ZkinandBonez

Wexter said:

IIRC, the whole point of that part in the book where they talk about the reborn Emperor was to suggest that maybe it wasn’t really Palpatine but an imposter. Apparently Zahn really hated the plot of Dark Empire. 😃

Maybe, but mostly it was about Luke. They seemed to suggest that all the events of the Jedi Academy books were due to Luke having been influenced by the dark side. hence everything went wrong. That entire chapter seemed to exist so that Zahn could ret-con whatever he didn’t like. Or maybe Lucasfilm as for it. I seem to recall that he was told to specifically add the Luke and Mara romance as well.

I personally really like Dark Empire, and the fact that it didn’t really acknowledge Zahn’s books outside of the crawl is fine with me. More time spent making an interesting and different story, rather than spend too much time trying to connect everything. Hand of Thrawn has over-all been fine, but all the references and attempt to combine everything has made it very tedious to read, and I much prefer the stories where the writers for the most part just wrote whatever the heck they felt like.

DuracellEnergizer said:

IIRC, Zahn was none too fond of direction the EU went in after the release of the Thrawn Trilogy – he never liked Palpatine returning in clone bodies, how KJA & co. developed Mara’s character, etc. – so he felt compelled to fix those issues in the Hand of Thrawn books. That’s why so many of those references are there.

Oh yeah, and he’s friends with Stackpole. They even collaborated on a story or two together.

So Hand of Thrawn was basically just one big ret-con to put everything together before the release of the PT.

That would explain the lack of any real story. I mean I’ve read about 600 pages and very little has actually happened. And I still have over 400 pages to go.

(Funny that he didn’t like the idea of a cloned Palpatine, since he himself was so obsessed with cloning. Even Hand of Thrawn re-introduces a cloned character from a previous story.)

Wexter said:

The cross-referencing was very common in the old EU. Some of it was even requested by Lucasfilm. And some of it were just retcons. The Thrawn trilogy didn’t have those references, simply because it was one of the first things written.

Actually, if I remember correctly, Dark Empire was originally supposed to deal with the Alliance capturing Coruscant after the defeat of the Empire shortly after the events of ROTJ, but Zahn refused to reference the events that were supposed to happen in Dark Empire in his then incomplete trilogy, so Dark Empire’s events were instead moved to after the Thrawn trilogy with the Empire recapturing Coruscant for a short while (which was of course incredibly convoluted).

That’s interesting. I knew that Heir to the Empire and Dark Empire (first issue) came out roughly the same time, but I didn’t know that Veitch was forced to conform to Zahn’s ideas.

It did occur to me why Heir to the Empire (and the Thrawn trilogy) in general didn’t have EU references. As you said, there wasn’t really anything to reference at that point. But the main reason that Hand of Thrawn surprised me was that out of the books and comics that I have read it was somewhat more exaggerated and shoehorned in than the others. Even Dark Empire #1 which came out only a few months after Heir to the Empire had EU references (Thrwn, Han & Leia’s twins), but it was handled much better than what Zahn did later.

Basically what I’m saying is that the EU cross-references that I’ve read previously felt more-or-less natural to the plot, and sometimes they even went unnoticed by me until I actually looked up the characters/places. In Hand of Thrawn they felt random and sometimes even unrelated.

