Hello I am kinda new to the Star Wars franchise. I watched all the movies and enjoyed envery second of them.

Once i started playing SWTOR, I realised that there was ALLOT more to it.

 

I would like to know, to all thr BIG Star Wars fans: where do I start? What books should I read (and in which order)? How do I not get lost to all the references to the different eras, characters, factions, events of the entire lore?

 

Thanks allot in advance!

Bump! I really hope someone helps me, I really want to know where to start.

Personally, I haven't read any of the expanded universe books, so I can speak to them. But I have read a good deal of the comic books and played the Knights of the Old Republic games. Both of which I think you'd like a great deal if the SWTOR lore has you interested. Right now I can't recall exact titles, because there are many, but most of the Knights of the Old Republic comic books are worth a read too. You can get a lot of them in collected trade paperbacks now, so that you don't have to hunt down individual issues. As a final note, I find perusing http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page can give a lot of lore info.

Definitely watch all the Galactic Timeline videos found here.

 

Play Knights of the Old Republic. It takes place 300 years before The Old Republic and is an awesome game (though it is pretty old).

After that, Knights of the Old Republic II would be a good choice, but not a necessity.

 

The book "Revan" just came out, which expands on the story of Knights of the Old Republic and is a great read.

 

That should be good just to learn about the "Old Republic" period of Star Wars. But of course there's the Darth Bane trilogy of novels which takes place about 1000 years before the movies (2000 years after The Old Republic, the game) and sort of explains what the Sith are up to leading up to the movies.

 

So yeh. =D

 

There's also bazillions of other books that talk about what happens after the movies, what happens between the movies, etc etc. But I think what I listed would be a good start.

Also, here is a link to an unofficial but helpful timeline. http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline

You can use it to orient yourself to which eras the various books and stories take place in.

wookiepedia is also a great source of information on everything Star Wars if you want to check out a topic in depth.

I haven't read all the star wars books (only a hand-full), but I truly enjoyed the Thrawn Trilogy and the Darth Bane trilogy. One is just after the classic trilogy and the other is a long time before the prequels. Also there are three novels that tie in directly with the game (Fatal Alliance, Deceived, and Revan) and three short comic books (Threat of Peace and Blood of The Empire you can read right here on the site and Black Suns). Edited January 4, 2012 by firetiger

Ive read a lot of the books....the Darth Bane triliogy is the best.......especially the first novel. These take place a few thousand years after the game, and 1000 years before the movies......there are a few book taking place during the game, Fatal Alliance which was horrible, and I started Decieved which is really good.

 

If you want post movies read the Thrawn trilogy, takes place 5 years after the movie.........The New Jedi Order is good, but very long (19 books). It could have been done in half that. Legacy of the Force takes place a few years years after New Jedi Order and I really liked it........Fate of The Jedi is the current series following Legacy, but I could not get into it........

 

hoped that helped a bit..

[...] That should be good just to learn about the "Old Republic" period of Star Wars.

There is one big omission from your list for this time period - the Tales of the Jedi comic series. It's the earliest chronological work in the universe and chronicles the destruction of the original Sith Empire, from which the Sith Empire in this game is descended.

 

Original Poster: for additional recommendations, see my post in this thread where I provided links to four recent threads similar to this one (and one of those threads has two long posts of recommendations, one list which was mine).

Edited January 5, 2012 by psychogobstopper

I'm very sorry for not answering, I completely forgot to.

 

Thanks allot, it helped me and now I'm reading the Lost Tribe of the Sith series.

 

<3!

If you're looking at all eras and not just The Old Republic timeframe then you most definitely should check out the Thrawn Trilogy. It's sometimes referred to as Heir to the Empire trilogy.

 

Heir to the Empire

Dark Force Rising

The Last Command

 

It's post RotJ and is written by Timothy Zahn. The trilogy is an introduction to many great characters including Thrawn (who's up there with the movie characters in popularity) and features some of the best writing in the Star Wars universe.

As mentioned earlier, I'd recommend reading the Tales of the Jedi comics, it contains some very intriguing characters and an epic, bittersweet ending.

 

Also pick up the KOTOR comics, which take place during the Mandalorian Wars, before Revan fell to the Dark Side (even though he's just a satelite character in it).

 

Then theres the KOTOR games, and for the second game, download the TSL Restoration Project.

For novels: anything by Timothy Zhan, Kathy Tyers, or Michael Stackpole. Most of it is post RotJ, but will at least give you a good grounding of what the Expanded Universe (or EU) is like.

 

The New Jedi Order series is probably the single most divisive topic in the Star Wars community after midichlorians. Some people (like me) absolutely love it, others absolutely hate, but there's no one I've met who's "middle of the road." I was personally soured on Star Wars books after the Corellian Trilogy and Crystal Star, and pretty much stopped reading Star Wars EU because of those books, until someone recommended Vector Prime (the first NJO book.) It brought back my faith in the EU.

 

More relevant to this time from are the Knights of the Old Republic video games (which you can still find for PC without too much effort), the Knights of the Old Republic comics and the earlier Tales of the Jedi comics, which you should be able to find in graphic novel form at your local comic store. There are also a few limited-issue Old Republic comics published to tie in with the game, though they might be harder to find now (too late to get first runs, too early for trade paperbacks.) There are three novels that tie in with The Old Republic. The only one I've read (I'm a little over halfway through) is Revan, which I'm enjoying immensely. I forget the titles of the others, but any bookstore should have them, just look in their massive Star Wars section for ones with The Old Republic subtitle, the graphic of which you should recognize from the game.

