Star Wars Books Thread

[Reverend]

It's so tempting to be a bit nihilistic to such a question and state that their is no point

As a rule, I generally don't put a lot of stock in pen & paper RPG tie-in books since their function is largely about handing a player to tools to tell their own story in-game, not to tell a narrative of it's own. As a result, a lot of the lore that comes out of such books comes directly from whatever game company bought the licence with next to no imput from the creatives behind the actual franchise.

That's not to say there's no value to be found there at all. After all, a lof of the early EU authors used the old Star Wars West End Games books as a resource for world building .Zahn in particular used a number of vehicles and the like IIRC, and more currently it seems several of the LFSG are also fans of the early WEG material and have been subtly dropping elements into canon....but it's almost always background details that they would have just pulled out of thin air for the visual dictionaries anyway, so why not?

 

[Ithekro]

Star Wars: Rebels is almost a direct to TV version of a old WEG Star Wars group. Six player characters and a ship. The GM increases the scope of the adventure over time. The groups gets new skills and gear from time to time.

The Shadowcaster was even one if the LFSG's old RP ships repurposed as a bounty hunter's ship.

 

[WebLurker]

The way I see it, fans (certain ones, at least) mostly lead themselves to believe it, mostly because they wanted to. From what i read and heard over the years, Lucasfilm was always up-front about the expanded materials being a side-thing. Supplemental to the works of George Lucas, not of equal standing.

Yeah, I think the answer is kinda complicated. I mean, I have seen people pull quotes to argue that the EU was non-canon to it was as canon as tie-ins can be (some I think get taken out of context and it's really easy to just use the ones the support your opinions, not the ones that came later and so represent the final decisions on the subject). Some of these are cases not made by the "Give Us Legends" people but people who've explored the question pretty rationally (look up Nathan Butler on YouTube; the guy is really good at this stuff).

IMHO, I think what it all comes down to is that Legends was canon back in the day, but the movies could overrule them at any time, but that happened so little before Disney restarted things that we kinda got used to seeing them as being hard and fast. (I do kinda feel that the Legends canon question is kind of a moot point; I mean, whatever it was, the reboot rendered it non-canon now and even if it was never "real," it arguably existed in a continuity all of its own, so can be taken as being real onto itself if that matters to you.)

This is not unique to Star Wars of course. I've seen fans of other genre properties pitch a fit if someone suggests some third party licenced RPG source book isn't canonical responding with "well then what's the point of me owning it then?!"

Since RPGs are designed to allow people to enact their own stories, the idea of a "canon RPG" is really silly; the campaigns you create are non-canon and the fluff in the books can be revised to fit the needs of the players. I can get wanting the fluff to be canon compliant, but the the point of the game is not to be an encyclopedia (besides, whenever my Star Trek and Star Wars RPG books don't match current canon, I just revise that in m head when putting together the scenarios).

It's the same mentality I've found that applies a value judgement to canonical status, where really, it should be neither a positive or negative and even then, only secondary to the objective and subjective quality of a given product.

And nobody is trying to. As I said, whether a story is canon or not only matters in how in contents of the texts relates to other canon works. That's it. That's all that word means. "Apocryphal" after all, is not a synonym for "bad".

That can happen.

It's still early days yet with the new stuff and there are still saga movies being made, so out of necessity they're having to keep mostly to the margins. Once tRoS is released and the plans for the next wave of content it laid out, I suspect they'll be given more latitude and start to take longer strides.

The EU/Legends has the benefit of being around for *decades*. So of course the body of work is going to be fare more substantial and varied, so it's really not af fair comparison.

True, although I do suspect that the movies being the primary form of storytelling these days while Legends existed during times when there were no more plans for movies and the tie-ins were the only form of storytelling going forward, also impact things.

As you should.

One of the things that often frustrated me while looking up EU related stuff that I hadn't read on places like wookipedia is that the people that wrote the articles had the irritating habit of incorporating retcons into the narrative without bothering to point out what said retcons were. Some of the older and more arcane stuff was especially difficult to get clear information on since it was filtered through multiple later works that elaborated, contradicted and re-contextualised the material to suit the ever changing current version of "EU Canon".
This comes back to fans convincing themselves that it's all meant to be canon, using that damned tier system that was only really meant for internal use by Lucasfilm's licencing people and using it as a means to sort and judge story content.

