Star Wars novels

[Harrison]

Does anyone else here read Star Wars novels?

I've been collecting Star Wars items for as long as I can remember, but until this year I'd never bothered reading any of the novels. Then earlier this year I was walking out if a charity shop and spotted 3 SW novels in a book rack for 50p each so I grabbed them.

As soon as I got home i started to read one and thought it was brilliant. I was missing the second book in that trilogy within the New Jedi Order so went online to track it down and discovered it to be quite rare and sort after, commanding prices higher than the RRP.

I then came across the list of Star Wars books on Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Star_Wars_books

Amazed at how many have been published and it instantly grabbed my Star Wars collecting bug. I also love how the list has been arranged in chronological order, so you can read the books in the order of history without reading something that gives the plot away in a book set earlier in time.

I also love the fact that LucasFilm, George Lucas and the authors are all involved together in maintaining a consistent timeline throughout all books, both graphic novels and novels alike. So everything is consistent. Lucas often directly authorises or turns down ideas from authors to directly have a part in shaping the universe, and in fact the next Star Wars film, Star Wars Episode VII: The hidden circle, will be utilising this history built up from these novels and will be set in the time of the New Jedi Era about 30 years after Episode IV's final battle at Yevin.

And I've managed to get the collection of novels off to a good start, finding some large collections on ebay and winning them. In a short time I now have about 80 novels and still collecting. After starting off reading a couple of the novels in the later New Jedi order era, I decided to go back and start reading the books in chronological order from the point Return of the Jedi ended. This was mostly because the later books are 30 years into the future and concern the children of the 2 married couples Leia + Han, and Luke + Mara, so I wanted to rewind and see how it all unfolded.

So going back in time, I started with the book "The truce at Bakura" which was a great book and begins the day after ROTJ, then onto "The Courtship of Princess Leia" and now I'm halfway through "Tatooine Ghost". If any of you love Star Wars and enjoy reading then I highly recommend you read these 3 books in that order to get you started. They are all very good and brilliant for any Star Wars fan.

I have over the years also read a few of the graphic novels and have about 10 of those. If I finish reading all of the novels I can see myself looking into starting to collect the graphic novels as well. Maybe by the time i finish reading this lot it will be 2021, the release date for the Episode VII: The Hidden Circle.

 

[StrontiumDog]

I prefer listening to the audio books in the background - 121 of those currently residing in my collection

 

[Harrison]

121... There are about 128 audio books released to date so that is pretty much all of them. Originals?

I prefer to read the books first, and then listen to the audio books later if I'm on a journey or driving some way, especially if the audio books are abridged. Books always generate so much more imagination, along with how you can see and hear the characters speaking and acting in your mind.

 

[StrontiumDog]

84 out of 121 are originals brought on my travels to the USA over the years (like you, I see it, I buy it lol) and the remaining are from *ahem* questionable sources

Also in my collection of audio books are Dr Who, Red Dwarf, 2000AD, Blakes 7, Star Trek, The Tomorrow People & X Files.

 

[Harrison]

I do like the audio books with full casts. Those are really enjoyable, but I'm not so fond of the read books. My sister, being blind, loves them though, and I need to visitor soon to see if she has bought any more.

 

[Harrison]

I got a bit carried away buying Star Wars novels in the past few weeks...

Being that i collect a lot of Star Wars stuff already, and my complete SW collection still takes up half of my parents loft (they keep asking when I'm going to take it all)... plus half of my own study, I knew that once I started collecting the novels I would want to complete the collection... and I'm already nearly there!

These past few weeks I've managed to grab some SW novel collections on ebay. A couple of 50+ book collections, plus a few other smaller collections.

Obviously as I've been obtaining collections I've ended up with quite a few duplicates of the most popular novels, but I should be able to resell those by making up sets of trilogies, duologies etc for separate sales, and making a small collection sale for any odd ones. Buying collections makes it amazingly inexpensive to build up the collection, and quickly. I think overall the novels current work out as costing me about 15p each.

So far I now have 126 books. Not missing too many now! (not counting the young reader books) I then just need to hunt down the ebook only novels that form part of some of the series of books, so i know I've read everything in order.

If anyone is interested in reading any of the Star Wars books let me know as I have duplicate copies of some of the best ones. Especially the books that follow on after RotJ including Truce at Bakura and Courtship of Princess Leia.

One other thing I had forgotten is how much I hate hardback books! I like them when they are small and easy to handle, or if they are something special, but not the huge over sized ones you get in first edition releases and via book clubs. They are just too cumbersome to handle and read easily, and a nightmare to take with you anywhere if you want to read out somewhere. For that reason I have managed to replace most of the hardback editions of books in the collection, currently leaving only 6, with about another 20 I will be looking to resell.

Oh, and just read that a couple of new novels are being released in the new year. Shadow Games by Michael Reaves and Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff looks especially good, set about 2 years before episode 4.

 

[Dash]

I remember really getting into the Star Wars novels when I was at Uni. I had just split up with my girlfriend at the time, and needed some serious escapism! That was about 12 years ago.

I started with the Timothy Zahn books and really enjoyed those. Moved onto Kevin J Anderson (didn't like those quite so much) and then Stackpole (?) and various others. Must have read dozens over that year or two.

I've never really read any since... Except for this bizarre brief phase where I decided it would be good to learn French again to occupy my dull mornings on the train to London. (About 8 or 9 years ago.) So I ended up reading Trêve à Bakura!!

Reckon most of my old SW books have now been passed on via charity shops.

 

[Harrison]

I've ony read Rogue Squadron and Wedge's Gamble by Micheal Stackpole so far, but will be reading a couple more of his soon as I want to read more from the New Jedi Order series and he wrote the 2 Dark Tide books.

Timothy Zahn and Kevin J Anderson have definitely written a large bulk of all of the novels released, and I wonder how they find the time. Although having written so many I assume they are quite fluent in the events of the expanded universe and the characters. However neither of these are my favourite writers.

For me, the authors I've enjoyed the most have sadly only written a couple of books.. Kathy Tyers and Dave Wolverton. Another I've really enjoyed has been the books by Sean Williams & Shane Dix.

 

[Tomse]

I've got a nice collection, and recently (½ year ago) I've finished the rogue squadron series (again).

My first book was splinter of the minds eye, which happens between A new hope and The empire strikes back.

There has been good SW books, and bad ones. I don't like Young Jedi knights so much.

but Kevin J Anderson and Timothy Zahn gives a nice feel to the universe.

My newest additions to my collection was some years ago now, was 2 Republic Commando books from Karen Traviss.

My fiction book collection is around 95% in english, since I don't want someone else to mis-interpret the writers meaning, I can do that by myself

It's like looking at a software shelf, one package says Windows and the other says Amiga... now which one to choose ?

nice thread though