I’m probably “preaching to the choir” here so-to-speak (I couldn’t think of a better expression), but I’ve noticed something weird while reading the Hand of Thrawn duology from the late 90’s. There’s the obvious flaws of the books, which is simply that they’re not as well written as the Thrawn trilogy, the plot is somewhat cluttered, not to mention a bit confusing at times, and the pacing is very slow. But one thing which really stands out to me is how many times the story just comes to a grinding halt in order to reference something from other EU stories. F.ex. there’s several pages where Luke and Mara Jade simply discuss the events of the Dark Empire comics. It has little to nothing to do with the overall plot, but it takes up a surprising amount of time. And that’s just one example, it also includes several characters from Stackpole’s X-Wing series, as well as a lot of references, mostly names, that barely have anything to do with the story. It probably made sense to fans who read these books back in 1997-1998, but now it’s very jarring. I’m assuming that this isn’t very unusual for books like these, but it suddenly occurred to me that the Thrawn trilogy does not do this. And other stories from the early 90’s that I’ve read does it to a much smaller and subtler degree. It makes sense that the Thrawn trilogy would’t reference anything but the OT movies as there wasn’t really any EU to reference yet. But even Dark Empire has very few references. Thrawn is briefly mentioned in the “opening crawl” in the first issue, but it’s not confusing. I had not read any Thrawn book when I first read Dark Empire, but I felt that the crawl sufficiently explain anything I needed to know, which was basically that; some Imperial named Thrawn caused a lot of trouble after ROTJ, then he was defeated, and shortly after the Empire re-took Coruscant. Simple, short, and I was up to speed on the current lore while still being allowed to focus on the story I was currently reading without having to go read something else first. With the Hand of Thrawn books that came out 7 to 8 years later on the other hand, I feel like in every other chapter I have to stop reading, pull out my phone and look up some name or event on Wookieepedia. I am well aware of the convoluted nature of the EU, but this is really the first time it has been so apparent to me while reading a novel. I honestly expected references to be subtler or more naturally incorporated into the narrative.

Is it just Zahn who did this in his later SW-related books, or is this common in the other books as well? I imagine this is the biggest problem with EUs in general, when they get cluttered you loose the space previously reserved for interesting and original stories and instead have to focus on putting them into an elaborate timeline in which multiple people have contributed to.

How is this in the new EU? I’m curious as I have not bothered to read any of the new material.

I’m also kind of surprised that I haven’t noticed this before, hence why I’m wondering if the Hand of Thrawn books are an exception. (I’ve read a handful of novels and comics, as well as played a lot of the games from the early 2000’s, but apart from planets being references to previous stories, I can’t remember any of them referencing EU characters, unless of course they’d been in the previous books/comics/games.)

suspiciouscoffee said:

According to Amazon, Vol. 2 comes out next summer and will have #24-38, along with Annual 1 and more UK Weekly issues, so I’ll probably get that if I don’t get impatient and start hunting down the original issues.

(Just FYI, if you get really impatient, and tracking down individual issues proves too hard, I imagine you could find a second-hand copy of this omnibus from 2002 pretty cheaply.)

suspiciouscoffee said:

ZkinandBonez said:

suspiciouscoffee said:

I’ve been reading some of the old Marvel comics lately (got a big book of them for Christmas, just finished issue 12). Is it too much of a stretch to imagine that Crimson Jack got his ship from the Battle of Scarif in Rogue One?

Well it does fit Jack’s description of how he got it, so why not. It’s a pity it’s no longer canon because Jack hijacking a star destroyer at Scarif could have made a pretty interesting story.

(Btw, which omnibus is is that you’re reading? Hopefully it’s not one of those that stop right in the middle of a plot-line. The Doomworld story-line is fun, but in my opinion it only gets better from then on. All of the Goodwin/Infantino stories released prior to ESB are pretty great.)

It’s a good thing I ignore canon in favor of my own personal one, so into my canon it goes!

It’s the “Marvel Epic Collection” volume 1. It collects Star Wars #1-23 and material from Pizzazz #1-16 & Star Wars Weekly (UK) #60, according to the back cover.

Well at least that omnibus doesn’t stop in the middle of a plot-line, so that’s good. Though I would recommend reading the rest of the comics published prior to ESB (e.g. up until #37.) There’s some good stories published after ESB as well, but they’re not connected in quite the same way.

suspiciouscoffee said:

I’ve been reading some of the old Marvel comics lately (got a big book of them for Christmas, just finished issue 12). Is it too much of a stretch to imagine that Crimson Jack got his ship from the Battle of Scarif in Rogue One?

Well it does fit Jack’s description of how he got it, so why not. It’s a pity it’s no longer canon because Jack hijacking a star destroyer at Scarif could have made a pretty interesting story.

