Star Wars History Literature

[Overtures]

So I’m looking for two types of books -


1: books that establish the Star Wars universe by filling in back story, politics, and explaining what is cannon


2: Non Fiction books about the making of Star Wars and What Lucas was thinking and how he was inspired.


What you got?


Also does it seem like Star Wars is infinitely expandable unlike other stories? I feel like you could just keep going and going with new stories.

 

[hillelslovak87]

The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli.

It'll explain Star Wars merchandising since the late 80s.

 

[WaylonMercy5150]

FYI: When Disney bought that shit they said all the books were no longer cannon.

 

[loyalyolayal]

FYI: When Disney bought that shit they said all the books were no longer cannon.

 

[Magooglie]

Star Wars is now canon fluid. Just choose what you want to believe happened.

 

[KONG-D'SNT-TAP]

Books with good backstory

Darth Plagueis
Dark Rendezvous
Cloak of Deception
Shatterpoint
Labyrinth of Evil

These are all clone wars era novels

 

[WaylonMercy5150]

 

[loyalyolayal]

Books with good backstory

Darth Plagueis
Dark Rendezvous
Cloak of Deception
Shatterpoint
Labyrinth of Evil

These are all clone wars era novels

They couldn't make movies out of these because they wanna get paid for their shitty attempt at Star Wars lore instead of throwing chump change to better writers.

 

[usmctanker242]

It's tough because Disney decided that 30+ years of "world building" was going in the trash, and I have no idea what is / what is not actually cannon anymore. If you want pre-Disney cannon there's no better place to start than this book right here :
Jedi vs Sith : The Essential Guide to the Force.

That book has a ton of history dating back to roughly 20,000 years before the movies. It explains how the Jedi split and how the Sith came to be, and it details almost all of the prominent Jedi and Sith in history. It also goes to about 100 years beyond the movies (by this I mean Episodes 4, 5, and 6), and it does a good job of skimming most of the novels without delving too much into anything. It's a fun read and it has some amazing illustrations as well.

Again, if you want pre-Disney stuff, and are in search of more history this is also a really cool pair of books :
Star Wars®: The Jedi Path and Book of Sith Deluxe Box Set
These two books are awesome! The Book of Sith is a collection of different Sith manuals acquired throughout history and it's pretty cool how it's torn and tattered, and made from different materials like a real book put together this way would be.

If you're looking for Disney stuff I can't really say as I've lost interest with Star Wars since they've gone in such a poor direction.

Edit : To your question about the expandability of Star Wars; yes, it certainly was expanded like all hell covering over 20000 years of events. The last books that I know of before Disney changed everything was roughly 100 years beyond Return of the Jedi. There have also been some amazing villains from force users, aliens who "exist outside the force," to force spirits and demons who are exponentially more powerful than what we see in the movies.

 

[Overtures]

It's tough because Disney decided that 30+ years of "world building" was going in the trash, and I have no idea what is / what is not actually cannon anymore. If you want pre-Disney cannon there's no better place to start than this book right here :
Jedi vs Sith : The Essential Guide to the Force.

That book has a ton of history dating back to roughly 20,000 years before the movies. It explains how the Jedi split and how the Sith came to be, and it details almost all of the prominent Jedi and Sith in history. It also goes to about 100 years beyond the movies (by this I mean Episodes 4, 5, and 6), and it does a good job of skimming most of the novels without delving too much into anything. It's a fun read and it has some amazing illustrations as well.

Again, if you want pre-Disney stuff, and are in search of more history this is also a really cool pair of books :
Star Wars®: The Jedi Path and Book of Sith Deluxe Box Set
These two books are awesome! The Book of Sith is a collection of different Sith manuals acquired throughout history and it's pretty cool how it's torn and tattered, and made from different materials like a real book put together this way would be.

If you're looking for Disney stuff I can't really say as I've lost interest with Star Wars since they've gone in such a poor direction.

Edit : To your question about the expandability of Star Wars; yes, it certainly was expanded like all hell covering over 20000 years of events. The last books that I know of before Disney changed everything was roughly 100 years beyond Return of the Jedi. There have also been some amazing villains from force users, aliens who "exist outside the force," to force spirits and demons who are exponentially more powerful than what we see in the movies.

so anytime someone wrote a Star Wars novel it was accepted as cannon?

 

[toaa]

The Thrawn trilogy is the true sequel trilogy. Disney EU has been absolute trash, just like their films (Rogue One excluded).

 

[loyalyolayal]

so anytime someone wrote a Star Wars novel it was accepted as cannon?

Accepted as canonical are those published after April 2014. Because Disney & because some were not approved by George. I get that but George basically left Star Wars & let writers do the Extended Universe which kept it alive until he decided to print money again in the late 90's. Because god knows his daughter is not gonna be the future Ronda Rousey.

