American Hominid said:
The whole of SW history seems now to be increasingly embodied only in a struggle between the Jedi (paragons) versus Sith (always Evil - chaotic? lawful?). This also has the side effect of blowing the Force up to such a proportion that fewer stories can focus on non-explicitly-Force-using characters.
From what I've read in various publishers' summaries in my exploration of post-1980 EU, that seems to be it exactly. Star Wars seems to have moved from Science Fiction to Fantasy. It went from being Lord Of The Rings in space to being Harry Potter in space. That's something I have zero interest in.
The Zahn novels, however, are very nice so far. I've got my Star Wars reading cut out for me for quite a while.
American Hominid said:
another book you may like (it's one of my faves): The Illustrated Star Wars Universe. It's from 1995. It's set up almost like National Geographic, with profiles of the OT planets each told by different characters - an anthropologist who visits Tatooine, an Imperial scout who hates his assignment to Endor, a slimy political yes-man from Coruscant, a poet from Alderaan. Throughout, there are pieces of art done for the films (concept design work by many artists), complimented by quite a few specially-done paintings of various planet/culture-related scenes by Ralph McQuarrie.
That sounds very interesting. May have to look at that as a break between the Zahn series. Man, and having illustrations by McQuarrie is icing on the cake. He's been my mind's eye of Star Wars since the very beginning.