High Republic books 1 and 2 are out. I believe the first young adult novel(?) is also out, and the High Republic comic books are on book 2 currently. Wanted a thread where the readers could discuss safely from the regular thread. Artoo Truman I don't know who else actively reads the books
Just finished Into the Dark this morning. I'll add my thoughts about Light of the Jedi too, although not as fresh as when I first read it, obviously. Spoiler: Light of the Jedi My first thought is Marchion Ro is an awesome bad guy. Coming of as a meek and frail dude the entire time then becoming a badass is cool. Lodon is also a badass. Bell too. Lots of cool jedi, but w so many new names, it was hard to keep track for a while. Wish there was a Dramatius Personae. The action was dope. I liked how they killed off people. No one is safe! I wonder if the Nihill have any connection to the Skywalkers in Thrawn w their ability to plot hyperspace routes Spoiler: Into the Dark This wasnt as action packed as the first book but the themes around the dark side were awesome. Cohmac is a lot like Qui Gon. All those themes about the Jedi's dogmatic rigidity I wanted to explore w Qui Gon - looks like we're gonna get it w Cohmac. Reath came off as a little annoying pussy, but he showed out when it counts. That's good writing. I hope Im sure that Orla is going to pop up again, but it stinks she might just be an ancillary character moving forward. Also hope it's not the last we see of Affie and Leox. Geode was wierd and I didnt like it/him. Minor criticism. Sucks we have to wait until june for the next one
Spoiler Wasn’t expecting so much Jedi death after they seemingly made a point to introduce so many, but I kinda dig it. Really hope Loden can survive, and I suspect he will. Marchion Ro’s development was awesome, and frankly I didn’t expect it so soon, but it has me ready to dive into book 2. I hope that the Elphoria scene gets made into film, the steelee chase could be an awesome scene.
Thrawn Ascendancy : Greater Good Suffered from being the middle part of a trilogy. Lots of table setting. Id probably wait until the 3rd book is out later this year to read them all. Theres a lot of characters and subtle stuff from the first book that I forgot about and had to go look up. However, it was still really good. Sets up a lot of cool themes and I think connects to the skywalker story that we know. Plot spoilers Spoiler - I like the political infighting between the families. Very GOT vibes, but not in a blatant rip off kind of way - Is Jixtus Snoke, or a Palpatine clone creation like snoke? In the memories section where he wouldnt loan out his pathfinders to Haplif - they mentioned they had purple robes and goggles. Like those dudes in Snokes throne room in TLJ. He also seems really interested in how the Chiss navigate lightspeed, like he knows it takes the force for them to do w the skywalkers. This is probably a long shot but Im throwing it out there. There's also a planet whose name I cant remember specifical but it sounds like Exidal. - No one like Thrawn. Even the Mith are out to get him. I wonder if this is what leads him to hatch the plan to get discovered by the empire. He's causing too much trouble for the Chiss and falls on the sword in a sort of way Random thoughts on the Force - Seems like it operates in a lot of mysterious ways out in The Chaos. The Magys - They talk like they become one w the force after death to repair the planet they lived on. Haplif and he species have some kind of mind control force powers. The last book Thrawn runs into anakin and sees him use the force to move things. The way he reversed engineered/ explained to Che'ri how to do that was pretty cool. Also wonder if Che'ri s that mysterious older skywalker who still has her powers even though she's too old that was mentioned in the first new canon trilogy. Also - Book thrawn is much different than Rebels Thrawn. Book Thrawn cares about innocent life and doesnt kill them whenever possible. Rebels thrawn is cut throat and DGAF. What changes?
There are 3 Thrawn trilogies. The original that was written in the 90s. They’re Legends material now and don’t ‘exist’ in the new canon. They’re really good though and still recommend reading them m The new canon trilogy that came out a few years ago. And now they Thrawn Ascendancy trilogy is the current one. First 2 books are out and is a prequel of the new canon trilogy. Hope that helps.
The High Republic : The Rising Storm. Im 15 chapters in, which isnt a whole lot, but Im having a little trouble getting into this one. I think mostly because Ive been pretty busy this week and havent too much going on in my brain Spoiler Seems like they're setting up Elzar Mann to fall to the dark side the same way Anakin did because he was too thirsty. Marchian Ro is still a great bad guy. Everything else is just set up so far.
Finished. The book started slow but second half was so good. This is a lot like ASOIAF where there's so many new names and locations, it's hard to keep up and makes the book drag at times, until you know who is who, and where is where. Spoiler Damn at Greatstorn finally escaping just to die. This had a very ESB feel to it.
Truman I’m wanting to try and start committing to SW literature. I know there’s an absolute fuck ton with all the legends stuff out there as well. Do you know of a recommendation list/timeline of best books to read? Or do you think it’s best to just commit to the new stuff coming out with high republic?
Oh man. There’s so much. It really depends on what you’re interested in. The High Republic has been pretty awesome. But also so much. There’s 3 phases and within each phase is 3 waves. The first two phases have been completed. The first book in the 3rd phase comes out next week. They put out a ton of shit. There’s adult novels, young adult , junior readers, comics ect. I’ve read all the books. Gave up trying to keep up w the comics. You can get buy doing just the adult and young adult novels. There’s one for each wave. So 12 books so far in the first 2 waves. Totally not complicated at all lol. Hope all that made sense. As far as regular canon stuff - also a lot. Just depends what you’re interested in. There’s two thrawn trilogies. Some really good general stand alone novels (pretty much anything by Claudia Grey. There’s some cool tie-in novels w movies they did for Rogue one and Solo. I dont know if a curated list. But wookiepedia Has a chronological list of canon books. Legends too fwiw. Lost Stars by Claudia Grey is a really good book and what I always recommend for jumping into the new canon.
Thought on it more after posting, and think it makes more sense to try and push through the new stuff to start and if/when I catch up, then move back into “old” canon. I already read Light of the Jedi, and have some of the other new releases that I just haven’t got into yet, so think it makes sense.
There’s also a lot of books in the early new canon that are kind of pointless now. The aftermath trilogy was really cool. And set up a lot of interesting shit that tied in to the sequel trilogy. But the sequel trilogy was such a mess none of those themes or threads got pulled on. I think on it some more over the weekend. Also when I get back to Chicago, I can send you pretty much all the books if you want/have an e-reader