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fandomhigh_ooc2007-06-24 01:11 pm
solo_sword) wrote in fandomhigh_ooc2007-06-24 01:11 pm
Entry tags:
Spotlight on Fandoms: Star Wars EU
UM, DIDN'T WE DO STAR WARS ALREADY?
Yes but now it's my turn to torture you. See, Star Wars can kind of be broken up into three categories: prequels, original trilogy, and EU (expanded universe). Fry already covered the prequels and original trilogy, and since my girl can't be seen in either of those on account of not being born yet, now you get to learn where the real crack happens.
Seriously, some of these books, I pine for Lucas.
Now, if you're ready for the geekfest, look under the cut and come with me.
OH HOLY GOD HOW MANY BOOKS ARE THERE.
A lot. Like, a lot. Star Wars has comics, video games and several hundred thousand books to flesh out the whole universe, and lord knows I'm never gonna get to read them all.
Bookswise, things are kind of divided into... okay, like seven different categories. Some deal with things like Lando and Han's pasts pre-movies, some deal with the Old Republic in the prequel years, some deal with the New Republic, and then there's the New Jedi Order and the Legacy series. It's a lot. I will try to get you through it as best I can, okay? Just breathe and stay with me.
Also to note? The books published by Bantam (pretty much anything before the NJO) were more or less written out of order. See, there were a few books out around the time that the movies originally came out, around 1977-1983. Then nothing, until Timothy Zahn came out with Heir to the Empire, the first book to deal with Luke, Han and Leia in a post-Empire galaxy. And they spawned off from there. The same year the last Zahn book, The Last Command came out, so did The Truce at Bakura, which takes place immediately following Return of the Jedi. The next year spawned books written 7 years post-ROTJ, 4 years after, and 10 years after. Because somehow that makes sense. So the timeline gets confusing sometimes, most of the time it seemed that the writers were doing a lot of acid while watching old VHS copies of ESB over and over (Kevin J. Anderson, I'm looking at you), and there are two instances (I, Jedi, taking place during Anderson's Jedi Academy trilogy, and Zahn's two books that took place at the end of the Bantam run) where the authors called out or retconned certain things for being stupid (more on that later). And for that I love them dearly.
The New Jedi Order was written in order, though sometimes they'd have four books being written at once, which leads to certain characterization issues and the fact that the twins' ages switch a couple times. The Legacy series is written in order, by I think only four authors who are reportedly in communication with each other, and while I haven't read it yet (though I am spoiled like woah and flailing omg), I imagine this only helped.
SO.... WHAT HAPPENED BEFORE?
To make it easier and not just jump you that far ahead, I did something stupid, and wrote out a basic, I-haven't-read-these-books-in-a-while summary of the EU from ROTJ up until the NJO which can be found here. There are major spoilers in there, though, and I am clearly biased on certain things, so be warned.
CHARACTERS
Oh, Jesus Christ. *starts drinking* Spoilers ahoy.
Luke Skywalker- He's about 44 at the start of the NJO, has had his character massacred several times (turning to the dark side for no good reason, self-appointment to Jedi Master, getting knocked into some sort of coma by a dark side adept taking orders from the spirit of a long dead Sith lord and letting him be a Jedi Knight even after blowing up a planet, Callista, etc.etc. etc.), but he's better now. He's (finally, GOD) married to Mara Jade, has kind of left the Jedi Academy in order to start training people one on one.
At this point he kind of hates that he's more politician than anything just trying to get the Jedi (all hundred or so of them) together. And he's lost a lot of the idiocy he had in the earlier books. Probably because Mara would have killed him. For reals.
Leia Organa Solo- Occasionally in charge of the New Republic, though her position in it seems to vary from book to book to book, Leia spent a lot of time in boring political scenes and blah blah blah I didn't care muchcakes. She also shipped her kids off a lot for political reasons, which kind of made her daughter not like her so much. Given that the New Republic doesn't really last long in the NJO, this problem gets solved. She gets to be all ass-kicky again yay!
Han Solo- Again relegated to kind of tagging along with Leia on boring political stuff, Han kind of got taken advantage of as just being there for a lot of time. Chewie's death kind of takes his toll on him, to the point where he threatens THE COUPLE I HAVE SHIPPED SINCE I WAS 3 and is kind of an ass to his youngest son, and you kind of want to shake him and go "OMG IF I PLAY YOU SOME EVANESCENCE WILL YOU STOP." While he's got probably the wtfiest arc in the series, it gets him back to being Han, so I'll deal with it.
