Gaffer Tape said:

I think The Outrider in Star Wars is harmless enough in theory (except that it's a SE change and therefore shouldn't have been made in the first place--I'm referring to the practice of tiny, innocuous cameos in general), but it does present a mixed message that causes scratching of heads. It's like Lucas is saying, "Well, I don't know what this ship even is because I haven't read this book, but I'm sure if I have it wink at the camera and can get my people to add a new entry into the databank, it'll sell a few more toys."

The Outrider in ANH SE. Yeah, that really pisses me off, because I consider Shadows to be a unholy piece of jumped-up fanfiction stuffed into the Star Wars saga and Bash Fendar to be a Mary Sue and Han ripoff. I don't think EU belongs in the OT, even less than other changes (I'm even pissed off about EU stuff being put in the ROTJ radio drama, because the radio dramas and novelizations were being taken more seriously than the rest of the EU). But Lucas knows something about the Shadows story. He must have read some of it (read the comic? (Sue Rostoni said Lucas reads Star Wars comics) Or played the game?) , because he's said to have liked it. It's even been claimed by a poster here that Shadows was accepted into the Lucas canon and that putting the Outrider into the ANH SE was to cement that, though I've had no external confirmation of that. If Shadows was ever accepted into Lucas's canon, it's probably since been dropped, because when he's talked since then of what's his Star Wars he's mentioned movies and tv shows, not novels, video games and comics like made up Shadows. There was no footnote in his comments saying "oh and I also count Shadows of the Empire". But that doesn't mean he's totally forgotten it either, because apparently they put Xizor in the crowd in the podrace (I didn't spot him, but I'm told he's there -I'm glad I've never seen him) and a track from the Shadows soundtrack was included in the ROTS music.