A no-bullshit beginners guide to Star Wars books

I know far too much about Star Wars. And so, so much of this is in relation to the Expanded Universe (aka the EU,) which is basically the official uber-geek term for Star Wars books and comics. Don’t call it ‘extended,’ please, because I’m totally the kind of geek who’ll write a style guide on the terminology.

So, let’s say you like Star Wars, and you’re curious, and that area of the bookstore is crazy, so you ask me what you should read to catch up with some of these folks after the movies. (Well, in one timeline, anyway.)

If you’re looking for something about Star Wars as a whole – you know, the actual movies – that’s over this way.

Note: Since I first wrote this, Lucasfilm has relegated all the old Star Wars books and comics noncanon, which means they no longer count. (If you’re a pedantic asshole, you’d then tell me “They were never canon!” to which I say: You really want to argue with me about this? Really? Now? Please do not be a pedantic asshole.) Still, I am okay with this decision, because I feel that the old EU as a whole is deeply flawed and the new movies deserve the greater freedom that sweeping it all offstage will give them. (But more on that later.) For now, consider this your guide to the Legends EU only.

In all fairness you may have overlooked them because the covers are AWFUL. 1991, man.

But in any case, my answer is pretty simple: You read the Thrawn trilogy, aka Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, and The Last Command. And then you stop.

“But,” say the other Star Wars fans, “what about…”

No. Just stop. It’s not worth it, man. Don’t go any further. The Thrawn trilogy may not be perfect, but they are pretty much as good as it gets.

If you’ve been to that area of the bookstore at all, you’ve probably realized that there are a lot of Star Wars books. I’ve read maybe a hundred novels and that is by no means everything. (And I won’t even get into the comics. Well, maybe a little bit later.) Some of them are good. Many of them are just kind of mediocre. And some of them are absolutely balls-to-the-wall awful. ‘Snobbery’ is not the only reason licensed fiction has a bad rep: Some of them actually are that bad. If you just pick one up off the shelf at random, the odds are NOT in your favor.

Unless you’re 12. If you’re 12, just go for it. There’s no better time. Of course, then you end up, years down the line, admitting that you’ve read about a hundred Star Wars novels and that only a small fraction of them are worth recommending to anyone who can’t already tell you what a Bothan is. (I was 13.)

The old EU is a bit of a beast – there are parts that are deeply intertwined, and then there are offshoots like books based on video games and if I hadn’t been following these things in real time, I’d be confused as well. But my point here is that for a casual fan, for someone who doesn’t want to dive neck-deep into the Legends Expanded Universe – I honestly think these three are the only books you really need.

Fair warning: My own focus is and has always been what happens after Return of the Jedi. I do have some recs from other eras below if Luke, Han and Leia aren’t your thing, but theirs is what I know best.

There’s also the 20th anniversary annotated version from 2011, but the regular paperback is fine.

History lesson! The Thrawn trilogy were the first Star Wars books of the modern era. In 1991, before the prequels, before the video games, when everyone in the world thought Star Wars was dead, Bantam published Heir to the Empire and it went to #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. And it spent something like 20+ weeks on the list, which is pretty crazy, even back then. This trilogy is basically the entire reason your local Barnes & Noble (and the Borders before them) has an entire case devoted to the things. Almost everything published since then is building on that foundation. (Quite literally, in the case of everything set after them.) Lucasfilm announced they’d be making the prequels in 1993, but Heir to the Empire was the first canary sent down into the mine.

For nearly a decade, the only new Star Wars stories you were getting were in book and comic form. Then there were the prequels, and later The Clone Wars cartoon, but if you were really only interested in what happens after Return of the Jedi, like me, the books remained the primary outlet for more than 20 years. That’s why people got so attached to them, and that’s why some of us got so angry when there were disappointing ones. (And why other people are so angry about the Legends move.)

But it all started with Heir, which is set about five years after Return of the Jedi. (Yes, there are some other books in those five years. You can read them later, if you want.) Luke’s trying to be a – the! – Jedi, Han and Leia have got married and are sprouting some twins of their own, the Rebellion has grown up into an actual government and the Empire is a shade of its former self… Until it isn’t. The ‘Thrawn’ of the series’ unofficial title is the Imperial Grand Admiral Thrawn, one of the EU’s more notable villains.

Back when the whole Episode VII thing was announced, you may have seen some stuff about how the new movies were totally going to be based on these specific books. This turned out not be the case, and it’s probably just as well. The Thrawn trilogy aren’t really set up like movies: They’re novels. They’re plotted like novels. They’re paced like novels. They are very much not movies and that’s okay. They’re not trying to be movies: They’re books about people who we met in movies, and that’s why they work as books. They’re sequels to the Original Trilogy, but they’re not THE sequels. If Lucasfilm decides to incorporate some things from the Thrawn trilogy into the new canon, I’ll be enthusiastic, but we have yet to see any sign of that happening.

