that makes any sense.)
My honorable mentions would be:
Legends:
- [I]Knight Errant[/I] (Kerra Holt is one of my favorite Jedi characters and I like the premise, even if the writing is a bit less polished then John Jackson Miller's later novels would be)
- Thrawn books (just a really good story that captures the movies so well that everything old and brand new feels like an organic extension of the film series.)
- The two Han Solo trilogies (Love the smugglers/fringers part of the [I]Star Wars[/I] universe and they really captured the spirit of fun to be had with it. The AC Crispin ones even balanced the trickiness of being a biography but still reading like a three-act novel).
Canon:
- [I]Before the Awakening[/I] (A couple of really nice stories about Finn, Rey, and Poe just prior to TFA.)
- [I]Rebel Rising[/I] (Jyn Erso's biography does have some slow spots, but I liked the insight we got into her character and it's working as a companion piece to the R1 novelization.)
- TFA Junior Novelization (Unlike the adult novelization, this one really captured the emotions of the movie and explored the characters in ways that the movie couldn't. A bit like the R1 novelization, it really feels like the author was trying to write something that would stand up as a book and not just be a retelling of a movie.)
- [I]From a Certain Point of View[/I] (The short stories about the extras from ANH had a good mix and added a lot of depth to a story many of us know frontwards and backwards.)
- Anything by Claudia Grey (Just read them.)
I'd also give a shoutout to [I]Catalyst[/I] and [I]Cobalt Squadron[/I] for proving good backstory for R1 and TLJ respectively. Reading them before the movies really enhanced the viewing experience. For example, in TLJ, when Paige Tico dies, it wasn't just seeing a hero die, but a character I'd gotten to know and care about, making it more impactful.
[QUOTE=sirmarkus;4118928]My favourite is one I've been wanting to read for a while but only got around to it recently: Death Troopers.
Something about Star Wars and Zombies caught my attention, and I had a lot of fun with this book.[/QUOTE]
Read that one. The author got the horror down pat, but it didn't do much for me. Granted, I'm not a fan of horror. I actually kinda liked the prequel, [I]Red Harvest[/I] better (the creepy, gothic-like Sith school that tied everything into the more mystical and supernatural side of the franchise then the scientific like the original appealed to me more for the background of such a story and I did find Zo Trace more compelling as the main character who must survive). That said, I not much of a zombie fan in the first place, so I don't think I was the target audience for the books.
[QUOTE=Zetsubou;4119110]Darth Plagueis[/quote]
Honestly, that's one of my least favorites; the focus on the scheming that Palpatine used to rise to power failed to engage with me for some reason (although I did like how Lucino wrote Palpatine).
[QUOTE=Zetsubou;4119110]Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter[/QUOTE]
That was a fun adventure. Used to have a copy but I got rid of it for shelf space. Really wish I hadn't now.
[QUOTE=Gray Lensman;4119817]Heir to the Empire. I know, probably the least imaginative choice, but I still like it.[/QUOTE]
Oh, yeah. That one still holds up even now despite the age and the complete lack of canoncity with the new stuff. I think that that trilogy was best depiction of Thrawn; he was scary smart and good at predicting his enemies but he could still make mistakes (but always understandable ones that were not from taking the idiot ball) and wasn't all "Bat-God" like he got in the later Legends books (canon also seem to have captured the balance of making him the smartest guy in the room but not going god mode).
[QUOTE=ChrisIII;4120500]From the new canon I'm fond of Claudia Grey's work. (Although "Lost Stars" did ocassionally drift into "Small universe" territory a bit) in particular Bloodlines, which details how Leia wound up becoming the leader of the resistance (and also has a few other hints about what happened with Ben, although that 'full' story hasn't been released quite yet).[/quote]
Yeah, Grey is one of the best new authors. [I]Lost Stars[/I] was really good (best of the TFA "Journey to..." books) and the others were far better then I was expecting. Would really like to see her do something with Rey when the sequels wrap up (what she does after the films if she's alive at the end of t
[QUOTE=ChrisIII;4120500]James Lucenco's stuff is also pretty good in both canon and legends.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, I find that I either love or hate his stuff, for some reason. I mean [I]Labyrinth of Evil[/I] and [I]Tarkin[/I] are high on my favorites list, but [I]Darth Plaguis[/I] and [I]Millenium Falcon[/I] are two of the ones I really disliked.
I think [I]Catalyst[/I] is my favorite of his stuff; his tendency to fill the books with details and tidbits really worked well here and I liked how he fleshed out the lesser-seen characters. Really got a lot more out of R1 since I read the book first and had the context of the characters' pasts during the prologue.
The Star-Hoppers Saga was fantastic!
[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/hht864w.jpg[/IMG]
[SIZE=1]LOL joking Zahn's Heir to the Empire trilogy.[/SIZE]
Shadows of the Empire.
Shatterpoint.
Children of the Jedi.
I have weird taste.
As a larger story, the original Timothy Zahn Thrawn trilogy is the best. As a single novel, Traitor from the NJO. The best example of a book expanding on what the movies did while doing something new.
Either Yoda: Dark Rendezvous or Tempest. Tenel Ka's story in the latter just captivated me for some reason.
[QUOTE=Güicho;4122173]The Star-Hoppers Saga was fantastic!
[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/hht864w.jpg[/IMG]
[SIZE=1]LOL joking Zahn's Heir to the Empire trilogy.[/SIZE][/QUOTE]
I would buy the hell out of that.
I actually liked the Jedi Academy trilogy. Yeah, it was silly and over-the-top at times, but I think the best franchises can do that periodically. More than anything, I remember that early trilogy was kind of pairing up Lando and Mara Jade as an odd couple, and I kind of wish they had continued with [I]that[/I] rather than the obvious Luke and Mara.
Luceno's pretty good at the political and military aspects of Star Wars, but not so great with the Jedi Knights and the force IMO.
Just finished Red Harvest. It wasn't bad, but I thought Death Troopers was a better read. The characters just weren't as strongly developed and I just didn't get invested like I did with Death Troopers.
[QUOTE=sirmarkus;4130288]Just finished Red Harvest. It wasn't bad, but I thought Death Troopers was a better read. The characters just weren't as strongly developed and I just didn't get invested like I did with Death Troopers.[/QUOTE]
Interesting point. I'll have to think about that one.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]77162[/ATTACH]
This one, definitely.
Splinter of the Mind's Eye
Darth Plaguis
The Darth Bane trilogy