From the Bookshelf of The Expanded Universe…

Star Wars: The Essential Reader's Companion

Pablo Hidalgo,

Chris Trevas (Illustrator)

Start date: October 2, 2012

Finish date: November 12, 2012

Discussion: Books, Authors, and Series

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Books, Authors, and Series

What should I read next?
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What Members Thought

Jul 29, 2016 Michael Towers rated it really liked it

If I was rating this book personally, I'd give it 5 but objectively, as a rating used for recommendation, it's a four.

So firstly I'll start with why I'm giving it a four. Then I'll write why, for me, it's a 5. This book is a great resource, absolutely filled with information, the majority of it accurate. It lists full summaries of every single young adult and adult Star Wars novel in Chronological order and is very thorough. Many have criticized this book saying all this information can be found If I was rating this book personally, I'd give it 5 but objectively, as a rating used for recommendation, it's a four.

So firstly I'll start with why I'm giving it a four. Then I'll write why, for me, it's a 5. This book is a great resource, absolutely filled with information, the majority of it accurate. It lists full summaries of every single young adult and adult Star Wars novel in Chronological order and is very thorough. Many have criticized this book saying all this information can be found on Wookieepedia... And yet, it cannot. I can't tell you how many times I have been frustrated by not being able to find FULL story summaries for certain books but even Wookieepedia doesn't provide the detail or the fullness of summaries that this does. However, as some have said, it is summaries only and therefore isn't a very interesting or exciting read for anyone who knows their stuff.

Now for me, this was exactly what I wanted because let's face it, while I there are gems in the EU, there is a LOT of rubbish too. Unfortunately, to read some of the good ones, you need to know what happened in the bad ones. Here's what I mean:

The first EU books I read were the Thrawn Trilogy and after finishing, I really wanted to read his follow-ups The Hand of Thrawn duology. But there were so many books around and between. And Hand of Thrawn references the XWing Rogue Squadron, Jedi Academy Trilogy, Callista Books and Dark Empire comic series HEAVILY. But oh boy, those books are HORRIBLE. Rogue Squadron is trash, Jedi Academy I could only do 1.5 of the three books before I threw them out, the Dark Empire comics I didn't read and the Callista Books have such low ratings I didn't even bother. So when I read Timothy Zahns Hand of Thrawn books, many major plot elements left me feeling a little lost. I still loved them and it was easy enough to figure it out having read Rogue Squadron 1 and some of the Jedi Academy Trilogy. But I still felt I was missing out on a lot of important back-story.

That's where this book comes in. With this, you can read Thrawn Trilogy, read one page summaries of all the nonsense between, then pick up Hand of Thrawn and understand what's going on without the pain of reading all of it. This can be used really for any period in the EU to be able to read from anywhere you want and still be able to fill in the gaps.

This book is a must for someone who wants to read all the better books or simply the books that appeal to them, while still having knowledge of what happened in the rubbish ones that they may not have an interest in reading.

Word of advice though, these summaries are FULL, so if you don't want to know the endings to certain books, don't read the summaries in here. ...more

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Oct 08, 2012 Jim rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2012, 2012-adult

This was a very good book. It provides a summary of all Star wars adult books, young adult books, junior novels, and short stories that appeared in Star Wars Gamer/Insider and buts them into the proper chronology. It departs from the official chronology in the front of the novels slightly as it accounts for the fact that Anakin Skywalker is made a Jedi Knight shortly into the clone wars (per the cartoon), thus books/stories in the clone war era that have Anakin as a padawan must take place durin ...more

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Dec 30, 2016 Trae Stratton rated it it was amazing

Shelves: star-wars

Authoritative summaries of Star Wars Universe stories printed up until 2012 by Master SW Archivist Pablo Hidalgo. If you're looking for somewhere to jump in this is a great tome to peruse to find an arc that interests you.

I've been flipping through this for years since I received it as a Christmas Gift. It's been a pleasant refresher for me. Unfortunately, as the Expanded Universe I grew up with has been wiped away by the sale of Lucasfilm to Disney, new fans may ignore these great tales because ...more

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