Also, I agree with this:

https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Disney-make-the-Star-Wars-EU-non-Canon

I’ll tell you why. Because the quickest way to make the most money is by having the originals star in the new movies. By catering to the new, casual fans who have only seen the movies and will do anything to get an Episode VII. Disney’s new movies wouldn’t have made as much money if they didn’t have the originals star. So, they decanonize decades of great material, steal stories from it and count all the money they’re getting.

 

[usmctanker242]

so anytime someone wrote a Star Wars novel it was accepted as cannon?

Star Wars is trademarked, so it's not like people were out there just publishing Star Wars books willy nilly without prior consent by LucasFilms or similar. As far as I can tell all the Star Wars books which were published were indeed canon, though there were some terrible books and they often showed Luke to be very weak in the force. Other books (during the same time period) showed Luke to be damned near a god...in The Courtship of Princess Leia, Luke has basically a "moment of clarity" in the force and he effectively becomes a Jedi Master during a large fight. He is so in tune with the force that he is able to fly the Millenium Falcon and basically have dogfights with it using the force, all the while he's in lightsaber combat with Force Witches. A few books later (and a few years later in the timeline) he's unable to pick up a blaster and aim it with the force. So there's some small inconsistent details such as this, but for the most part the Expanded Universe books did a good job of keeping everything cohesive.

 

[Naught2Sixty]

Nerd rage lol. Good one

 

[Myrddin Wild]

Here's a list of all Canon books, (excluding comics) in order of timeline.
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Timeline_of_canon_books

1: books that establish the Star Wars universe by filling in back story, politics, and explaining what is cannon

www.wookieepedia.com is an excellent resource for Back stories & filling in the gaps. Instead of taking in whole books, you can queue up a single topic & just focus on that.

BE SURE YOU ARE IN THE CANON SECTION THOUGH. It's pretty easy to link from one page to another & end up in "Legends" instead of "Canon" Just double check at the top/right of the page whether it says "caonon" or "legends."

For example... if you want more of how the First Order developed between Ep. 6 & 7, just type in "First Order" into Wookieepedia... double check that you're in the Canon section, & everything that's ever been in any book regarding The First Order will be summarized in there... along with the resources that they came from. So if nothing else, you could take in Wookieepedia just to find some book references you might be interested in.

Other big studies might include doing a Wookieepedia on:
The New Republic
Jedi
Sith
etc...

2: Non Fiction books about the making of Star Wars and What Lucas was thinking and how he was inspired.

I don't know any names of Lucas documentary books, (maybe try a wookieepedia search? Even google could help) but I see a bunch of people in this thread rambling on about how all books written prior to the Disney accusation aren't Canon any more... but they're overlooking that it's just books that are about character's in the made up universe. Documentaries about Lucas' real life experiences aren't all of a sudden fiction. lol...

Also does it seem like Star Wars is infinitely expandable unlike other stories? I feel like you could just keep going and going with new stories.

Yes, I agree. It's one of the things I find so wonderful about it.

 

[chickenluver]

If you're on wookiepedia be sure you are in the "legends" section, it's guaranteed to be much more interesting than disney's new "canon"

 

[Overtures]

Here's a list of all Canon books, (excluding comics) in order of timeline.
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Timeline_of_canon_books



www.wookieepedia.com is an excellent resource for Back stories & filling in the gaps. Instead of taking in whole books, you can queue up a single topic & just focus on that.

BE SURE YOU ARE IN THE CANON SECTION THOUGH. It's pretty easy to link from one page to another & end up in "Legends" instead of "Canon" Just double check at the top/right of the page whether it says "caonon" or "legends."

For example... if you want more of how the First Order developed between Ep. 6 & 7, just type in "First Order" into Wookieepedia... double check that you're in the Canon section, & everything that's ever been in any book regarding The First Order will be summarized in there... along with the resources that they came from. So if nothing else, you could take in Wookieepedia just to find some book references you might be interested in.

Other big studies might include doing a Wookieepedia on:
The New Republic
Jedi
Sith
etc...



I don't know any names of Lucas documentary books, (maybe try a wookieepedia search? Even google could help) but I see a bunch of people in this thread rambling on about how all books written prior to the Disney accusation aren't Canon any more... but they're overlooking that it's just books that are about character's in the made up universe. Documentaries about Lucas' real life experiences aren't all of a sudden fiction. lol...


Yes, I agree. It's one of the things I find so wonderful about it.

This is good info. Thank you.


I knew a guy who worked at Lucas Arts and he said that the reason the first three were so good is that George was surrounded by guiding mentors in Spielberg, I think, and others.


Then Star Wars essentially became something he had no obligation to- he was surrounded by yes-men.

 

[The Diplomat]

KOTOR I and II should be canon.

 

[Crawler89]

such a shame they fucked with the EU and done such a huge dirty too it, so much cool shit. Going down wholes on wookiepedia used to inspire such joy and imagination for me.

 

[Overtures]

such a shame they fucked with the EU and done such a huge dirty too it, so much cool shit. Going down wholes on wookiepedia used to inspire such joy and imagination for me.

So exactly what did the wipe out?