Is it canon? Not anymore. But so what? It’s a good story, and an important force (haha) in the history of Star Wars fandom. Read it.

Okay, fine. You REALLY want to keep reading? Here’s some other stuff to get you started:

The X-Wing Series by Mike Stackpole and Aaron Allston
You know the squadron Luke flies in throughout the movies? That’s these guys, a few years later. Luke’s retired to Jedi-dom, but his buddy Wedge Antilles – the only other X-wing pilot to survive all three movies – is running ’em. Hijinks ensue!
Do you need to read anything else? Thrawn trilogy, but you can go without. These actually start out before Heir, and there are some set after The Last Command and there’s even a new one set much later.
Expert opinion: I’ve only actually read a handful of these, but everyone I trust loves them. The first book can be a slog, but things pick up after that. And yes, there are 10 of these, but they are by nature fairly self-contained. You can break them down into sets of four (Rogue Squadron, Wedge’s Gamble, The Krytos Trap and The Bacta War by Stackpole,) three (Wraith Squadron, Iron Fist, and Solo Command Allston,) a couple standalones (Isard’s Revenge by Stackpole and Starfighters of Adumar by Allston) and then the latest, Allston’s Mercy Kill.

Horrible tacky cover, great book.

Revenge of the Sith by Matthew Stover
It’s a novelization, but it’s a freaking amazing novelization. It fleshes out the movie with some downright amazing details and motivations.
Do you need to read anything else? Not read, no, but you should probably be familiar with The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. You don’t need to bother with those novelizations though, there’s nothing particularly special there.
Expert opinion: Stover is perhaps the single best writer in the EU stable, and this is his most accessible Star Wars book. His other standalones include Shatterpoint, headlined by Samuel L. Jackson’s Mace Windu, and Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor, which is one of those books set in the period between Return of the Jedi and Heir to the Empire. You can read Mindor as a standalone, and it’s probably my favorite Star Wars book from the final years of Legends, but the thing is I’m not sure if it works as well if you don’t remember the real dregs of mid-90’s EU, because it’s a weird kind of love letter to them. (And yes, you will hear other geeks rave about Traitor, but Traitor is the 13th book in an exceedingly tedious 19-book series and that’s the kind of thing I’m trying to warn you about here.)

Star Wars Tales by various writers and artists
For my money the finest of Dark Horse’s Star Wars comic offerings was the Tales anthology series. These are the comic equivalent of short stories, and they’re all over the map. My favorites are the funny ones, and I live for the day when they produce a trade collection that only includes those. (They’re currently only collected as Star Wars Tales Volumes 1-6. You can start pretty much anywhere.) Speaking of funny, also look for Tag & Bink Were Here by Kevin Rubio.
Do you need to read anything else? Again, they’re all over the map, but for the most part, no.
Expert opinion: Dark Horse was responsible for the Star Wars comics until 2014, and they tended to go for a lot more variety than the novels did. They are much-beloved by the other geeks, but most of the stuff they do is not to my tastes at all (lots of Boba Fett, for instance) so there’s not really a lot I can recommend.

Scoundrels by Timothy Zahn
Look, it’s Zahn again! After Star Wars and before Empire Strikes Back, Han Solo gets a bunch of folks together for a little heist.
Do you need to read anything else? Nope!
Expert opinion: After being bogged down in those giant series I mentioned, Del Rey finally started putting out more standalones just before the move to Legends. Another good bet is Kenobi by John Jackson Miller (Obi-wan on Tatooine, between Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars.) Then there’s Razor’s Edge by Martha Wells, a Leia book that’s set between Star Wars and Empire, that’s pretty decent. Or how about Honor Among Thieves, a Han Solo book from James S.A. Corey… And then there’s the Brian Daley novels from back during the Original Trilogy days: Han Solo at Stars’ End, Han Solo’s Revenge, and Han Solo and the Lost Legacy. They’re set before the original Star Wars and probably your best bet when it comes to the oldest stuff.

You can ask any Star Wars fan and chances are they’ll give you other options, ones that are sure to make me put my judgey face on, but hey: Everyone has different tastes. You don’t have to trust me, but these are my picks for someone who’s not well versed in this terribly geeky, overly specific sphere of Star Wars fandom. Though chances are that most people will still tell you to read the Thrawn trilogy, too, so at least go for those first.

Note to Star Wars fans: No, I probably didn’t name one of your favorites. That doesn’t mean I forgot them: My post, my recs. Sorry, not sorry.

(Psst. There’s more.)