So, I just read on "The Force Net" that it has been 10 years since Vector Prime was released - one year after Harry Potter The Sorcerer's Stone was released in the United States - two years after my daughter was born -nineteen years after I was married.

My career placed books, movies, and TV shows as a recreational luxury (X-Files was the only TV show that I refused to miss; there was the occasional StarGate and Buffy the Vampire shows that I occasionally sneaked in).

I was able to read a couple of the Jedi Academy books and of course the well known "Thrawn Trilogy", "Courtship of Princess Leia", and "The Truce of Bakura". Free time was spent with family and studying. After the release of movie Phantom Menace in 1999, I decided I would try to read more Star Wars books, and I bought Star by Star in hardback. However, I did not read it until Jan 2006. Harry Potter trumped EU.

I read Vector Prime, after reading Star by Star. My first attendance at a Star Wars Book Club meeting was to discuss Troy Denning's book. It seemed strange to read it in the middle of the NJO, but it worked for me. When I went back to read Vector Prime I was still shocked with Chewie's death. I guess I was deep in denial.

In retrospect, the death of Chewbacca helped make the world of Star Wars more "real". It was the similar change that one friend pointed out that with Aaron Allston's books in the Rogue Squadron series; no one "important" in Star Wars died before Aaron Allston. Vector Prime showed us that "Heroes Die". It is the same in real life: heroes die everyday. New Jedi Order moved Star Wars from a children's story to an adult's story for me.

The Expanded Universe today allows me to look at real life issues in a different world and different perspective. I guess that is why I love these books. Thank you, Salvatore, for writing this book.