Mara Jade Skywalker- Taken from her family at a very young age, Mara ended up becoming the Emperor's Hand, the one who did all his dirty work and assassinations in a much less public way than Vader. Her last assignment was to kill Luke on Jabba's barge in ROTJ, and not only clearly failed the mission, but had no idea what to do with herself once the Emperor was dead. Meeting Luke again five years later meant she was really really keen to go ahead and kill the guy who ruined her life, but that didn't happen and after ten years, a few hundred books, and many frustrated shipper headdesks later, she married him instead.
Mara's become Jaina's teacher, and by the start of the NJO has been infected by the Yuuzhan Vong with a disease no one knows anything about. She's one of two surviving victims (okay, Mara's kind of a Mary Sue, but she's awesome) and still manages to kick a good amount of ass.
Jacen Solo- Okay, I have a bias against Jacen in that I mostly want to slap him. He's much more of a thinker than a doer, and is the type that is thinking so far ahead into the future that he doesn't realize he needs to act now. So, yeah, he's kind of the exact opposite of the entire rest of his family that way. He's a good kid, though, more sensitive than the others, always wanting to do the right thing. He's also very into thinking about the true nature of the Force and what a Jedi is supposed to be, which sets him up for some really interesting stuff on that later in the series. Even if it makes me throw things.
Jaina Solo- The oldest of the kids, and Jacen's twin, Jaina's the most direct. Also, the one with the most *headsmash*-inducing ships in the whole series just due to the longevity of the UST. She's the pilot of the group, one of the youngest members of Rogue Squadron and she's leading a squadron by the age of eighteen. She ends up taking a lot of the war onto her own shoulders, mostly at the expense of herself. But she does get to become a Goddess (no, not really) and propogranda holovid star in the process, so it's all good, right? Right?
Anakin Solo- The youngest, Anakin's arguably the most powerful of the kids. It's stated a few times that Jacen's the one with some insight into what the Force is and blah blah blah, but it's always seemed at least to me that Anakin has the better idea. He's got a natural aptitude with machines, is an excellent fighter, and sometimes doesn't always think before he does something because it needs to be done now. He means well, and he tries, and he's got a lot of guilt going on, but he plugs on anyway. He's he anti-Jacen in a lot of ways, and I love him to pieces.
Nom Anor- Nom Anor is one of the omg so pretty Yuuzhan Vong, and pretty much the guy in charge. He's the one who did all the research and infected Mara and does all the big dirty work, usually in disguise. As I'm sure you can tell, he's just a ray of sunshine to be around, especially with the need for status elevation and the whole "yay pain torture death" thing. We hates him, precious.
Kyp Durron- So when Kyp was eighteen, he was rescued from the spice mines of Kessel and started training to be a Jedi, except that he totally decided Luke was an idiot (which he was, but not for Kyp's reasons) and started training instead with the spirit of a long-dead Sith lord, put Luke in a coma, went memory-wipey, blew up a planet, and got made a Jedi anyway. Look, I told you Luke was made into a dumbass. And I think poor Luke regrets this. Kyp is headstrong, showy, disagrees with Luke about everything and refuses to consider he might be wrong, and I kind of love him in the NJO. He's an unapologetic asshole and he actually wins a lot of points for his attitude towards Jaina about midway through the series, and I love when the good guys don't have to be good, so we can keep him.
Tahiri Veila- Tahiri is Anakin's bff from the Junior Jedi Knights series, who's all cute and blonde and has a hatred of shoes and would be a great girlfriend for Anakin if the writers didn't hate us all. Also, she's another Tatooine native, because someone needed to take the movies the hell away from Kevin J. Anderson as he really seemed to not realize there were planets that weren't in the OT. Tahiri unfortunately is captured by the Vong, and "shaped" to become a Vong/Jedi hybrid. She kind of didn't deserve that. She continues to work with the Jedi rather than the Vong, but the poor thing probably got the rawest deal out of everyone.