(Btw, which omnibus is is that you’re reading? Hopefully it’s not one of those that stop right in the middle of a plot-line. The Doomworld story-line is fun, but in my opinion it only gets better from then on. All of the Goodwin/Infantino stories released prior to ESB are pretty great.)

LexX said:

ZkinandBonez said:

Has anyone here played the game Rebellion (known as Supremacy in the UK)?
I’ve been playing it for the last couple of days and it’s basically the EU as a game.

I played it when I was teenager. It is a really interesting game but I never won once. Probably would have played more if it wasn’t that hard… I’ve played Civilizations and Galactic Battlegrounds and back then enjoyed the strategic games but Rebellion was something else.

I’ve already learned that it has a very steep learning curve. I’ve been playing a single same game for two days now and I still feel like I only understand a fraction of the game. I’m still finding it very interesting though as I get deeper and deeper into how the whole thing works. My brother is very good at it, and somehow he can finish a game in no more than a few of hours. Then again he has 18 years of experience with the game.

I’ve been playing Galactic Battlegrounds since I was a kid (it’s one of my favourites), but like you said that’s a very different kind of game. Much more casual in some ways, but also less immersive (or maybe it’s just that I’ve gotten bored of it after all these years).

doubleofive said:

Did you know they made a board game this year based on it?

I didn’t. It kept popping up as I was googling strategies for the PC game, but due to the generic name I just assumed it was unrelated. It actually looks quite interesting. It’s far too expensive for me though, so I’ll stick to the PC version for now. (I’m also assuming that the board game is very PT-influenced?)

ATMachine said:

I’ve played Rebellion, thanks to the GOG version. I would have played Supremacy, but it’s not on GOG, it doesn’t run on 64-bit systems and the sites hosting fanmade patches disappeared a few years ago.

Is there any difference between the two other than the name?

Has anyone here played the game Rebellion (known as Supremacy in the UK)?
I’ve been playing it for the last couple of days and it’s basically the EU as a game.

I find this game to be a pretty appropriate companion to the old EU as it’s extremely dense with names and references, not to mention that the game itself is extremely complicated. Most of the really important 90’s EU character is in this game, such as Thrawn, Garm Bel Iblis, etc. but also several smaller characters that I hadn’t even heard of; like Pter Thanas and Bin Essada. Heck, even Terrinald Screed who appeared in the Droids cartoon is in the game. The game even has up to 200 planets if you play it on the large world setting, and all of them are supposed to be from from the then current canon.

The only decent YouTube review I could find of it;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQwzf1e3jhE

DuracellEnergizer said:

Perhaps it’s just 'cause I was exposed to it first, but I’ve always preferred this design for the Noghri

over this one

Now I’m curious as to which Bothan version you prefer or were exposed to first. From what I’ve gathered, there were quite a few different takes on the Bothans back in the 90’s and early 2000’s; A TALE OF TWO BOTHANS.

(There was a few more variations than this, but these two seems to be the most common ones, that is until the people in charge of the EU settled on the one on the right.)

After having read the Thrawn trilogy I personally prefer the one on the left. The other one is a pretty interesting design, but Zahn only described them as having fur. I feel like a snout and over-all canine features would have warranted some description in the novels.

ferris209 said:

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/disney-faces-star-wars-size-dilemma-over-loss-235015748--finance.html

Re-casting her seems completely out of the question to me, and I don’t think the fans will be able to just accept her suddenly being gone from ep. IX through some excuse in the opening crawl. I have a feeling that she’ll have too big a part in ep. VIII for that to make sense. Lucasfilm/Johnson have roughly 10 months or so to “solve” this problem, so they might have to give her some heroic death scene, most likely (partially) off-screen like ferris suggested. It could work narrative-wise as Rey has already lost a father-figure in Han, so doing something similar for ep. VIII could work.

There’s obviously no ideal solution when something like this happens, but I trust Jonson and Lucasfim will find a solution that will be respectful to both Fisher and her character, while also feeling more-or-less natural to the plot of the future films.

