The Random EU Thoughts Thread — Page 7

LuckyGungan2001 said:

DominicCobb said:

I’ve been thinking about picking up any old EU book. What are people’s favorites beyond the obvious (Thrawn trilogy, Han Solo adventures)?

Not sure if you mean old as in from the 90s or old as in all of the original Legends stuff, but Outbound Flight by Timothy Zahn is my favourite at the moment.

I was thinking old as in 90s but more recent is fine too. Though I think I’m going to try to veer away from Zahn.

K. W. Jeter’s The Bounty Hunter Wars trilogy was pretty neat. They’re not nearly as beloved as the Brian Daley books, but A.C. Crispin’s Han novels are pretty fun. I’m thinking I might revisit Outbound Flight after the new Thrawn book drops just to compare and contrast. I read about a third of it a few years ago and was enjoying it, but I put it down to read something else at some point and just never picked it back up.

doubleofive said:

My friend is trying to convince me that Mara Jade is a big deal in the EU to everyone but me, possibly more than Thrawn. Am I crazy for Mara never standing out to me?

All I know her for is that she’s EU Luke’s wife, and nothing more (then again, I never followed legends that rigorously)

I’d definitely say she’s in the top tier for EU original characters. She was probably the second most significant addition in the Thrawn trilogy after Thrawn himself, and she remained part of the core ensemble from Hand of Thrawn right up to her death. She also was introduced at a time when Leia was really the only game in town as far as female characters were concerned, and that meant a lot to a lot of people.

I don’t know much about the EU in general, but if I had to, from my limited understanding, pick the two biggest EU characters, it’d probably be Thrawn and Mara Jade. Which is to say nothing of their quality (in fact I’m halfway through HTTE and I don’t care much about either), but they just seem to be the ones most talked about or of most importance. I mean, she married Luke. That’s kind of a big deal.

ZkinandBonez said:

DominicCobb said:

I’ve been thinking about picking up any old EU book. What are people’s favorites beyond the obvious (Thrawn trilogy, Han Solo adventures)?

I really enjoyed Shadows of the Empire.

It’s not an overly elaborate EU story as it’s set between ESB and ROTJ, and it’s just one book so you won’t have to commit to a trilogy or a whole series.

I enjoyed that one, even though I thought Xizor and Rendar both sucked. It was fun.

joefavs said:

K. W. Jeter’s The Bounty Hunter Wars trilogy was pretty neat.

Is that a Boba Fett thing?

Also, anyone read the Jedi Academy books?

suspiciouscoffee said:

“So bad it’s good” doesn’t work for books like it does for movies. At least not for me. Maybe a short story, but a full, bad novel? No.

Just to play devil’s advocate, Glove of Darth Vader and its sequels are more like novellas than true novels.

I saw a Legends book titled The Last Jedi at my bookstore a few weeks back. I meant to take a picture of it, with some joke about how the script got leaked.

So, in a number of stories Mara Jade’s hair colour is described as red-gold. What is “red-gold” hair supposed to look like? Strawberry blond? Red with blond highlights? If so, then why don’t any of the drawn depictions of her reflect that? Bright red/dark auburn hair doesn’t scream “red-gold” to me.

Uhh? I guess they just mean red but don’t want to be mundane…

While we’re on the topic of visual depictions of EU characters, the official character design for Garm bel Iblis is exactly nothing like what I had in my head when I read the books. To me he was and always will be Philip Baker Hall circa 1995.

According to Wookieepedia, the goth fashion victim from TFA

is human. Yet didn’t she have an unnatural Goa’uld voice? Am I supposed to believe she had a tracheotomy?

Anchorhead said:

Having gone deep into Rogue One, I thought I’d give this a look as well.

I’m unfamiliar with Luceno’s work. Has anyone read this yet or have any insight on his style. I’m really mostly interested in Krennic and Galen. I’m unfamiliar with the last two prequels, but I do recognize a few of the location names (per Wookiepedia) as having shown up in Prequel discussions.
I’ll skip it if it’s going to be prequel-centric.

Catalyst is really solid. Krennic and Galen are honestly much more interesting there than in the film proper. Much of the novel takes place in the PT era, but there isn’t a terrible lot of connection.

Catalyst has been one of my favorites so far. I was actually a little bit disappointed with Krennic’s role in the movie because he was so charismatic in the book.

joefavs said:

Catalyst has been one of my favorites so far. I was actually a little bit disappointed with Krennic’s role in the movie because he was so charismatic in the book.

Same. Mendolsohn is great but the character mostly feels wasted. I think his first scene is really the only interesting one he gets, unfortunately.

suspiciouscoffee said:

Without spoiling anything (I’m waiting for the paperback), could Thrawn fit with the original Thrawn Trilogy? I assume it wouldn’t outright contradict them, despite Canon statuses, but I guess it might.

I’m almost done with it and I can’t think of anything that conflicts with the old books. I don’t think it even directly contradicts Outbound Flight.