I see both sides of the issue in that there is stuff that got so retconned that the original versions can get lost (e.g. the pre-CGI Clone Wars timeline), but I do also like being able to see how everything was pieced together in the overall Legends timeline.

First off: I really wouldn't call 'I,Jedi' a "mid-quell" as that implies it's meant to be a part of the same story. In reality, it's more of a denouncement and criticism of those books as viewed through the eyes of a character who's main story is entirely separate and just so happens to be around for those events.

'Dark Empire' was a cool premise with nowhere to go and really, should have been the Star Wars equivalent of an Elseworlds tale. Indeed, I could say the same for a lot of the material from that time and others.

The Thrawn books hold up mostly from a character perspective, but the world building and scope of them somehow managed to feel insular and and low stakes. Part of the problem is that Zahn and most other EU authors treated Star Wars as a sci-fi property. Almost nobody managed to touch on the mythological and spiritual themes & influences that are truly at the bedrock of the franchise. It left a lot of the stories feeling stale and the characters mere imitations of themselves.

Stakepole was probably the only one to get away with it precisely because he chose to tell a particular type of story that actually suited that approach.

Okay. I do think that the Thrawn books hold up better when just taken in the context of the original movies and itself and not trying to factor the other books into the mix; something about it doesn't quite click with picturing other adventures between it.

And this approach was more the rule that the exception and continued until the NJO shake-up, but that only lead to a different kind of problem: the larger arcs were more coordinated but the quality and focus was all over the damn place.

Yeah, it was those mulit-story books where I found the least enjoyment; the stand alones did it better for me.

Again, this wasn't a one-off thing but a persistent pattern. A lot of the early post RotJ materials was clearly aimed and moving on for the younger generation to come into their own...except they never committed. Jaina should have been the lead character of the franchise for most of the EU's last decade, but they just couldn't bring themselves to do it. Probably because nobody really wanted to write about EU characters that they didn't personally create.
That's why Mara Jade suddenly becomes braindead the second she shows up in any story not written by Zahn and lets not get into the five different directions authors would pull secondary characters like Wedge & Lando in because they all had their own ideas as to what to do with them.

Hell, even Han was left in a weird limbo post RotJ. Yet, the new canon stories managed to do a better job with him almost straight out of the gate: he became a professional race team owner and a paton & mentor to younger pilots. Compare that to the EU where he was simultaneously the First Gentleman of the Republic..and still a smuggler...who didn't actually smuggle anything any more...I mean, what did Han do again?!

Yeah, that was one downside of the piecemeal assembly.

 

[Reverend]

IMHO, I think what it all comes down to is that Legends was canon back in the day, but the movies could overrule them at any time

I'm afraid that this right here, is an inherently flawed concept.
"Canon" by sheer definition is a binary state. It either is, or it is not. There's no room for "ifs", "buts" or "maybes". That's the whole point of the concept as it explicitly determines what's in and what's out.

It's not enough for something to be consistent with canon, it's need to be reciprocal. It's not enough that Mara Jade exists in a world with Luke Skywalker in it, Luke Skywalker must exist in that world with Mara Jade. He does not and never did. But by contrast, Rey does indeed exist in a world with Ahsoka Tano, Ezra Bridger, and Qi'ra, because as far as the movies are concerned, these people exist and the events in their stories happened.

With the EU it was more a case of "if the movies havene't touched that yet, you you can pretend it's canon if you like, no harm in that!"
But pretending isn't the same as being and that things got deliberately contradicted is all the proof you should need of that.

 

[JD]

Hell, even Han was left in a weird limbo post RotJ. Yet, the new canon stories managed to do a better job with him almost straight out of the gate: he became a professional race team owner and a paton & mentor to younger pilots.

Is that from Last Shot? I hadn't come across any of that information yet.
As for the Legends, the way I tend to think of it is, the books, comics, games, ect. were "canon" to each other, but not "canon" to the movies or TV shows.
StarWars.com has posted an interview with author Claudia Gray about Master & Apprentice.

 

[WebLurker]

I'm afraid that this right here, is an inherently flawed concept.
"Canon" by sheer definition is a binary state. It either is, or it is not. There's no room for "ifs", "buts" or "maybes". That's the whole point of the concept as it explicitly determines what's in and what's out.

I don't know; canon materials can revise themselves and some, like comics, have a pretty loose structure. Can't say I have a problem with that.