The first time I saw the OT as a kid (I was 7 years old and saw it with my uncle) I saw the 1997 SE. When I asked my mother if she’d get me my own VHS set so that I could watch them at home she went to a second-hand video-store and unknowingly bought the unaltered version. It surprised me a bit at first, seeing that my version was different, but I quickly ended up preferring the original version (even at that age). I would however watch the 2004 SE version once I upgraded to DVD, but I didn’t think of it as “better,” I would even watch my VHS version occasionally. Usually just on my own though, since my friends seemed to prefer the SE (though it being a DVD rather than VHS may have contributed to that.)

DuracellEnergizer said:

• Tales of the Jedi

So I’ve been googling the Tales of the Jedi series, and the only proper collections I could find were these two omnibuses;

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Wars_Omnibus:_Tales_of_the_Jedi,_Volume_1

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Wars_Omnibus:_Tales_of_the_Jedi,_Volume_2

As far as I can tell this should be all of them.

captainsolo said:

The later solo trilogy is pretty fun, and the Lando novels are good old fashioned sci-fi.

By the “later Solo trilogy” I’m assuming that you are referring to the books by A. C. Crispin?

(Aren’t they also the books that tried to explain the whole Kessel run in 12 parsecs thing by having the Falcon go near a black hole, or something like that? I always found that explanation really silly, but of course that doesn’t necessarily mean that the stories are bad. I’ve just read very polarized opinions about that trilogy.)

imperialscum said:

ZkinandBonez said:

Lord Haseo said:

I would probably start with Knights of The Old Republic. Gameplay is dated but the story and characters are ESB level. This will tie into the Darth Bane trilogy which ties into the Darth Plagueis novel and that ties into the Labyrinth of Evil and the PT novelizations.

You could play KOTOR II, read the Revan novel or even play SWTOR but it’s not needed for the story at large.

I do actually own a digital copy of both KOTOR games, and I will definitely play them some time in the future when I have more time, as well as access to a better computer. However, I’m currently only looking for pre-PT stories.

KOTOR and SWTOR are technically pre-PT as they happen way before PT. I think KOTOR 1 is a must-do. It is probably the best EU thing ever made. SWTOR is great a well (original 8 stories), however it takes a lot of time.

What I love about SWTOR is that you can experience a story as an Imperial/Sith character from the Imperial/Sith perspective. The game also blurs the usually good-evil distinction between the two sides, which makes things more natural and interesting.

I get that, and as I said in an earlier post, I’ll play through them some time in the future, but right now I’m looking for stories published pre-PT. (And it’s mostly the PT influence that I’m trying to avoid, not just direct references, characters, etc.)

imperialscum said:

ZkinandBonez said:

I have played all of the Dark Forces/Jedi Knight games, but I’m curious if anyone would recommend any other games from the 90’s for their stories? I do however get the impression that the Dark Forces series probably were the most plot-based SW games from that time.

Dark Forces/Jedi Knight games are pretty much the best thing ever made for that era.

Agreed.

I’m still amazed how Jedi Outcast managed to avoid pretty much any PT influence/reference despite being released in 2002. It has an uncharacteristic OT-only feel too it despite the time it was made. (I still really enjoy Jedi Academy though.)

DuracellEnergizer said:

Since the Marvel comics, newspaper strips, and Thrawn books have already been covered:

COMICS

• The Boba Fett comics (all the ones published before 2006)
• Crimson Empire (there’s also a Crimson Empire II & III, but the second’s not as good as the first and the third’s a prequelized waste of time)
• The Jabba Tape
• River of Chaos
• Tales of the Jedi

NOVELS

• The Corellian Trilogy
• The Dark Forces novellas
• I, Jedi

I recall also liking The Truce at Bakura and the first two Lando books, but it’s been a couple years since I read them. I’ve also read the first book in The Han Solo Trilogy by A. C. Crispin, found it a great novel, but haven’t yet read the second two books in the trilogy.

I, Jedi is according to Wookieepedia heavily tied in with the Jedi Academy books, does that mean that I should read those as well, or can I just skip those?

I had also forgotten that there were Dark Forces novels, I’ll have to try to get a hold of them now. Are they novelizations of the games, or are they stories from in-between the games? I get the impression that they are kind of both from Wookieepedia.