 

Another recommendation, though again not for everyone, is Death Troopers. Star Wars does zombie movie. It's surprisingly well-written, though a tad predictable, and there are some instances of plot-clairvoyance in the last quarter. Still, a good book, and refreshing break from the Star Wars formula used (and more often abused) by too many authors.

Old Republic Era

* The Old Republic: Revan

* The Old Republic: Deceived

 

 

Rise of the Empire Era

* Rogue Planet (if you plan to read The New Jedi Order; I don't recall liking this book all that much back when it was released)

* Republic Commando series (you better like Mandalorians, though - also, Imperial Commando 501st is the last novel featuring these characters)

* Shatterpoint

* Labyrinth of Evil

* Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader

* The Han Solo Trilogy

* The Adventures of Lando Calrissian

* The Han Solo Adventures (Brian Daley's works, which I recall as being fun as hell, though I haven't read them since my early teens - there's also, if I recall correctly, a point in A.C. Crispin's Han Solo Trilogy where its story takes a sort of "break" where one could then easily read these books)

 

 

Rebellion Era

* Splinter of the Mind's Eye (the first non-novelization SW novel; originally intended as the basis for a low-budget Star Wars)

* Shadows of the Empire (takes place between The Empire Strikes Back & Return of the Jedi)

 

 

New Republic Era

* X-Wing series (keeping in mind that the last two books - Isard's Revenge and Starfighters of Adumar - take place following books outside this series)

* The Courtship of Princess Leia (I don't recall much about the quality of this one, but it is pretty important as far as the future of the EU goes from this point on)

* The Thrawn Trilogy (pretty much a must - the first post-ROTJ novels published, though some time has passed since ROTJ)

* The Jedi Academy Trilogy (not great stuff, but pretty important for the establishment of Luke's new Jedi Order)

* I, Jedi (just fantastic, and a great companion piece to both the X-Wing series and the Jedi Academy Trilogy)

* Darksaber (again, no recollection on quality, but some important characterizations here for later works - at one point, I had a copy signed by Kevin J. Anderson but no clue where it's at these days)

* The Corellian Trilogy (I do recall enjoy these books, and some events here are important in later books as well)

* The Hand of Thrawn Duology (more Zahn work, based on his earlier Thrawn Trilogy - good stuff, as I recall, plus important in later books)

* Young Jedi Knights series (surprisingly good for YA books, though I've only read the first six; also, they introduce and flesh out many characters who are important in the NJO and beyond)

 

 

New Jedi Order Era

* The New Jedi Order series (some of it is average, some is good / very good, some is great; my favorite SW novel period - Traitor - is in this series)

* The Dark Nest Trilogy (I enjoyed it well enough, plus some events are very important in LOTF)

 

 

Legacy Era

* Legacy of the Force (I enjoyed most of it, but I do agree with some criticisms that I've seen that parts of it feel as if the series was too long, too drawn out)

* Crosscurrent (pretty fun; worth noting that it focuses on a Jedi introduced in the Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy video game, and features none of the original and/or other popular EU characters)

* Millennium Falcon (pretty fun, plus worth it to spend some time "alone" with Han & Leia following the tragic events in LOTF)

* Fate of the Jedi (read the eight published so far, and mostly enjoying it; worth noting that one might want to consider reading the "Lost Tribe of the Sith" eBooks either prior to or in conjunction with this, as they spell out some of the history of the Sith in this series)

 

 

If I haven't mentioned a post-ROTJ book above, then odds are it wasn't worth reading (if published back in the Bantam days) or it was published after I wasn't reading SW novels quite as voraciously as I once did (i.e., some of Zahn's newer stuff, Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor, etc.). As for books set during the Clone Wars, I haven't read most of those; same with the Old Republic Era.

 

For some examples of those that I consider not worth reading: Children of the Jedi; Planet of Twilight; The Crystal Star; The Black Fleet Crisis Trilogy; and The New Rebellion. Unfortunately, there is a rather important mention during the FOTJ series of one character who is in a few of those books, but one would probably be okay to still skip those. Of course, she also appears in Darksaber, so it could be odd to have her show up in that one without the context of her first appearance and the ones after Darksaber.

 

 

For comic recommendations (out of the many comics series that have been published, I have unfortunately read very few, so I'm not going to bother separating these into eras):

 

* Tales of the Jedi (nicely collected in two Dark Horse Omnibus editions)

* X-Wing Rogue Squadron (chronologically take place prior to the X-Wing novels, and introduce some characters important in those novels - collected in three DH Omnibus editions)

* Dark Empire Trilogy (Dark Empire, Dark Empire II, Empire's End)

* Legacy (great stuff, 140 years or so after A New Hope)

Tales of the Jedi comics are probably the best bet for the game... followed by Kotor 1 and 2. It did always make me laugh that Revan's war was called the "Great Sith War" in KOTOR 1 when it was set within a generation of the REAL Sith War (where Courescant was sacked, most of the Jedi were killed, and the original jedi conclave was blown up by supernova)

 

Stay away from Crystal Star, Darksaber, and anything from the chick who does the Republic Commando books (who say's Mandalroians are just farmers who happened to pick up guns to defend themselves and turned out to be super powered killing machines)