Judge said:

I like Shadows of the Empire, even if it would pave the way for the rampant commercialism that would characterise the prequels.

Even though SotE exhibits all the worst traits of the E.U. - the pointless one-upsmanship in the power of the characters over the movie characters (Dash Rendar is a BETTER pilot than Han!, Xizor is an even BIGGER badass than Vader!, etc., etc., etc.), I still enjoyed this, too. For me, it felt "Star Wars-y", whereas 95% of the EU that I've sampled doesn't.

I've always had a fantasy of making an all CGI fanfilm of this, high-quality, but I don't believe I have the time or necessarily the organizational skills. But all the assets are obviously there: the story (in spades), soundtrack, character design, and more.

Another favorite bit of EU are the first two books in the 'Coruscant Nights' trilogy. The series gets noticeably worse with each book, but the first one is GREAT, the second is solid, but the third is horrible.