A lot of interesting sounding comics on the list as well, so I’ll be checking those out in the future. (I already have the Boba Fett ones though, and I love Cam Kennedy the art style. It’s crazy and weird, but like with Dark Empire, it really works for the darker atmosphere of a Boba Fett story.)

DominicCobb said:

Damn you mentioned pretty much the only pre-PT books I can think of. If you’re willing to go into the PT era, Darth Plagueis, Labyrinth of Evil, and the ROTS novelization are three of the best SW books I’ve read.

If we’re talking comics, the original Marvel run is an absolute delight. And the Goodwin/Williamson comics are fantastic, in both news strip and Classic Star Wars form.

As for purchasing, Amazon and ebay are both places you can find used books for dirt cheap. That’s where I get most of mine.

I actually have read the old Marvel comics, and I absolutely love the Goodwin/Infantino story-line(s).

As for Amazon and eBay, it’s a bit cumbersome and expensive for me to ship books to Norway. I used to do it, but it became more expensive then I preferred. Plus, there is a comic store in my home town which sells SW novels, both from the old and new EU. I’ve already bought several books from them, but they’re not so cheap that I’m willing to just buy random books without some sense of whether they’ll be good or not.

DominicCobb said:

I have a question, are the Lando books any good?

If you’re asking me, I have no clue.

I’ve only read one of the Han Solo adventures books, and that was pretty OK.

DuracellEnergizer said:

ZkinandBonez said:

ATMachine said:

ZkinandBonez said:

ATMachine said:

Was this chair in Han Solo’s sky house?

Yep. It even has it’s own article;

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Most_comfortable_chair_ever_designed

(So, is this from a well known Legends story? I’m a bit surprised that you immediately made that connection.)

It’s from The Glove of Darth Vader, a SW story for kids so bad it’s amazing. The Sky House is infamous among certain quarters of fandom.

And, for the record, I was actually kidding. I didn’t realize the Most Comfortable Chair Ever Designed™ was in the Sky House - though now you mention it, I should’ve made the connection in earnest from the hyperbolic description alone.

Right.

Btw, what makes the Sky House so “infamous”? (EDIT: Actually, having just skimmed through the wiki article I kinda see why.)

It was apparently also in a novel called Zorba the Hutt’s Revenge which also looks really weird. (I also didn’t realize Hutts could grow beards.)

The entire Jedi Prince series is weird. This image alone

tells you how weird.

To be quite honest I find that picture rather intriguing.

The real question for me is; is it weird in a good way, or a bad way?

I guess this really is a question for this thread, but are these novel really bad, or just weird? Because if they’re just weird, I’ll read them. If they’re genuinely bad however, in addition to being weird, then I’ll skip them.

Wexter said:

ZkinandBonez said:

Wexter said:

The X-Wing series is my favourite along with Shadows of the Empire.

Are those books connected to the Rogue Squadron comics in any way? I see that Stackpole was a writer on both.

Also, do you know if these books connect to the Hand of Thrawn books? Wedge appears in a few chapters and he’s accompanied by some other pilots whose names I don’t recognize. One of them has Force abilities. It’s obvious that they originate from some other books, I just don’t know which ones exactly.

Not connected to the comics, IIRC. I think Stackpole and Zahn were friends and they kept referencing each others’ ideas in their works. The characters you refer to indeed come from Stackpole’s books.

Well, in that case the X-Wing series might be a good place to continue after I’ve finished The Hand of Thrawn.

How about Stackpole’s other novels? Are they worth reading?

Tobar said:

Can never go wrong with the newspaper comic strip.

I really liked the few ones that I already have read, but they are quite hard to come by where I live. I could of course get some digital copies, but I’m having a hard time finding a complete collection.

Lord Haseo said:

I would probably start with Knights of The Old Republic. Gameplay is dated but the story and characters are ESB level. This will tie into the Darth Bane trilogy which ties into the Darth Plagueis novel and that ties into the Labyrinth of Evil and the PT novelizations.

You could play KOTOR II, read the Revan novel or even play SWTOR but it’s not needed for the story at large.