Borsk Fey'lya- You know how in Return of the Jedi, when Mon Mothma's all "Many Bothans died for this information?" Well, Fey'lya is a Bothan and he is just working that angle. He's one of the New Republic politicians who has a mutual hatred of Leia, and essentially half his decisions end up screwing her over. Eventually becoming Chief of State, Fey'lya does seem to try to get the best outcome out of any situation, but it helps a lot if it benefits him. I hate him lots, but he does get a great moment that makes up for a lot.
Corran Horn- Introduced in Michael A. Stackpole's Rogue Squadron series, Corran is aGary Stu Corellian pilot and Jedi with really pathetic telekinesis skills. Thanks to the wonky timeline, I think he may actually be the first Jedi Luke finds after the war, and he doesn't suck at it. And okay, he's kind of arrogant and some people write him as unbearable, but he grew on me. Hush.
Wedge Antilles- Legend to fangirls everywhere, Wedge not only was one of two pilots to survive the trench run, but he was also the only pilot to survive both Death Star runs. Co-founder of Rogue Squadron, he's just an awesome guy who's risen through the ranks to get nice and respectable.
Jagged Fel- Poor Jag. Wedge's newphew, raised among the Chiss people, Jag is a very good pilot and written to be the perfect equal for Jaina. Except that Jaina has traits, and a personality, and Jag was not-so-lovingly named "Captain Cardboard" by the fans. He's not a bad guy, people, omg.
Tsavong Lah- I dunno, he looks like a mutated Grateful Dead bear to me. Anyway, he's the warmaster who's a little on the crazy fanatical side, and he's very very hugely anti-Jedi. He's also the one with the obsession to capture the Solo twins, because they have a twin fascination and hey, Jedi, so might as well kill two birds with one stone. Yeah, it doesn't work.
Vegere- I've seen Vergere described more than once as the "Jedi chicken." A Fosh, she's a Jedi from way back in the day who works with the Vong and shows an interest in Jacen. When he ends up captured, Vergere teaches him a thing or two about the Force in the most questionably ethical way ever. She's actually got some really interesting arguments about the light and dark sides of the Force and I say that as someone who wished to all things good that Jacen and Anakin would just stfu up about that, but I kinda hate her dead.
Gavin Darklighter- Once upon a time he was the youngest Rogue Squadron pilot in history. By the time we catch up with him again in the NJO, he's leading the damn thing. Gavin's very cool both as a youngin and all grown up, which is more than can be said about a lot of characters in these books.
Danni Quee- Danni is a young scientist who is captured by the Vong when the planet her research station is on is taken over. Eventually rescued by Jacen, he figures out she has Force potential, and crushes on her like woah while she helps out the good guys in figuring out the Vong.
Tenel Ka- A princess on her father's homeplanet of Hapes who would much rather follow the warrior traditions of her mother's homeworld, Tenel Ka is a friend of Jacen and Jaina's from their Jedi Academy years. Quiet, strong, humorless and self-sufficient, Tenel Ka lost an arm in a lightsaber accident involving Jacen and refused to have a biomechanical one attached basically because she saw it as weak and also as a reminder that sometimes she can be dumb. I kindof love her. She and Jacen are cute and clueless throughout their teen years, until things go straight to hell and among other spoilery events, Tenel Ka has to take up the crown, ending up as Queen Mother to sixty-something planets.
Zekk- He showed up in the Young Jedi Knights series as a street urchin friend of Jacen and Jaina's who was revealed to have Jedi talents and prompty used his jealousy of the twins to go spinning off to the dark side with the help of the Shadow Academy. He did come back to the light, eventually resuming his Jedi training after a stint as a bounty hunter and going on to fight the good fight.
He and Jaina have been USTing for TWELVE YEARS in canon, btw. Maybe longer, if I don't have my timeline exact. Look, I told you. Headsmashy.
Lowbacca- Chewbacca's newphew, most often called Lowie, he's one of Jacen and Jaina's friends from the Academy. Mechanically inclined, he's really kind of a watered down Chewie to Jaina's Han, to make a comparison. The early books had him walking around with a translator droid named M-TD (Emteedee) so the kids could understand him, but I think the writers forgot about it, because I didn't notice something happened to it that got him listed on Wookieepedia's Battle of Myrkyr page as a death.
Ben Skywalker- I will give you two guesses whose kid this is. Born in the middle of the Vong war, Ben ended up as protected jsut as much as his cousins did, but his mother's kinda scarier than Leia, so it seemed to be needed less often. I admit I haven't read much of Ben myself, at least not at an age where he had a definable personality, but he seems to be a pretty big part of later books.