It's not enough for something to be consistent with canon, it's need to be reciprocal. It's not enough that Mara Jade exists in a world with Luke Skywalker in it, Luke Skywalker must exist in that world with Mara Jade. He does not and never did. But by contrast, Rey does indeed exist in a world with Ahsoka Tano, Ezra Bridger, and Qi'ra, because as far as the movies are concerned, these people exist and the events in their stories happened.

I see the point and it is a good one. However, you do have stuff like Transformers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. They have multiple incarnations, many of which don't fit together (although Transformers does include everything as a multiverse and TMNT has a couple of mutually exclusive multiverses built out of its installments). However, you wouldn't consider the Transformers movies to not be canon because they don't with the '80s cartoon. So, I kinda see Legends that way. It's not the current film universe, but some of the films did happen there. So, while the original Luke Skywalker may not exist in Legends, a counterpart with the same OT experiences does, and that's good enough for that continuity, IMHO.

With the EU it was more a case of "if the movies havene't touched that yet, you you can pretend it's canon if you like, no harm in that!"
But pretending isn't the same as being and that things got deliberately contradicted is all the proof you should need of that.

Could be. Guess the idea of a level of canon where stuff can be changed doesn't bother me for some reason.

 

[Set Harth]

I'm afraid that this right here, is an inherently flawed concept.

Nope, it's the truth.

It's not enough that Mara Jade exists in a world with Luke Skywalker in it, Luke Skywalker must exist in that world with Mara Jade. He does not and never did.

Utter meaningless nonsense.

 

[Masiral]

Is that from Last Shot? I hadn't come across any of that information yet.

I think it was Bloodline, actually

 

[Koric]

Hey all. I think I should clarify something. I'm a Star Wars fan as is we all are. I guess I should apologize to Fireproof and Reverend. Im not here to offend anyone or make enemies.

But, having said that Im not defending the EU. Some good old authors of the old Star Wars series are gone, and had no choice or input in this LEGENDS label. For example, Brian Daley and Ann Crispin. Interestingly one from the Del Rey era and another from the Bantam era.

Not to be disparaging to anyone, but specifically the Corellian series about the Han Solo family was a jumbled mess and a waste. The Black Fleet Crisis was junk. None of those books had any impact.

Sadly the amazing Star Trek writers were GREAT Star Trek writers but poor Star Wars writers. Anyone know why? What when wrong with the Crystal Star?

Is it just the way I see it but are the newest Star Wars books since 2014 aimed more as a theme about being self contained and about one character or incident? Asking?

Its weird we criticize the past, but to be honest if Zahn's first Thrawn series hadnt succeeded in 1991 wouldnt the books be in a different place?

Seeing the Heir to the Empire hardcover on a shelf in Waldenbooks was such a shock for me and no even seeing or hearing anything about it was an INCREDIBLE moment as a Star Wars fan. I couldnt buy it and read it fast enough. I wished the Thrawn trilogy wasnt redone. The new covers look cheap. But Luuke was a mistake and cringe worthy.

Seeing an article in Starlog about Dark Empire in 1991 was amazing too. It truly felt like a Star Wars wave. But I was afraid of Star Wars books being to diluted like Star Trek. Go into any book store in 1995 the Star trek section was enormous, but Star Wars was few in number.

To let everyone know, it wasnt until 1996 with the West End RPG Star Wars Shadows of the Empire Sourcebook, that had a huge disclaimer on the copyright page that said paraphrasing "If George Lucas decides to do any future stories after ROTJ that it would be independent of any author or story printed." I think then certain stories and books went downhill even more, because authors realized that they no impact on the movies or saga whatsoever. I'm torn on if that disclaimer should have been done at all.

All the best to everyone here, and I respect all of your opinions.
-Koric

 

[Reverend]

Could be. Guess the idea of a level of canon where stuff can be changed doesn't bother me for some reason.

I think you're confusing the word canon with "continuity". They're not interchangeable. The latter can be loose and flexible, the former cannot be. The latter deals with minutia, small details. While the former refers mostly to complete chunks of material as a whole.

For example, the trailer for the upcoming final season of The Clone Wars shows Ahsoka with her old lightsabers but now with blue blades instead of their usual green. The previously published novel 'Ahsoka' features a flashback to what's presumably the immediate aftermath of the above depicted events and the sabers are explicitly described as being green. So which is canon? They both are, it's just that production realities have introduced a minor continuity error. It doesn't matter to the plot, narrative or trajectory of character arcs, so the story as a whole is unaffected. That's not flexible canon, it's rigid canon, with flexible continuity, just as if you see a boom mic shadow in one shot or minor props appear to teleport in and out of existence between shot because the editor used takes from different days of filming. It's minutia, thus not an matter of canon.

