Star Wars Books Thread

[Turtletrekker]

So out of curiosity.(and a desire to change topic): how old were people when they started getting into Star Wars lit?

I was around 8 or so. TPM came out that year, and the books were everywhere.

I read Splinter of the Mind's Eye and Brian Daley's Han Solo trilogy in 1981, which would have made me 14-ish.

 

[JD]

I first saw the Return of the Jedi when I was fairly young, but I didn't really start getting into the other parts of the franchise until around the time of the prequels came out.

 

[Set Harth]

So out of curiosity.(and a desire to change topic): how old were people when they started getting into Star Wars lit?

Five, if you count the Marvel comics which started in 1977. And then Splinter came out the following year.

Coruscant's name may have come from a book, but the city-covering planet (and pronunciation of the name, for that matter) were the movie's own and didn't match the book's.

"The sun gleamed on the city that stretched across the entire landmass of Coruscant." - Jedi Search, 1994

 

[Ithekro]

I read some in elementary school, but didn't get serious with any novels until Heir to the Empire came out. at that time I was 13. But I'd been invested in Star Wars since pretty much birth in 1977.

Mind you the year that novel came out was also the year Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country came out. I bought the novelization of that a week before it came out in theaters and read it over night in seven hours, finishing something like four or five in the morning.

 

[Skywalker]

It was actually the Tales of the Jedi comics that first got me into Star Wars lit. My brother was reading them, back when they were first coming out in 1993-94, and I would read them after he finished. Then the Young Jedi Knights YA novels started coming out in 1995 and I started reading through those, though I lost interest in those after the Shadow Academy era ended and they moved on to the Diversity Alliance storyline. Young Jedi Knights led me to Kevin J. Anderson's Jedi Academy trilogy, but it was really Michael A. Stackpole's X-Wing: Rogue Squadron, released in 1996, when I seriously got into the books and started reading everything I could find. I didn't actually read Timothy Zahn's trilogy until the summer of 1996, when I bought Heir to the Empire in the Star Trader store after going on the Star Tours ride at Disneyland.

 

[Enterprise is Great]

I was almost 10 when Star Wars came out. It's been 40 years so I can't remember if I started with the novelization of Star Wars or the Marvel Comics adaptation of the films. Those were oversized comics that collected the first few issues of Marvel Comics that adapted the movie. Then I read Splinter of the Mind's Eye and the first Han Solo and Lando Calrissian novels. They bored me so I stuck to the comics. It wasn't until the Thrawn trilogy that I really started getting into SW lit.

 

[Skywalker]

"The sun gleamed on the city that stretched across the entire landmass of Coruscant." - Jedi Search, 1994

Yes, but...

The polar regions of Coruscant reminded Han Solo of the ice planet Hoth ...

Han stood atop the crumpled blue-white ice cliffs, feeling warm in his insulated charcoal-gray parka and red heater gloves. The ever-present auroras in the purplish skies sent rainbow curtains flickering and refracting off the ice. He drew in a deep breath of crackling cold air that seemed to curl his nostril hairs.

Han leaned forward to peer down the steep turbo-ski run of rippled ice, feeling a lump form in his throat but unwilling to show it.

Blue and white glaciers shone in dim light from the months-long twilight. Below, ice-boring machines had chewed deep tunnels into the thick ice caps; other excavators had chopped broad terraces on the cliffs as they mined centuries-old snowpack, melting it with fusion furnaces to be delivered via titanic water pipelines to the dense metropolitan areas in the temperate zones.

-Dark Apprentice, 1994

 

[Turtletrekker]

Oh, if we're counting comics, then Marvel Star Wars #39, the first issue of their adaptation of The Empire Strikes Back. My first all-new Star Wars story was issue 45, "Death Probe".

 

[Reverend]

Not counting things like the storybooks, a comic annual I'd inherited from my older brother, or tape stories, the first SW book I ever read was probably 'The Glove of Darth Vader' when I was 11 or 12 in the early 90's. Don't judge. I know those books were silly but to a young person for whom reading did not come easily, they were invaluable. I owned Heir to the Empire for nearly two years before I was able to get though it and just a few years later reading 'Dune' was like a rite of passage into literacy.

As for SW, after the Jedi Prince series I think I read the novelisations & Splinter of the minds eye from copies I found at car boot sales (they had the virtue of being very cheep.) After that it was probably the Thrawn & Jedi Academy trilogies, The Corellian trilogy, Darksaber, SotE, Crystal Star and I think I started the 'Black Fleet Crisis' & 'Planet of Twilight' but quickly lost interest. That was roughly around the time I pretty much gave up on the SW novels and moved on to other things IIRC. Sadly I did not read the X-Wing books until just this last two or three years.

 

[WebLurker]

how old were people when they started getting into Star Wars lit?

I was around 8 or so. TPM came out that year, and the books were everywhere.

Early teens, so, that'd be like the early 2000s.

