Lucas Blogs About Books

wow. much professional. very photo-editing. My feverish pursuit of MOAR content brought forth this feature: Simplified Series. Here's the pitch: quick synopses (I'll try and keep them spoiler-free, but, you know, most of these are past the statute of limitations on spoilers) of the entries in a series followed by the reasons you should or shouldn't read it. This week: The X-Wing Ennealogy by Michael A. Stackpole and Aaron Allston Background info: All right, so I'm definitely not doing individual entries for each of the books in the series. Because, you know, I'm not a masochist. Also, it's been awhile since I read them, so I mostly just remember the series' broad strokes. But what I will do is lump them together into the smaller series they form. So let's just establish what you'll need to know before picking up book one. So, it's been about two and a half years since Return of the Jedi . Following the death of Emperor Palpatine, the...

Not pictured: the dozens of mediocre intermediary Star Wars EU books. My feverish pursuit of MOAR content brought forth this feature: Simplified Series. Here's the pitch: quick synopses (I'll try and keep them spoiler-free, but you know, most of these are past the statute of limitations on spoilers) of the entries in a series followed by the reasons you should or shouldn't read it. This week: The Thrawn trilogy and the Hand of Thrawn duology by Timothy Zahn Background info: So before Disney bought Lucasfilm for $4.5 billion, Star Wars had a sprawling expanded universe of tie-in novels and comic books that were all (sort of) in continuity with each other and the films. Timothy Zahn opened and closed what I'll call the 90s phase of the Star Wars EU. His bestselling Thrawn trilogy introduced fan favorites like Grand Admiral Thrawn, Captain Pallaeon, and, of course, Mara Jade. Plus such fan-tolerated additions as vornskrs, ysalamiri, Joruus C'Baoth, and, of...

All right, Hypothetical Reader, you may have noticed that I still haven't figured out what to put on here between the weekly review/article. Here's one idea, I could take what might otherwise be a listicle and turn it into a series of shorter blog posts? Clever way to spread out content? Or cheap shortcut? You decide. Books can affect you in any number of ways. Sometimes they  introduce you to new ideas and make your world bigger. Sometimes they speak to something deep inside you and make you feel like someone else understands. Sometimes they just wrench your guts out and send a cascade of hot tears down your face and make you wish you hadn't started reading that chapter on the bus. We'll start with perhaps the most embarrassing one: Star Wars: X-Wing 6 - Iron Fist  by Aaron Allston HERE THERE BE SPOILERS! When'd I read it?: I want to say maybe summer or spring break in 9th or 10th grade. What's it about?: Sixth in the X-Wing ennealogy (second in the...