Chewbacca- Han's longtime friend and often guardian to the Solo kids, Chewie got to go "Raaaawr" for the first half or so of Vector Prime before ending up on Sernpidal, where the Vong changed the planet's gravity, causing a moon to crash into the planet in its orbit. Since they were kind of running out of time, Anakin made the decision to take the refugees they could, leaving them unable to get Chewie, thereby, Death By Moon. Yeah, it's still stupid.
Lando Calrissian- Lando's still around, mostly coming up with insane ideas for business ventures. Usually they fail like a failing thing. And he's still kinda hitting on Leia.
R2-D2 and C-3PO- The droids are still around. However, the writers didn't know how to write them and so they're... somewhere. I have no idea.
IF IT'S THAT WTFY, WTF ARE YOU DOING READING IT?
Okay, keep in mind that I watch bad movies on the Scifi Channel for fun. And writing up snarkful summaries is fun. But really, I started reading simply because it was Star Wars, and even if the characters were veering OOC at parts, I was curious as to what happened to them. There would always be a character I felt like reading, or I was curious as to what happened with this one thing.
While some of the books are just wtfy and you can write them off, some are really good. I highly recommend anything written by Timothy Zahn, Michael A. Stackpole, Aaron Allston and especially Matthew Stover, who wrote one of my favorite books anywhere of all time, Traitor. (Seriously, if you weren't a fan of the Revenge of the Sith movie, go back and read Stover's novelization and then rewatch. I promise it makes more sense.)
And I do love and adore some of these characters. The NJO's actually been better at bringing the three main characters back to themselves, IMO, even if they had to make a few questionable choices to do so (hi, Han). And to be completely honest, and I know I've said this before but it bears repeating, I give the writers a lot of credit for doing some ballsier things. I mean, they kill off Chewbacca. They go darker. There are a few other character deaths that made me flail and one that made me put the book in the freezer (cookies if you know where I got that from), and it's just kind of way too easy for me to get hooked on it.
And now I need to get the newer books before my plane ride home. Dammit.
OKAY, WHERE CAN I GET THEM?
Pretty much anywhere. They're all available at Amazon, and while I've never seen the entire collection in one bookstore at one time, even used ones tend to have a pretty respectable selection. I would encourage people to pick them up. Start with Zahn. Trust me.
Yes but now it's my turn to torture you. See, Star Wars can kind of be broken up into three categories: prequels, original trilogy, and EU (expanded universe). Fry already covered the prequels and original trilogy, and since my girl can't be seen in either of those on account of not being born yet, now you get to learn where the real crack happens.
Seriously, some of these books, I pine for Lucas.
Now, if you're ready for the geekfest, look under the cut and come with me.
OH HOLY GOD HOW MANY BOOKS ARE THERE.
A lot. Like, a lot. Star Wars has comics, video games and several hundred thousand books to flesh out the whole universe, and lord knows I'm never gonna get to read them all.
Bookswise, things are kind of divided into... okay, like seven different categories. Some deal with things like Lando and Han's pasts pre-movies, some deal with the Old Republic in the prequel years, some deal with the New Republic, and then there's the New Jedi Order and the Legacy series. It's a lot. I will try to get you through it as best I can, okay? Just breathe and stay with me.
Also to note? The books published by Bantam (pretty much anything before the NJO) were more or less written out of order. See, there were a few books out around the time that the movies originally came out, around 1977-1983. Then nothing, until Timothy Zahn came out with Heir to the Empire, the first book to deal with Luke, Han and Leia in a post-Empire galaxy. And they spawned off from there. The same year the last Zahn book, The Last Command came out, so did The Truce at Bakura, which takes place immediately following Return of the Jedi. The next year spawned books written 7 years post-ROTJ, 4 years after, and 10 years after. Because somehow that makes sense. So the timeline gets confusing sometimes, most of the time it seemed that the writers were doing a lot of acid while watching old VHS copies of ESB over and over (Kevin J. Anderson, I'm looking at you), and there are two instances (I, Jedi, taking place during Anderson's Jedi Academy trilogy, and Zahn's two books that took place at the end of the Bantam run) where the authors called out or retconned certain things for being stupid (more on that later). And for that I love them dearly.
