I'm surprised that people think that Zahn is the best of the EU writers. I read a lot of EU books when I was really into Star Wars for the first time. This was probably around the time of Episode 1, and I was reading everything I could get my hands on. Eventually I began reading the New Jedi Order books, but lost interest. Then folks on this site were saying how good the Thrawn trilogy was, so I got it last year and read them, realizing partway through that I had already read them.

I know that these books basically began the EU, but I am simply bewildered that so many people say that Zahn understands Star Wars better than Lucas. Zahn never tells us anything new about the Force, doesn't really force any of the primary cast to change, and recycles much of their dialogue from the movies without insight. Thrawn and Mara Jade seemed to be the only characters that he cared about, and the books shine in their tactical and military subtleties, but that's about their only strength.

Spoilers ahead.

When it was revealed that Luke was cloned from his severed hand, and that this clone wielded the lightsaber from this hand that had fallen down the bottomless pit in Cloud City, it read like a bad fanfic. Thirteen hundred pages for a fight between yourself and your clone? Really?