SO.... you love the movies, and are waiting with baited breath for the opening credits of Episode III, but alas there's something missing. There is an emptyness in your heart that's screaming "NOOOOOOO, this can't be the last of Star Wars!!!!". As a smart Star Wars fan we all are, we discover that there are at least 70 sum novels that have been written that have blown the Star Wars universe to epic proportions, with Comics rewinding it even further. For some of us, the huge wall of Star Wars in the local bookstore can overwhelm the best of us. Some are single book novelizations like Splinter in A Minds Eye, others are epic 21 Novel Super Stories like the New Jedi Order Series. Where do you begin......

Whenever I give my buddies at work advice on where to start to get into reading Star Wars, I always point them to the novelizations of the original trilogy. When one reads A New Hope (or The Adventures of Luke Skywalker if you can find the first print), Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi, the person invariably comes to me and says things like "Yoda wasn't blue in the movies", or "I can't believe what Obi-wan tells Luke in the swamp in Dagobah in ROTJ.". I think that it's a perfect way to introudce the Expanded Universe to a person by changing the way they percieve the movies. So where do we go from here.....

The next set that I'll mention is the unquestionable excellence that is.... The Thrawn Trilogy, by Timothy Zahn. Most of the time that's all I'll say, just "Here, borrow these three books, but give them BACK!" With Clones, Jorus C'both, Grand Admiral Thrawn, and not to forget Mara Jade (the future Mrs. Skywalker) these books just smack you in the face with the hugeness of the EU. This is where people usually get hooked and quit asking for books... and leave me asking for my Thrawn Trilogy back.

For now I'll just leave you with those two recomendations if you haven't started reading in the Star Wars universe and want to give it a shot. The thing is with the books, you'll never be left with the sudden emptiness of the last movie, with the want of where to go now, because as long as creative people exist in the world to expand on the Star Wars universe, that Galaxy Far, Far away will never die...

Oh yeah before I forget, there's one short story on TheForce.net that I feel is a must read for Star Wars fans everywhere. It's called the Sands of Time and can be found by clicking the link below.
The Sands of TIme.

That's all for now...