To give a different kind of example: in 'The Last Jedi' we see three contextually different version's of Luke's confrontation with Ben, but which is canon? Well, they're all part of the narrative so all of those accounts are canon. As to which one actually, objectively happened: it doesn't matter. This isn't a continuity problem, those accounts are all real because they matter to the person who's perspective it's being told from and those contradictions are in and of themselves part of the narrative and thus part of the canon.

 

[Set Harth]

To give a different kind of example: in 'The Last Jedi' we see three contextually different version's of Luke's confrontation with Ben, but which is canon? Well, they're all part of the narrative so all of those accounts are canon. As to which one actually, objectively happened: it doesn't matter.

It does matter. The third one is supposed to be the one that really happened.

 

[Tuskin38]

It does matter. The third one is supposed to be the one that really happened.

They’re all true, from a certain point of view.

Kylo saw it one way, while Luke saw it from another. Both believe it to be true.

Kylo never lied, he thought Luke was actually going to kill him. It’s the true version of events from his perspective.

 

[Set Harth]

They’re all true, from a certain point of view.

Kylo saw it one way, while Luke saw it from another. Both believe it to be true.

There are two from Luke's point of view. The implication being that neither one of the first two that we see is entirely accurate. Luke eventually admits that he ignited his saber, but he didn't try to follow through.

 

[WebLurker]

Hey all. I think I should clarify something. I'm a Star Wars fan as is we all are. I guess I should apologize to Fireproof and Reverend. Im not here to offend anyone or make enemies.

But, having said that Im not defending the EU. Some good old authors of the old Star Wars series are gone, and had no choice or input in this LEGENDS label. For example, Brian Daley and Ann Crispin. Interestingly one from the Del Rey era and another from the Bantam era.

Fair enough. While I do think Legends was worth the while when it was around and still has material of value, I will be the first to agree that there were plenty bad things about it and not all of it has ages well.

Not to be disparaging to anyone, but specifically the Corellian series about the Han Solo family was a jumbled mess and a waste. The Black Fleet Crisis was junk. None of those books had any impact.

Personally, I thought the Corellian books were okay (and some of the stuff invented for them was integrated into future novels, Centerpoint Station being the big one). Never like Black Fleet myself, even if I liked the idea on paper.

Sadly the amazing Star Trek writers were GREAT Star Trek writers but poor Star Wars writers. Anyone know why? What when wrong with the Crystal Star?

Back luck of the draw? Not sure about Crystal Star either, but I didn't like that one, either.

Is it just the way I see it but are the newest Star Wars books since 2014 aimed more as a theme about being self contained and about one character or incident? Asking?

That's a good rule of thumb. Some do build off each other, and there are characters who pop up a lot, but yeah, it's a lot of standalone stories and movie prequels.

Its weird we criticize the past, but to be honest if Zahn's first Thrawn series hadnt succeeded in 1991 wouldnt the books be in a different place?

Seeing the Heir to the Empire hardcover on a shelf in Waldenbooks was such a shock for me and no even seeing or hearing anything about it was an INCREDIBLE moment as a Star Wars fan. I couldnt buy it and read it fast enough.

That was before my time, but those books were really good, IMHO, and did impact everything going forward in one way or another.

I wished the Thrawn trilogy wasnt redone. The new covers look cheap.

I personally like the new covers better then the originals, but that's just me.

But Luuke was a mistake and cringe worthy.

I can see the point. I will concede that the cloning stuff in the books has not aged well from either a science or franchise perspective and that a lot of stuff with that character was needlessly silly.

To let everyone know, it wasnt until 1996 with the West End RPG Star Wars Shadows of the Empire Sourcebook, that had a huge disclaimer on the copyright page that said paraphrasing "If George Lucas decides to do any future stories after ROTJ that it would be independent of any author or story printed." I think then certain stories and books went downhill even more, because authors realized that they no impact on the movies or saga whatsoever. I'm torn on if that disclaimer should have been done at all.

Funny, I thought the original print of Heir to the Empire had one, too (I don't have a copy of that and am going off hearsay). I'm not sure that the authors slacked off since they realized the books weren't going to impact the movies (they did in a few cases, for one and it is common sense going into the job anyways). Besides, there were those years where the tie-ins were the only driving narrative in the franchise, so they were, for all intents and purposes, shaping the franchise in those moments.

