Star Wars is one of the busiest franchises in pop culture, with several Disney+ shows a year being released, as well as multiple novels, comic books, and video games. However, there was a time when Star Wars media was barely a trickle; in the 1990s, the days of the Expanded Universe, now known as Star Wars Legends. Legends told the continuing stories of Luke, Han, Leia, and the other heroes of the Original Trilogy across media. The novels were the primary movers of Star Wars: they kept the story alive, with many of them published in trilogies just like the movies. After the Prequel Trilogy began, even more novels were published, telling tales from all over the Star Wars timeline.
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Star Wars Legends created characters and stories that enthralled the fanbase for years. While Legends has been replaced in the canon, Disney and Lucasfilm continue to print those old novels, giving a whole new generation of fans the chance to read them. These five series of Star Wars Legends novels are the best of the bunch, and modern fans should definitely check them out.
The Thrawn Trilogy
If it wasn’t for the Thrawn Trilogy — Star Wars: Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, and The Last Command by author Timothy Zahn — the world of Star Wars might not look like it does today. 1991 was a very different time in pop culture; Star Wars and geek culture weren’t mainstream, and Star Wars had ostensibly been a dead franchise for five years, after the Kenner toy line and cartoons like Ewoks and Droids were taken off the air. Zahn’s novels captured the imaginations of fans new and old, taking place five years after Return of the Jedi and introducing an all-new Imperial threat — Grand Admiral Thrawn.
The Thrawn Trilogy is considered the crème de la crème of Star Wars novels. Beyond Thrawn, it introduced multiple great new characters to the franchise — Mara Jade, Gilad Pellaeon, Borsk Fey’lya — that would play a huge role in the future. The novels were able to capture the feel of the Original Trilogy on the printed page, dropping readers into pulse-pounding battles as Thrawn’s tactical genius left everyone flat footed. Thrawn joined canon in Star Wars: Rebels — and Ahsoka is focusing on Thrawn’s return to the galaxy far, far away — so this trilogy is perfect for fans who want to see where the story might go next. It’s also just an amazing read, which is the best reason to check it out.
The X-Wing Series
Star Wars is full of cool ships, giving fans amazing space battles. In the mid ’90s, the X-Wing became a focus of several pieces of Star Wars media, including a series of novels. Star Wars: X-Wing became a ten-book series, including the likes of Wedge’s Gamble by Michael Stackpole, and Solo Command by Aaron Allston, following the adventures of Rogue and Wraith Squadrons during the war against the Empire and beyond.
These books do an amazing job of capturing the white-knuckle excitement of starfighter combat, but that’s not their main charm, where they really shine are the characters. The books star Original Trilogy character Wedge Antilles, Hobby Klivian from Star Wars: Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, and several starfighter pilots who got names later like Wes Janson and Tycho Celchu – plus plenty of new characters. The series is able to capture the lives of men and women at war, the triumph and the tragedy, all while giving readers some great humor. They’re unlike anything in the modern canon in the best possible way.
The Darth Bane Trilogy
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Star Wars Legends fleshed out the past in major ways, reaching thousands of years into the past and giving the origins of the Jedi and Sith. One novel trilogy, written by Drew Karpshyn, writer of the blockbuster video game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, starred the originator of the Sith Rule of Two: Darth Bane, the progenitor of the line of Sith who would one day have their revenge against the Jedi. The Darth Bane Trilogy takes place a thousand years before the Battle of Yavin, when a young man named Dessel joins the Sith forces in their war against the Republic, eventually discovering his Force sensitivity and becoming a member of the Sith Brotherhood. Taking the name Bane, he realizes the weakness of the Sith, and decides to destroy them and the Jedi, birthing the Rule of Two.
These three books are perfectly made for Star Wars fans who want to take a walk on the dark side. Bane is a compelling character, one who draws readers into his world step-by-step, almost like they’re falling to the dark side themselves. The trilogy has some of the coolest Jedi and Sith battles of all time, and shines a light on the most important era of the Sith. Canon hasn’t touched events from this far back yet, so this story will give fans an idea of what the Old Republic was like millennia before its fall.
The New Jedi Order
The New Jedi Order is a nineteen book series that begins 25 years after Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope. The war with the Empire is over, Luke has rebuilt the Jedi, and the New Republic is thriving. However, a secret rot has been growing all over the galaxy, slowly eroding the powers of the galaxy in preparation for invasion. The Yuuzhan Vong – alien refugees from another universe who have infiltrated the galaxy far, far away – soon attack, testing the Jedi and their friends in the New Republic military like never before, during a war that lasts five years.
In 1999, Star Wars novels followed a certain formula — Imperial/darksider finds a superweapon of some kind and attacks the New Republic; the heroes of the original trilogy stop them; no one dies, and nothing really changes. The New Jedi Order threw that formula out the window. Right off the bat, the series killed off Chewbacca, showing that no one was safe. The New Jedi Order shook up the fandom, bringing an excitement that Star Wars hadn’t had in ages. While not every novel is the best, these nineteen books showcase some peak Star Wars storytelling. Some fans never got to spend as much time with the heroes of the Original Trilogy as they wanted, and this was their finest hour.
Legacy of the Force
Legacy of the Force took place ten years after the end of the Yuuzhan Vong War. The story’s main thrust sees a civil war exacerbated by the actions of Lumiya, a Sith apprentice of Darth Vader, all so she can convince Jacen Solo (Vader’s grandson, Luke Skywalker’s former apprentice, and the child of Han and Leia Solo) to turn to the dark side. She succeeds, with Jacen becoming a Sith and deciding that only he can save the galaxy. The nine book series does something that the Sequel Trilogy failed at: properly paving the road to the dark side for a major character.
While not every Legends fan loves Legacy of the Force, it’s still worth it for fans who want to see a character like Kylo Ren who actually gets fully fleshed out. It’s chock-full of the good stuff that makes Star Wars novels so much fun — epic space battles, lightsaber combat of the highest order, political intrigue, and gripping character moments.
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Image courtesy of Peacock
