Star Wars novels: where should a new reader start?
How people look at me when they find out I’ve read over 30 Star Wars novels:
Hey, we all have our quirks. People have far weirder habits, which will not be discussed in detail here, because this is a family blog.
But why read so many Star Wars books, nerd man?
The simple answer is I like reading, and I like Star Wars. Peanut butter and jelly. Secondly, I have a weird personal dichotomy: I hate clutter, but like collecting stuff. Books provide a balance to this. You can collect them and store them in a pretty orderly fashion. And finally, it’s fun. Fun is still ok, right?
So, where should a new reader start?
Before I make suggestions, you need to understand something about the universe of Star Wars novels.
Disney drew a line of demarcation amongst the Star Wars books when it purchased the franchise in 2012. Prior to Disney’s purchase, well over 100 novels had already been published. The storylines were wild, and sometimes contradictory:
Chewbacca was dead, squished in a collision of planets (seriously).
Luke had a Jedi wife.
Leia was a Jedi Knight.
And on and on it went. Total space chaos.
And while many of those stories were fun, they were a nightmare for Disney, which was preparing to rake in obscene piles of cash with a sequel trilogy. There was no coherent way for Disney to move the Star Wars story forward on-screen in a way that upheld the stories in the books.
So Disney declared all the books that came before its purchase “Legends,” which meant they didn’t count as canon. They became rumors and fairy tales.
All the books published after the Disney purchase count as canon, and Lucasfilm has a story group — “Storytroopers,” if you will — that enforce story continuity and character development. All the books and comics must now support Star Wars films and TV series, and vice versa.
With that distinction made, I have three recommendations for a new reader:
Resistance Reborn, by Rebecca Roanhorse
Resistance Reborn is the newest Star Wars novel. The book acts as the Avengers Endgame of new canon era of Star Wars novels, drawing in characters from numerous earlier books. Not only do we get to see what Leia, Rey, Poe, Finn, and Chewbacca are up to after the the events of the Last Jedi, we also get updates from new characters created in the latest novels, comics, and even video games:
Yes, we’ve got Norra Wexley and her son Snap (Temmin, as he went by before he became Greg Grunberg) to represent the Aftermathbooks, or figures like Bloodline’s Ransolm Casterfo and Lost Stars’ Twi’lek pilot-turned-ambassador Yendor, who become crucial allies to the Resistance’s cause. But Resistance Reborn reaches wider—and in doing so feels like a satisfying love letter to every corner of what’s come so far in this new version of the Star Warsgalaxy.
From Marvel’s comics, there are characters like Karé Kun and Suralinda Javos from Charles Soule, Phil Noto, and Angel Unzueta’s fabulous Poe Dameron comic(the former introduced briefly in the anthology novella Before the Awakening, but fleshed out more completely in Marvel’s work). From EA’s video games, we get Zay Versio, daughter of Iden, and Shriv the Duros from Battlefront II’s story campaign.
The book opens moments after the Resistance escapes at the end of The Last Jedi, as the decimated force regroups and calls on old allies to rally for what is to come in The Rise of Skywalker.
A reader new to Star Wars novels not only gets an entertaining book featuring familiar characters, but also an introduction to characters created in the new “Disney cannon” era of Star Wars books. Double win. Start here.
Lost Stars, by Claudia Gray
Lost Stars sits in the “young adult” sub-genre of Star Wars fiction. And it’s a romance-adventure -- a rarity among Star Wars books.
So this YA romance novel is among the best in the Star Wars genre?
Absolutely.
Lost Stars follows the life stories of Ciena Ree and Thane Kyrell, from childhood up through their military careers as ace pilots--except one flies for the Empire, and the other for the Rebellion.
And that Star Destroyer you see crashing? It’s the same one shown to us in the opening of the epic The Force Awakens trailer--the one crashed on Jakuu, where Rey later explores and finds metal to trade for rations. It’s a cool tie-in.
Lost Stars covers a lot of ground, from the time of A New Hope up past Return of the Jedi, and while the main characters change and grow, their affection for one another remains steady, no matter how they fight it, and each other.
Kenobi, by John Jackson Miller
Finally, a recommendation from the Legends Era of Star Wars novels. John Jackson Miller’s Kenobi was publsihed in 2013.
And even though this book isn’t canon, we will no doubt see some of its themes in the upcoming Kenobi TV series on Disney+.
Miller writes an old-west-style tale of Obi Wan Kenobi living in the desert of Tatooine after the fall of the Republic. Kenobi tries to live a quiet life in the shadows to watch over young Luke Skywalker from a distance.
Of course, Obi Wan being Obi Wan, he gets involved with all kinds of shady characters and dangerous creatures and does lots of wild Jedi things.
So there you have it. If you’re new to the Star Wars novel universe, then try starting here and see if you get hooked. Who knows—someday you may have read 30 Star Wars novels, too. And you can get weird looks, just like me.