As to whether those disclaimers should've been in the books in the first place, I personally wonder how the fanbase of them would've reacted to the reboot had all the books kept printing those at the beginning.

I think you're confusing the word canon with "continuity". They're not interchangeable. The latter can be loose and flexible, the former cannot be. The latter deals with minutia, small details. While the former refers mostly to complete chunks of material as a whole.

For example, the trailer for the upcoming final season of The Clone Wars shows Ahsoka with her old lightsabers but now with blue blades instead of their usual green. The previously published novel 'Ahsoka' features a flashback to what's presumably the immediate aftermath of the above depicted events and the sabers are explicitly described as being green. So which is canon? They both are, it's just that production realities have introduced a minor continuity error. It doesn't matter to the plot, narrative or trajectory of character arcs, so the story as a whole is unaffected. That's not flexible canon, it's rigid canon, with flexible continuity, just as if you see a boom mic shadow in one shot or minor props appear to teleport in and out of existence between shot because the editor used takes from different days of filming. It's minutia, thus not an matter of canon.

To give a different kind of example: in 'The Last Jedi' we see three contextually different version's of Luke's confrontation with Ben, but which is canon? Well, they're all part of the narrative so all of those accounts are canon. As to which one actually, objectively happened: it doesn't matter. This isn't a continuity problem, those accounts are all real because they matter to the person who's perspective it's being told from and those contradictions are in and of themselves part of the narrative and thus part of the canon.

Maybe?

 

[Tuskin38]

Sadly the amazing Star Trek writers were GREAT Star Trek writers but poor Star Wars writers. Anyone know why? What when wrong with the Crystal Star?

Although the reverse doesn't seem to be true. John Jackson Miller wrote some great Star Wars stuff, and went on to write some great Star Trek stuff after that.

 

[Set Harth]

Funny, I thought the original print of Heir to the Empire had one, too (I don't have a copy of that and am going off hearsay).

The paperback sure doesn't. In fact, it's labeled the "authorized continuation" of the saga.

 

[JD]

Is it just the way I see it but are the newest Star Wars books since 2014 aimed more as a theme about being self contained and about one character or incident? Asking?

Yes, and that is standard practice for tie-ins for an active franchise. As long as there are new movies and TV shows coming out, the books and comics are going to be secondary to the movies and shows, and will just be filling in the gaps around them. The comics have been telling bigger stories set between the OT movies, but even they aren't quite as big as the stories the movies and shows are telling.
The movies and shows are the core parts of the franchise, so they will be the ones telling all of the big, important stories.
The only reason the books and comics were able to tell such big, galaxy changing stories before 2014, is because for a while they were the only part of the franchise, with no new movies, or shows going on. Then once they started making movies and shows again, they were all set in prequel era, so the books and comics set after Return of the Jedi were still free to do their own thing. But now that we're getting movies and shows set after Return of the Jedi, they are going to going to be the main focus of the franchise, with everything else secondary.
I actually like how things seem to be working out with the books and comics, with the comics telling the bigger stories, and books telling smaller more character focused stories. I think it really plays to their strengths, with the comics visuals letting them give us bigger action, while the books are able to give us more in depth character and world building.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Lots of new information and reveals at the Marvel comics panel. There's a lot there, so I'm not even going through it here.
IDW also did their panel, where they revealed that Jaxxon, the green rabbit alien from Marvel's original comics series will be appearing in the next Star Wars Adventures Annual, and that they will be doing another Tales from Vader's Castle series with the original creative team. The Annual with Jaxxon will feature a cover by Usagi Yojimbo creator Stan Sakai.

Speaking as an unapologetic fan of Marvel's original Star Wars run, I am equally overjoyed to see new comics with both Jaxxon and Valence the Hunter (Target Vader, Star Wars 108) in 2019.

 

[WebLurker]

The paperback sure doesn't. In fact, it's labeled the "authorized continuation" of the saga.

"Authorized" doesn't mean canon. The DS9 relaunch novels had a similar note on them and they sure's heck weren't canon. Authorized just means that the IP rights holders allowed the product in question to be made.

 

[JD]

There's a new book I hadn't heard about before coming out tomorrow, Alien Archive. It's an in universe guide to the Star Wars galaxy's different aliens and creatures. Looks pretty cool.