Star Wars

Probably to make it more clear that the Stackpole books and the Allston books aren't a continuous story.

Indeed.

So, I took a road trip last week and I decided to get an audiobook that I would actually enjoy listening to, so I borrowed Darth Plagueis. It's a book more about political intrigue than out-and-out action, and it does its intrigue pretty well. I think it also does a good job of showing the self-defeating nature of the Sith:

There's not nearly enough planetary intrigue Star Wars books.

Yeah Darth Plagueis is one of the top tier Star Wars books, and in particular, stands out because of the focus on the scheming, political, and mystical aspect of the Sith and their perspective on the Galaxy.

The reason why Plagueis always was a favorite of mine was that while he's still Sith at heart, he takes his own spin on it that sets him apart, I like his scientist Sith character and it does certainly drive him to do horrific experiments. I always did like his dynamic with Sheev, by Sith standards, keeping Palpatine around as the public face of the Sith and as his apprentice was actually merciful by the Sith code even if it is egotistical. Of course Palpatine isn't the type to share his power like that, but I do like how Sidious genuinely thanks Plagueis for teaching him even if Plagueis was never the master in truth.

The Sith are self-defeating but I like how they turned it into their culture. Too many Sith weakened the Dark side, and infighting made things worse, so Bane limited the amount of Sith and made the cycle of the Master to embody the power, and the apprentice to crave it and thus each generation would be stronger. Like the audience can tell just how horrific and idiotic it is but the writing sells the idea that the Sith believe in it wholeheartedly.

Even Sidious was banking on Vader becoming more powerful than him in Revenge to ensure the Sith line would be greater. Plagueis however disliked the Rule of two, and like you noted, wanted to end the cycle with Palpatine, considering the whole Rule a waste and mere butchery. He's still evil, but has enough human moments to be fun to read and follow.

But once Palpatine shows up, you know who the real main character is.

Edited by RedHunter543 on May 27th 2022 at 3:14:16 PM

Is more than being on the open allow defeat so they need to be subtle, the rule of two allow that, Plaeguis want to get rid of it in part because he though they would be the last to follow it, the republic would be theirs, I always saw as sort of sentimentality from him.

I just finished Dark Disciple. While it had some passages that were a bit 'Meh', overall I really enjoyed it.

But I have to say, the Jedi Order was very much at it's darkest here. Not only did they sanction an assassination, they even ordered executions of unarmed prisoners. Even Yoda went along.

Guess that really shows how corrupted the Order was by the war.....

Edited by Forenperser on May 28th 2022 at 11:15:21 AM

That I think is something we dont see usually in the movies or talks, for all the talk about how bad the order is prequels it feel.....fine, they were out gambit but they werent corrupted or anything.

I mean, it's the same with Palpatine's creeping control over the Senate and the increasing authoritarian laws.

That was all pretty much a background info in the main films, TCW and other EU material is where we actually see it.

Sure but for those we dont see EU it come as people overeacting about the bad part of the order in general.

So I'm listening to The Rising Storm. I'm about two-thirds of the way through it, and I think it's pretty good thus far. But I wanted to ask anybody else who's familiar with the audiobooks: How, exactly, would you describe the way Marchion Ro is voiced?

Just finished Star Wars: Master and Apprentice.

I guess it was kind of a nice story, even though it had it's weaknesses. My favorite new character was Rael Aveross, I hope to see him in another story some day.

How Obi lost his love for flying was kinda funny

Essential Legends Collection wave 5 hits November 1. Diving into The Old Republic tie-ins for this one.

• Revan
• Deceived
• The Bacta War (with new unabridged audiobook)

It’s clear now that X-Wing books 1 and 4 are meant to mirror each other, as are 2 and 3. If they do continue on and do the Wraith Squadron books, I expect they’ll have a different artist.

Edited by HeraldAlberich on Jun 21st 2022 at 5:18:42 AM

One thing I missed during the last Legends Collection announcement is that they got Sam Witwer, Maul's TCW voice actor, to do the narration for the Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter audiobook.

So I've started reading my way through the old Legends novels this summer.

I just finished The Thrawn Trilogy last month. I was very impressed, Zahn is a very good writer. Thrawn was a fantastic villain, I especially liked how the story contrasts Thrawn's chessmaster always-three-steps-ahead characterization with the fact that the reader is shown a major variable (Leia's relationship to Vader) that he doesn't know or account for, so all the while you can see the unprotected hole in his brilliant strategies and the way they'll likely come crashing down.

Mara was also pretty great. I really liked following her character arc and struggle with her sense of identity, she's basically having a trilogy-long existential crisis and it's fantastic. The slog through the Myrkr wilderness in book 1 was also pretty entertaining, I love how she makes it clear from the start that she really hates Luke and wants him dead but doesn't, you know, tell him why for most of the book, so he's just desperately trying to figure out what the hell he did to get this stranger so mad at him. It's also pretty funny that Luke and Leia catch on to the fact that she's not as genuinely devoted to the Emperor's missions as she thinks she is a lot sooner than she does — it's clear from fairly early on that Leia's very skeptical about Mara actually following through on all those threats.

