Star Wars EU and the 90's

I never had a computer in the 90's that could run things like the Jedi Knight series so I'm loving those games now that they are out on GOG.com (man I love GOG.com)

I've also been looking into other EU books for the first time in advance of the December movie release, like the Thrawn Trilogy and the Dark Horse comics.

What's your favorite EU product? Did you enjoy it back in the 90's and 2000's or have you recently been looking back like I have?

I really liked the Thrawn trilogy, and I read it in the 90's.
A couple other things I liked were "Tales From Mos Eisley" and the Rogue Squadron series. The Tales were okay, some were little better than fan fiction, but the RS books were solid.

Sweet, is the Rogue Squadron series by a single author and in order? I mean, should I just start with the first one? Also have you checked out the comic version of the Thrawn trilogy?

Rogue Squadron is definitely a series, if I recall, you should go in order. I think it is by Stackpole (sp?), but I could be mistaken.

Well, see, here is the thing, I have been pretty darn poor most of my life, and comics were prohibitively expensive for me.

Stackpole did the Rogue Squadron books proper, but there's a parallel series of books starting with "Wraith Squadron" about...well...Wraith Squadron that, in my opinion, are even better than RS (and I LOVE RS!). You would almost certainly want to start with Rogue since Wraith nestles nicely in the continuity of Rogue, but definitely check out those books, too. Also, "I, Jedi" follows Corran Horn (RS protagonist) through the events of the "Jedi Academy Trilogy", not as good as "Thrawn", but still good and important to the EU.
1.Rogue Squadron by Michael A. Stackpole (1996)
2.Wedge's Gamble by Michael A. Stackpole (1996)
3.The Krytos Trap by Michael A. Stackpole (1996)
4.The Bacta War by Michael A. Stackpole (1997)
5.Wraith Squadron by Aaron Allston (1998)
6.Iron Fist by Aaron Allston (1998)
7.Solo Command by Aaron Allston (1999)
8.Isard's Revenge by Michael A. Stackpole (1999)
9.Starfighters of Adumar by Aaron Allston (1999)
10.Mercy Kill by Aaron Allston (2012)

Anyone here have any thoughts on the Yuuzhan Vong War? It seems to be a polarizing event.

"Well, see, here is the thing, I have been pretty darn poor most of my life, and comics were prohibitively expensive for me."

I actually got my hands on it at the local public library, so totally free

Well you guys have convinced me to check out Rogue Squadron next so there we go, was thinking about Jedi Academy series because Jedi fascinate me, and always wanted to know how the NJO came to be. But coming in a close second to coolest Star Wars concept is the X Wing.

As far as the Yuuzhan Vong, I did actually read Vector Prime and I do feel like Star Wars stopped being Star Wars, but the content itself was ok.

The 90s was a good time to be both a Star Wars fan and a member of the Sci-Fi Book Club. And I was both.

They released everything through the book club in really nice hardcovers, starting with the first book of the Thrawn Trilogy. I bought everything they put out right up until 1999 when they transitioned to "The New Jedi Order" and "The Old Republic" books after Phantom Menace came out.

A ton of those books were only ever released as paperbacks, but the book club collected them into hardcover volumes. So sweet.... I do wish they had gotten the rights to do the same to the X-Wing series. They even collected the entire Young Jedi Knights series into three hardcovers. That series was "meant for teens" but written at an adult level by Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta.

Some of the books they published during that time were real stinkers (I'm talking to you, "Courtship of Princess Leia") but most of it was really excellent work by top-flight authors like Zahn, Anderson, and Hambly.

Don't forget that they tied the novel continuity into the Dark Horse comics of the time. Dark Horse not only did a number of original series but they also adapted several of the novels. Rogue Squadron got its own title unrelated to the novels that ran for 36-and-a-half issues. I just didn't have the money to get them all.....

That was a really great perspective Winston, thanks for that. It also encourages me to read the Young Jedi Knight series, I had wondered if it was worth looking into since it was YA. Also thanks for the heads up about "The Courtship of Princess Leia" that was going to be close to one of the next ones I check out after "Shadows" :-)

I'm glad you got to enjoy the EU through the 90's. Did you ever play the games published in the 90's?

If you didn't like "Courtship" (I tolerated it, but I can't blame anyone for hating it), I suggest you truly avoid:
The Crystal Star
The Corellian Trilogy (Ambush at Corellia, Assault at Selonia, and Showdown at Centerpoint)
The Black Fleet Crisis (Before the Storm, Shield of Lies, and Tyrant's Test)

I was a bit put off with "Vector Prime" at first, and it did change a lot of the feel for the books, but I eventually came to really enjoy the Yuuzhan Vong series. Meaningful characters actually died and changed. It's kind of the "Deep Space Nine" of the EU...darker, but with much more change and growth as well.

After that era, though, came the repetitive series of "New threat-->Jedi opposed-->Government dissolves-->Do shady things-->Form new coalition government to wait for the next new threat" Granted that's the general gist of the Yuuzhan Vong war, but then they just kept doing that, while ruining several good characters or killing them off, not for thought-out drama, but for cheap exploitation (Darth Caedus, anyone?).

Once they announced that they were stopping with the original EU canon, I got rid of all my post-Vong War books (except for Mercy Kill, which is a Wraith Squadron story that, quite wrenchingly, follows up on the Vong War). I don't even know what happened under Daala's rule, and I long ago gave up on caring. No Stormtrooper zombies for me, thank you.