I do actually own a digital copy of both KOTOR games, and I will definitely play them some time in the future when I have more time, as well as access to a better computer. However, I’m currently only looking for pre-PT stories.

I have played all of the Dark Forces/Jedi Knight games, but I’m curious if anyone would recommend any other games from the 90’s for their stories? I do however get the impression that the Dark Forces series probably were the most plot-based SW games from that time.

Wexter said:

The X-Wing series is my favourite along with Shadows of the Empire.

Are those books connected to the Rogue Squadron comics in any way? I see that Stackpole was a writer on both.

Also, do you know if these books connect to the Hand of Thrawn books? Wedge appears in a few chapters and he’s accompanied by some other pilots whose names I don’t recognize. One of them has Force abilities. It’s obvious that they originate from some other books, I just don’t know which ones exactly.

This is the thread for recommending or asking for opinions about Legends (i.e. old EU) material, primarily focused on the books & comics.

Please keep it to the point. If you don’t recommend a book or comic (i.e. if you dislike it), then explain why, as opposed to just saying “it was crap”, or something similar without any substance.

PT-era, and other non-OT related EU novels/comics, can, contrary to the original post, be discussed now.

Original post (Dec. 2016):

I couldn’t find any older threads about this, so I figured I’d make one.

---

I’m personally looking for any good pre-PT Legends novels, comics too, but mostly novels. I’ve already read the Thrawn trilogy, which I really enjoyed. I’m currently reading the Hand of Thrawn duology, which isn’t as interesting, but entertaining enough to pass the time for me. However, I feel like those are somewhat of an obvious starting point, and I have no intentions to buy a lot of books just to find out that they’re really bad (and from what I’ve gathered, there is plenty of those). I also live in Norway so these kinds of books aren’t exactly cheap (only one store that sells them in English, or at all for that matter), and second-hand isn’t really an option either, so I’d like to at least have some general idea if a novel is worth a damn before I buy it.

The only novels I own so far is the Thrawn trilogy, the Hand of Thrawn duology, Shadows of the Empire, the Han Solo adventures (I’ve finished the first one), and Splinter of the Minds Eye (which I haven’t read yet).

ATMachine said:

ZkinandBonez said:

ATMachine said:

Was this chair in Han Solo’s sky house?

Yep. It even has it’s own article;

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Most_comfortable_chair_ever_designed

(So, is this from a well known Legends story? I’m a bit surprised that you immediately made that connection.)

It’s from The Glove of Darth Vader, a SW story for kids so bad it’s amazing. The Sky House is infamous among certain quarters of fandom.

And, for the record, I was actually kidding. I didn’t realize the Most Comfortable Chair Ever Designed™ was in the Sky House - though now you mention it, I should’ve made the connection in earnest from the hyperbolic description alone.

Right.

Btw, what makes the Sky House so “infamous”? (EDIT: Actually, having just skimmed through the wiki article I kinda see why.)

It was apparently also in a novel called Zorba the Hutt’s Revenge which also looks really weird. (I also didn’t realize Hutts could grow beards.)

ATMachine said:

Was this chair in Han Solo’s sky house?

Yep. It even has it’s own article;

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Most_comfortable_chair_ever_designed

(So, is this from a well known Legends story? I’m a bit surprised that you immediately made that connection.)

Jeebus said:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Chair

Excerpts from the Legends article;

“Like many objects in the galaxy, chairs could also function temporarily as ad hoc weapons.”

“Han Solo owned a chair considered to be the “most comfortable chair ever designed.””

The fact that someone actually sat down at wrote this, presumably with a straight face, amuses me.

Well, the opening flash-back has a bald Whitaker, meaning that it most likely was from before the re-shoots (trailers had a bald Whitaker on Jedha as well). And from what Edwards has described it seems that it was Jedha, and mostly Scarif that was re-shot.

There is of course the whole thing about Edwards initially assuming that Disney wouldn’t let them kill off all the main characters, but I don’t know if that only affected the script or if they actually changed the shooting of the Scarif scenes that drastically.