Luke and Leia were also in top form. I loved how relentlessly forgiving Luke was, and Leia's arc with the Noghri was one of the highlights of the story for me.

I'm currently tackling the Jedi Academy Trilogy. It's entertaining enough, but the main thing that stuck with me so far is the bit in book 1 where Luke walks unharmed across a lake of lava that's immediately followed by like seven, eight pages of Lando watching racing blobs go through a "blobstacle course". Like, I liked both scenes, but the tone shift was. Sudden.

Jedi Academy Trilogy is a lot weaker than the Thrawn Trilogy, as a story goes. One weakness is that it relies on villains’ stupidity for the heroes to win; whereas the Thrawn Trilogy relies on a combination of the heroes’ principles (Karrde, Mara and the Noghri end up on the heroes’ side due to them treating people well, and giving them trust even when they haven’t earned it) and their wits, with a dose of luck.

If you get frustrated at it by the end, you can try “I, Jedi”, by Michael A. Stackpole, which tackles some of the events of the trilogy from an outsider perspective and has, IMO, a strong plot and good character development.

Aaron Allston’s Wraith Squadron books, which happen before the Thrawn Trilogy, are also a ton of fun.

Edited by Galadriel on Jul 31st 2022 at 2:07:35 AM

Yep, that's Kevin J. Anderson in a nutshell.

Allston's X-Wing run, especially Solo Command, does to The Courtship of Princess Leia what I, Jedi does to the Jedi Academy Trilogy. Not by being a P.O.V. Sequel as such, but by taking Courtship's villain and showing how his silly early-Legends personality is actually Obfuscating Stupidity. I appreciate the authors' efforts to drag some quality back into other authors' (usually bigger, more impactful) stories. Zahn does it himself in Hand of Thrawn.

Are you trying to take these on in publication order? You'll get what we're talking about firsthand that way, the way readers did in the 90s. Shortly after the new canon was announced in 2014 I decided to try and read through at least most of the better or important Legends stories in in-universe chronological order before I read any of the new stuff. It's, um, taking a while. I just finished Allston's run and Courtship is next.

Yeah, it hadn't occurred to me to make that comparison but that's a good observation. It did occur to me in the first half of the book that what's-his-face the lizard guy on Kessel was making his situation a lot more difficult than he needed to, especially when Han told him that he was there as a Republic diplomat and offered to just work out a deal — that was a golden opportunity to try to patch things up, and trying to vanish him instead was very stupid. I mean, that guy's entire plan boiled down to making an official diplomat vanish and hoping the Republic wouldn't bother to investigate.

I'd considered doing publication order, but that's stymied by the fact that I don't... really know what precisely that order is. I just haven't gotten around to doing the research there, I suppose. I started with the Thrawn books because that seemed like the most obvious jumping-in point, then Jedi Academy because it comes next, and after that my current plan is to backtrack a little and then go on in chronological order (Truce at Bakura -> X-Wing series -> Courtship -> I, Jedi), and then figure out the rest from there.

But if you have suggestions for a better reading order, I'm all ears.

Chronological order works good, but be prepared for some WILD shifts in quality. You do also have to read the Callista trilogy, unfortunately, since a ridiculous number of later books refer back to it.

That’s a good selection of the books. I like The Truce at Bakura and the X-Wing ones.

Your reading order is good and makes sense.

Reading I, Jedi immediately after the Jedi Academy trilogy could also work well since it covers some of the same events from a different perspective, and they’ll be fresh in your mind that way. OTOH, the main character is from the X-Wing books, so his character development will be more linear if you go in the way that you’ve planned.

Edited by Galadriel on Jul 31st 2022 at 8:17:09 AM

Truce at Bakura was meh in my opinion. But the X-Wing series is a great one, it was one of my first Legends books.

I agree, that’s a good order to get into that era of Legends. As a rule of thumb I think books we have a page for are worth considering (they’re on the Star Wars Legends index), but for a more comprehensive list here’s the Wookieepedia page. They’re sorted chronologically by default but within each timeline era you can re-sort by publication date.

You might throw Tatooine Ghost in there. Written later than the rest, it’s a fun Han-and-Leia side story that tries to connect the prequels and the Legends books together (several Tatooinians chat with Leia about the things her father did there when he was nine), but it also bridges Courtship to the Thrawn Trilogy really well.

Edited by HeraldAlberich on Jul 31st 2022 at 12:53:09 PM

^Oh, that's interesting, I might just slip it in then.

It's still one of my favourite Star Wars books, to be honest, especially because we got to see what happens when Anakin does appear to Leia.

I think that the only time his Force ghost did actually appear to her as well.

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Aug 1st 2022 at 3:00:53 PM

Agree that Tatooine Ghost is a good one to read; it also builds on some things from Truce at Bakura, so it helps connects the different books together.

Yes, that’s my favourite thing from Truce at Bakura too.