 

[JD]

Not counting things like the storybooks, a comic annual I'd inherited from my older brother, or tape stories, the first SW book I ever read was probably 'The Glove of Darth Vader' when I was 11 or 12 in the early 90's. Don't judge. I know those books were silly but to a young person for whom reading did not come easily, they were invaluable. I owned Heir to the Empire for nearly two years before I was able to get though it and just a few years later reading 'Dune' was like a rite of passage into literacy.

I completely forgot about the Jedi Prince series, I read those and the Junior Jedi Knights books long before I read the Thrawn. In fact I think my parents might have actually them to me before I could read myself.

 

[John Clark]

He was trying to...oh never mind.

So out of curiosity.(and a desire to change topic): how old were people when they started getting into Star Wars lit?

I was around 8 or so. TPM came out that year, and the books were everywhere.

Well, I remember the ROTJ novelisation back in 83 before seeing the film. I'm pretty sure I read Star Wars, Empire and Splinter of the Minds Eye around 1980. (My folks took me to see a Star Wars/Empire double bill that year) so I think I grabbed what I could shortly after seeing them both. I'd have been six or so at the time.

 

[Reverend]

I completely forgot about the Jedi Prince series, I read those and the Junior Jedi Knights books long before I read the Thrawn. In fact I think my parents might have actually them to me before I could read myself.

For some reason, I never came across the Junior Jedi Knights books. I don't know if it was because they were never published in the UK or that none of my local bookshops carried them but I remember seeing the character entries in the 'Essential Guide to Characters' book and wondering where the hell they all came from.

 

[fireproof78]

Not counting things like the storybooks, a comic annual I'd inherited from my older brother, or tape stories, the first SW book I ever read was probably 'The Glove of Darth Vader' when I was 11 or 12 in the early 90's. Don't judge. I know those books were silly but to a young person for whom reading did not come easily, they were invaluable. I owned Heir to the Empire for nearly two years before I was able to get though it and just a few years later reading 'Dune' was like a rite of passage into literacy.

As for SW, after the Jedi Prince series I think I read the novelisations & Splinter of the minds eye from copies I found at car boot sales (they had the virtue of being very cheep.) After that it was probably the Thrawn & Jedi Academy trilogies, The Corellian trilogy, Darksaber, SotE, Crystal Star and I think I started the 'Black Fleet Crisis' & 'Planet of Twilight' but quickly lost interest. That was roughly around the time I pretty much gave up on the SW novels and moved on to other things IIRC. Sadly I did not read the X-Wing books until just this last two or three years.

I found the "Glove of Darth Vader" when I was in 5th grade or so. It was an interesting tale. I also recall borrowing a book on tape from the library that involved Leia and Chewie befriending a race of little bunny things. A Google research reveals this to be the "Planet of the Hoojibs" which was interesting when I was a kid, but a bit goofy now.

I think i found the Young Jedi Knight series to be more interesting to me, until TPM was released and got really in to all the materials that came out with that. I personally enjoyed more of the stories that tied directly to the films in some way (both PT and OT) such as "Tales from the Cantina" or "Han Solo Adventures." I didn't get in to the Thrawn trilogy or such until later, and by then, there were only a few books that caught my interest because there was just so much. But, the ROTS novelization remains among my top Star Wars novels of all time.

 

[Skywalker]

Sadly I did not read the X-Wing books until just this last two or three years.

What did you think of them? They're still my favorite SW books, overall, but I first read them as a young teenager, so I'm curious to know if they hold up for an adult.

 

[Set Harth]

I also recall borrowing a book on tape from the library that involved Leia and Chewie befriending a race of little bunny things. A Google research reveals this to be the "Planet of the Hoojibs" which was interesting when I was a kid, but a bit goofy now.

Was there a Hoojib reference in Rogue One somewhere? I thought I heard someone allude to such a thing at one point.

 

[Turtletrekker]

I also recall borrowing a book on tape from the library that involved Leia and Chewie befriending a race of little bunny things.

"Planet of the Hoojibs" was an adaptation of Marvel's Star Wars #55, written by David Michhelini.

 

[Ithekro]

Was there a Hoojib reference in Rogue One somewhere? I thought I heard someone allude to such a thing at one point.

No, but there was a word that sounded like Hoojibs, so people thought they said it, including people that work at Lucasfilm. It was actually one of the holo-chess pieces being named as a move of some sort by Saw's people.

I remember the records of "Planet of the Hoojibs" as well as "Droid World" and the "Rebel Mission to Ord Mantell" while growing up.

 

[Turtletrekker]

I remember the records of "Planet of the Hoojibs" as well as "Droid World" and the "Rebel Mission to Ord Mantell" while growing up.

"Droid World" was an adaptation of Marvel Star Wars #47 written by Archie Goodwin. "Rebel Mission to Ord Mantel" is an original story written by Brian Daley, who authored the first Han Solo trilogy as well as the NPR radio adaptations of the original trilogy.

 

[Turtletrekker]

You can listen to "Planet of the Hoojibs", "Droid World" and "Rebel Mission to Ord Mantell" on YouTube (Part 2 of RMtOM).