The New Jedi Order was written in order, though sometimes they'd have four books being written at once, which leads to certain characterization issues and the fact that the twins' ages switch a couple times. The Legacy series is written in order, by I think only four authors who are reportedly in communication with each other, and while I haven't read it yet (though I am spoiled like woah and flailing omg), I imagine this only helped.
SO.... WHAT HAPPENED BEFORE?
To make it easier and not just jump you that far ahead, I did something stupid, and wrote out a basic, I-haven't-read-these-books-in-a-while summary of the EU from ROTJ up until the NJO which can be found here. There are major spoilers in there, though, and I am clearly biased on certain things, so be warned.
CHARACTERS
Oh, Jesus Christ. *starts drinking* Spoilers ahoy.
Luke Skywalker- He's about 44 at the start of the NJO, has had his character massacred several times (turning to the dark side for no good reason, self-appointment to Jedi Master, getting knocked into some sort of coma by a dark side adept taking orders from the spirit of a long dead Sith lord and letting him be a Jedi Knight even after blowing up a planet, Callista, etc.etc. etc.), but he's better now. He's (finally, GOD) married to Mara Jade, has kind of left the Jedi Academy in order to start training people one on one.
At this point he kind of hates that he's more politician than anything just trying to get the Jedi (all hundred or so of them) together. And he's lost a lot of the idiocy he had in the earlier books. Probably because Mara would have killed him. For reals.
Leia Organa Solo- Occasionally in charge of the New Republic, though her position in it seems to vary from book to book to book, Leia spent a lot of time in boring political scenes and blah blah blah I didn't care muchcakes. She also shipped her kids off a lot for political reasons, which kind of made her daughter not like her so much. Given that the New Republic doesn't really last long in the NJO, this problem gets solved. She gets to be all ass-kicky again yay!
Han Solo- Again relegated to kind of tagging along with Leia on boring political stuff, Han kind of got taken advantage of as just being there for a lot of time. Chewie's death kind of takes his toll on him, to the point where he threatens THE COUPLE I HAVE SHIPPED SINCE I WAS 3 and is kind of an ass to his youngest son, and you kind of want to shake him and go "OMG IF I PLAY YOU SOME EVANESCENCE WILL YOU STOP." While he's got probably the wtfiest arc in the series, it gets him back to being Han, so I'll deal with it.
Mara Jade Skywalker- Taken from her family at a very young age, Mara ended up becoming the Emperor's Hand, the one who did all his dirty work and assassinations in a much less public way than Vader. Her last assignment was to kill Luke on Jabba's barge in ROTJ, and not only clearly failed the mission, but had no idea what to do with herself once the Emperor was dead. Meeting Luke again five years later meant she was really really keen to go ahead and kill the guy who ruined her life, but that didn't happen and after ten years, a few hundred books, and many frustrated shipper headdesks later, she married him instead.
Mara's become Jaina's teacher, and by the start of the NJO has been infected by the Yuuzhan Vong with a disease no one knows anything about. She's one of two surviving victims (okay, Mara's kind of a Mary Sue, but she's awesome) and still manages to kick a good amount of ass.
Jacen Solo- Okay, I have a bias against Jacen in that I mostly want to slap him. He's much more of a thinker than a doer, and is the type that is thinking so far ahead into the future that he doesn't realize he needs to act now. So, yeah, he's kind of the exact opposite of the entire rest of his family that way. He's a good kid, though, more sensitive than the others, always wanting to do the right thing. He's also very into thinking about the true nature of the Force and what a Jedi is supposed to be, which sets him up for some really interesting stuff on that later in the series. Even if it makes me throw things.
Jaina Solo- The oldest of the kids, and Jacen's twin, Jaina's the most direct. Also, the one with the most *headsmash*-inducing ships in the whole series just due to the longevity of the UST. She's the pilot of the group, one of the youngest members of Rogue Squadron and she's leading a squadron by the age of eighteen. She ends up taking a lot of the war onto her own shoulders, mostly at the expense of herself. But she does get to become a Goddess (no, not really) and propogranda holovid star in the process, so it's all good, right? Right?
