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Post your reviews of Star Wars novels, comics, etc. here and rate them out of ten. I know Anchorhead has some good ones for Zahn's books in the "What do you LIKE About the EU" thread, and I want to hear people's opinions on what they've read and what they would recommend to other Star Wars fans and what they think everyone should avoid at all costs :)
Here are mine:
Reference Books etc.
Blueprints: Rebel Edition
by Ryder Windham; illustrated by Chris Reiff
Contains some interesting blueprints, but I don't like it nearly as much as the cross-sections books.
This gets five out of ten.
The Essential Guide to Alien Species
by Ann Margaret Lewis
This is one of the better Essential Guide books. It is largely written from the point of view of a xenobiologist who describes his encounters with the various species. I actually enjoyed reading it for it's own sake, not just to read up on the various Star Wars creatures (this has always been one of my favourite parts of Star Wars). If you're into this kind of thing, I would recommend it over just about all of the other Essential Guide and New Essential Guide series.
This gets a generous eight out of ten (because it's good for this type of book, not as compared to a good novel with that rating).
Guide to Characters
I don't remember this one too well, but I don't think it was one of the better ones.
I will tentatively place this one at five out of ten.
Complete Cross-Sections
These cross-section books are probably my favourite Star Wars reference-type books. They include lots of interesting cross-sections that are probably the best attempts so far to show the layout of space ships and buildings (the space ships still don't have bathrooms though). Anyway, I like them a lot.
I would say they are nine out of ten. I would give them ten, but they don't have the Executor, Luke's landspeeder, Luke's skyhopper, and the cloud cars, among others, so they aren't complete. They really need the Executor.
Novels
Legacy of the Jedi
by Jude Watson
This was too prequel-esque. Jude Watson is a mediocre author at best when it comes to Star Wars. It traces the apprenticeship of Qui-Gon to Dooku down to Obi-Wan and Anakin. I can't really remember the specifics of what I liked/disliked, but I know that I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, but it wasn't terrible.
I would give this about five out of ten.
Heir to the Empire
by Timothy Zahn
This was an excellent read and I highly recommend Timothy Zahn as an author. He writes his characters well, and develops the central characters of the OT into more mature versions of themselves, but most importantly he retains the essence of Star Wars in his writing. I loved his character Thrawn and I think he did a good job portraying Mara Jade and his other characters. His characters had depth, and they weren't static, so I thought they felt real--or at least as real as Luke or Leia. The story takes place after ROTJ and describes the remnant Empire fighting against the New Republic (if it had been formed as of the story...I can't remember).
Ten out of ten for this one!
EDIT: Not sure why all that's in bold, but I can't fix it...
Dark Force Rising
by Timothy Zahn
This is the sequel to Heir to the Empire and it is probably just as good. I can't remember it as well, but I know I had the same good impressions I had with the first one, regarding the character development and portrayal and the story.
I only remember good feelings from this story, so I'm going to give it ten out of ten even though I don't remember it as well as Heir :)
Millenium Falcon
by James Luceno
I found this one interesting, but found that the Falcon's history coincided with known planets too often. I think it shouldn't have had anything to do with Coruscant, but I don't think that detracted from the story, I just get tired by the shrinking of the Star Wars universe in the EU. It is about Han and Leia tracing the Falcon's history with their granddaughter and includes "flashbacks" to the previous owners, tracing the story from the beginning until it meets up in the middle.
I would probably give this one about seven out of ten.
Dawn of the Jedi: Into the Void
by Tim Lebbon
This one was okay, but it could have been better. It takes place over 25,000 years before Episode IV and is about the early days of the Jedi, following one Jedi (or Je'daii as they are called in the book) who is searching after her brother who is either not force sensitive or has cut himself off from the force (I couldn't figure out which) to try and prevent him from activating a Gree (a highly advanced ancient EU species) portal to another place, since it will cause mass destruction. In the book, Jedi can marry and have families and there is no real light and dark side of the force. The Jedi teach balance rather than being specifically light, and Jedi learners go to two different moons of the main planet for training in the lighter and darker sides of the force (one on each moon) and achieving balance.
This one is six out of ten.