Anakin Solo- The youngest, Anakin's arguably the most powerful of the kids. It's stated a few times that Jacen's the one with some insight into what the Force is and blah blah blah, but it's always seemed at least to me that Anakin has the better idea. He's got a natural aptitude with machines, is an excellent fighter, and sometimes doesn't always think before he does something because it needs to be done now. He means well, and he tries, and he's got a lot of guilt going on, but he plugs on anyway. He's he anti-Jacen in a lot of ways, and I love him to pieces.
Nom Anor- Nom Anor is one of the omg so pretty Yuuzhan Vong, and pretty much the guy in charge. He's the one who did all the research and infected Mara and does all the big dirty work, usually in disguise. As I'm sure you can tell, he's just a ray of sunshine to be around, especially with the need for status elevation and the whole "yay pain torture death" thing. We hates him, precious.
Kyp Durron- So when Kyp was eighteen, he was rescued from the spice mines of Kessel and started training to be a Jedi, except that he totally decided Luke was an idiot (which he was, but not for Kyp's reasons) and started training instead with the spirit of a long-dead Sith lord, put Luke in a coma, went memory-wipey, blew up a planet, and got made a Jedi anyway. Look, I told you Luke was made into a dumbass. And I think poor Luke regrets this. Kyp is headstrong, showy, disagrees with Luke about everything and refuses to consider he might be wrong, and I kind of love him in the NJO. He's an unapologetic asshole and he actually wins a lot of points for his attitude towards Jaina about midway through the series, and I love when the good guys don't have to be good, so we can keep him.
Tahiri Veila- Tahiri is Anakin's bff from the Junior Jedi Knights series, who's all cute and blonde and has a hatred of shoes and would be a great girlfriend for Anakin if the writers didn't hate us all. Also, she's another Tatooine native, because someone needed to take the movies the hell away from Kevin J. Anderson as he really seemed to not realize there were planets that weren't in the OT. Tahiri unfortunately is captured by the Vong, and "shaped" to become a Vong/Jedi hybrid. She kind of didn't deserve that. She continues to work with the Jedi rather than the Vong, but the poor thing probably got the rawest deal out of everyone.
Borsk Fey'lya- You know how in Return of the Jedi, when Mon Mothma's all "Many Bothans died for this information?" Well, Fey'lya is a Bothan and he is just working that angle. He's one of the New Republic politicians who has a mutual hatred of Leia, and essentially half his decisions end up screwing her over. Eventually becoming Chief of State, Fey'lya does seem to try to get the best outcome out of any situation, but it helps a lot if it benefits him. I hate him lots, but he does get a great moment that makes up for a lot.
Corran Horn- Introduced in Michael A. Stackpole's Rogue Squadron series, Corran is a
Wedge Antilles- Legend to fangirls everywhere, Wedge not only was one of two pilots to survive the trench run, but he was also the only pilot to survive both Death Star runs. Co-founder of Rogue Squadron, he's just an awesome guy who's risen through the ranks to get nice and respectable.
Jagged Fel- Poor Jag. Wedge's newphew, raised among the Chiss people, Jag is a very good pilot and written to be the perfect equal for Jaina. Except that Jaina has traits, and a personality, and Jag was not-so-lovingly named "Captain Cardboard" by the fans. He's not a bad guy, people, omg.
Tsavong Lah- I dunno, he looks like a mutated Grateful Dead bear to me. Anyway, he's the warmaster who's a little on the crazy fanatical side, and he's very very hugely anti-Jedi. He's also the one with the obsession to capture the Solo twins, because they have a twin fascination and hey, Jedi, so might as well kill two birds with one stone. Yeah, it doesn't work.
Vegere- I've seen Vergere described more than once as the "Jedi chicken." A Fosh, she's a Jedi from way back in the day who works with the Vong and shows an interest in Jacen. When he ends up captured, Vergere teaches him a thing or two about the Force in the most questionably ethical way ever. She's actually got some really interesting arguments about the light and dark sides of the Force and I say that as someone who wished to all things good that Jacen and Anakin would just stfu up about that, but I kinda hate her dead.
Gavin Darklighter- Once upon a time he was the youngest Rogue Squadron pilot in history. By the time we catch up with him again in the NJO, he's leading the damn thing. Gavin's very cool both as a youngin and all grown up, which is more than can be said about a lot of characters in these books.
Danni Quee- Danni is a young scientist who is captured by the Vong when the planet her research station is on is taken over. Eventually rescued by Jacen, he figures out she has Force potential, and crushes on her like woah while she helps out the good guys in figuring out the Vong.