Lost Tribe of the Sith: Collected Stories
by John Jackson Miller
About a group of Sith who crash-land on a primitive planet and use a pre-existing religion to establish a Sith-centred religion among the natives. It is a group of nine novellas that follows the story of the tribe over a period of a couple thousand years and is an enjoyable read. It describes the various factions within the tribe and their fighting amongst each other, the account of which I found very interesting. If you like that sort of thing, then this is the book for you. Only the collected stories exist in book form, the others are available individually as ebooks.
This one is probably eight out of ten.
The Old Republic: Revan
by Drew Karpyshyn
This one takes place in the Old Republic of course, and tells the story from both a Jedi and a Sith point of view which I found quite interesting. The main Sith character is well portrayed and wasn't so bad that I couldn't relate to him, but was still obviously Sith. The only real niggle I had with this book is that it includes an immortal emperor who obliterated all traces of life on his home planet, and even the force, to make himself immortal. I thought this made the Sith seem way too powerful, since one could never achieve that level of power using the light side of the force. It also detracts from the awesomeness of Sidious/Palpatine.
This gets nine out of ten.
The Old Republic: Deceived
by Paul S. Kemp
This one was good, but it involved a Sith Lord who was just slightly past the point where I could still relate to him, which I think detracted from his character. That may have been intentional, but I prefer when I can relate to the characters, no matter whether they're the bad guys or the good guys. I did feel sorry for him at some points I suppose, but most times I didn't understand him or where he was coming from. The rest of the story was good. Besides the Sith and his favourite slave, it mainly involved a Jedi taking revenge and a smuggler-type guy, and I think they worked fairly well as characters, so I enjoyed the story.
I think I'll settle for eight out of ten on this one.
The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance
by Sean Williams
This involves all kinds of stuff happening in a hutt's palace, and includes a Mandalorian, some Jedi, some Sith (which were well portrayed and identifiable--meaning that I could identify with them, not that I could distinguish them from the other characters (I could distinguish them though)). I enjoyed this one, but I didn't like the super-powerful hex droids very much, and since they were a very central story point I didn't enjoy the book as much as I otherwise would have.
I would give this one eight out of ten.
The Old Republic: Annihilation
by Drew Karpyshyn
I thought this one was well written, but it involved a big superweapon, and I thought that was not cool. Superweapons are quite clichéd in Star Wars, so I prefer non-superweapon stories. I enjoyed the characters though. One was the secret son of the Jedi Grand Master and the top military guy (this was after Jedi were no longer supposed to love), but he is somewhat fed up of the Jedi in the story, and doesn't really care for Jedi philosophy. Another character is a Jedi master whose former apprentice controls the superweapon, and he ends up going with the other guy to disable the superweapon. I liked seeing things from multiple points of view, as in the other Old Republic books.
I would say this is seven out of ten.
Junior Novels
The Last of the Jedi series (10 books)
by Jude Watson
I didn't mind these ones. The series is about a group of Jedi who escaped the purge, and takes place shortly after Episode III. It focuses on a Jedi who quit the order before the purge, called Ferus Olin. Obi-Wan becomes a bit of a mentor to Ferus, since Obi was friends with Ferus' old master. For a junior series the books were quite well written and I must say I enjoyed them, aside from certain prequel ideas which showed their ugly face. In other words, don't read them if you hate the prequels. Personally I don't have too much of a problem with references to the prequels, I just don't like the prequels themselves, so I find I can enjoy books like these if they are done well enough.
I would say this is about six to six and a half out of ten.
Rebel Force series (I've read 6 books, not sure if there are more)
by Alex Wheeler
There were some things I didn't like about this, like Luke ending up on Kamino (you'd think there would be enough places in the galaxy without everyone ending up on the same planets at some time or other) and TWO people from The Last of the Jedi series showing up and meeting the central characters who are the main characters from the OT. The biggest problem I have with the EU is that it makes the Star Wars galaxy so darn small! However I think the series is well written, and I have to say I enjoyed the books, but they weren't nearly as good as Zahn's books for instance.
I give this a generous seven out of ten.
Please don't post major spoilers (anything more spoiling than what I wrote is too spoily) in your reviews, and if you do, put spoiler tags around them.