Tenel Ka- A princess on her father's homeplanet of Hapes who would much rather follow the warrior traditions of her mother's homeworld, Tenel Ka is a friend of Jacen and Jaina's from their Jedi Academy years. Quiet, strong, humorless and self-sufficient, Tenel Ka lost an arm in a lightsaber accident involving Jacen and refused to have a biomechanical one attached basically because she saw it as weak and also as a reminder that sometimes she can be dumb. I kindof love her. She and Jacen are cute and clueless throughout their teen years, until things go straight to hell and among other spoilery events, Tenel Ka has to take up the crown, ending up as Queen Mother to sixty-something planets.
Zekk- He showed up in the Young Jedi Knights series as a street urchin friend of Jacen and Jaina's who was revealed to have Jedi talents and prompty used his jealousy of the twins to go spinning off to the dark side with the help of the Shadow Academy. He did come back to the light, eventually resuming his Jedi training after a stint as a bounty hunter and going on to fight the good fight.
He and Jaina have been USTing for TWELVE YEARS in canon, btw. Maybe longer, if I don't have my timeline exact. Look, I told you. Headsmashy.
Lowbacca- Chewbacca's newphew, most often called Lowie, he's one of Jacen and Jaina's friends from the Academy. Mechanically inclined, he's really kind of a watered down Chewie to Jaina's Han, to make a comparison. The early books had him walking around with a translator droid named M-TD (Emteedee) so the kids could understand him, but I think the writers forgot about it, because I didn't notice something happened to it that got him listed on Wookieepedia's Battle of Myrkyr page as a death.
Ben Skywalker- I will give you two guesses whose kid this is. Born in the middle of the Vong war, Ben ended up as protected jsut as much as his cousins did, but his mother's kinda scarier than Leia, so it seemed to be needed less often. I admit I haven't read much of Ben myself, at least not at an age where he had a definable personality, but he seems to be a pretty big part of later books.
Chewbacca- Han's longtime friend and often guardian to the Solo kids, Chewie got to go "Raaaawr" for the first half or so of Vector Prime before ending up on Sernpidal, where the Vong changed the planet's gravity, causing a moon to crash into the planet in its orbit. Since they were kind of running out of time, Anakin made the decision to take the refugees they could, leaving them unable to get Chewie, thereby, Death By Moon. Yeah, it's still stupid.
Lando Calrissian- Lando's still around, mostly coming up with insane ideas for business ventures. Usually they fail like a failing thing. And he's still kinda hitting on Leia.
R2-D2 and C-3PO- The droids are still around. However, the writers didn't know how to write them and so they're... somewhere. I have no idea.
IF IT'S THAT WTFY, WTF ARE YOU DOING READING IT?
Okay, keep in mind that I watch bad movies on the Scifi Channel for fun. And writing up snarkful summaries is fun. But really, I started reading simply because it was Star Wars, and even if the characters were veering OOC at parts, I was curious as to what happened to them. There would always be a character I felt like reading, or I was curious as to what happened with this one thing.
While some of the books are just wtfy and you can write them off, some are really good. I highly recommend anything written by Timothy Zahn, Michael A. Stackpole, Aaron Allston and especially Matthew Stover, who wrote one of my favorite books anywhere of all time, Traitor. (Seriously, if you weren't a fan of the Revenge of the Sith movie, go back and read Stover's novelization and then rewatch. I promise it makes more sense.)
And I do love and adore some of these characters. The NJO's actually been better at bringing the three main characters back to themselves, IMO, even if they had to make a few questionable choices to do so (hi, Han). And to be completely honest, and I know I've said this before but it bears repeating, I give the writers a lot of credit for doing some ballsier things. I mean, they kill off Chewbacca. They go darker. There are a few other character deaths that made me flail and one that made me put the book in the freezer (cookies if you know where I got that from), and it's just kind of way too easy for me to get hooked on it.
And now I need to get the newer books before my plane ride home. Dammit.
OKAY, WHERE CAN I GET THEM?
Pretty much anywhere. They're all available at Amazon, and while I've never seen the entire collection in one bookstore at one time, even used ones tend to have a pretty respectable selection. I would encourage people to pick them up. Start with Zahn. Trust me.