Jonathan Koan Read Entire Star Wars EU | Carbines & Cantrips Book Club

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:14]Heat.

[00:00:15]Heat.

[00:00:30]Yes, we still have Jonathan. Every We've had a lot of issues when next we go live people like their cameras cut out or whatever. So, hopefully we lose the name card. That's great.

[00:00:42]>> Say it with me, Tyler. Say it with me.

[00:00:44]Professional.

[00:00:49]>> Alrighty, everybody. Welcome back to another Carbines and Canrips Book Club.

[00:00:53]Uh we have a pretty sweet uh momentous occasion tonight. We have the Emperor of the EU, Jonathan Con, who has conquered the entire EU galaxy. I believe it's 157 books in the in the adult line, not the not the youth books. Um >> so that's pretty rad. Uh we were chatting just before we went live and Ben asked a pretty cool question. Um that I don't know, we should just bring it back up again because it was a cool cool topic.

[00:01:20]Yeah. So I was asking so I was asking where the EU started because there were I I was thinking about expanded universe as the famous Timothy Zhan um trilogy which started which I think is I think the Timothy Zhan Star Wars trilogy might be the one series that people have read like I mean I talked to people who have not read a single Star Wars book or a single sci-fi book >> and they've read the and they've read the air to empire like set >> there Uh there's certainly um the most bestselling um although it's not like it's it's in the millions. I don't know exactly how many. The the general rule of thumb is mediatalian fiction at its best gets about 1% of the total audience. So uh if Star Wars sells 100 million tickets uh back in 77 then the highest would be about a million copies sold. But I think it was around 3 to5 total 3 to 5 million. So that's it's selling well and those came out ' 91 92 93 and that's what kickstarted everything. Uh they had technically some books before you had um uh seven originals and then you had the three novelizations. the seven originals being the Han Solo trilogy uh by uh Brian Daly, the uh Lando Carisian trilogy. Uh and then you had the Splinter the Mind's Eye. And so you had seven originals and three novelizations before, but they weren't an interconnected universe. They were just books that have been contracted before.

[00:02:59]Uh the I believe the editor was Lou Aronica at uh at Banttom who said, "I in around like ' 89 or 90 said,"I want to do Star Wars." And they said, "You're crazy." And he said, "I think it'll sell well." And um uh he said, "I think it'll sell really well." And they said, "Well, that's big risk." And he said, "Well, I want to do it in hardcover, and if you don't do it, I'll quit." And uh they chose one of their new authors who they had at the time, not yet tested. That was Zan. And uh he came in and it was very successful.

[00:03:35]Yeah, I'm excited to read that because I haven't read any Zan books yet.

[00:03:38]>> Oh man, you're >> they are they are the pinnacle I would say of of the EU.

[00:03:43]>> So, it's a good starting point.

[00:03:46]>> They are really good. Yeah, I remember I I think I read all the pre the the earlier ones too, which I loved. I actually loved the the Han Solo trilogy and the Lando Carissian trilogy, but they were weird. They were not >> very weird before everything got established. And of course, Sponge of the Mind's Eye, everybody's famously know because it has a lot of romance scenes between Luke and Leia, >> the twins, >> because there was no cannon yet about >> what they were.

[00:04:10]>> And it was also written to be a lowbudget sequel if they decided to actually um if they if they couldn't get the funding for a a higher budget sequel. And uh it reads that way because it's very self-contained.

[00:04:25]>> Yes. But it let's it's the only time that Darth Vader uh learn we learned there's a force power called the H hadukan I believe where he has balls of force energy and there's it's it's weird. It's an interesting artifact.

[00:04:39]>> There's a reason we don't do we don't recommend starting with those books. We say Z is a pretty pretty standard easy easy starting point.

[00:04:47]>> Okay, good. Yeah. I don't. Yeah, I like I say, I started with before the movie started, I started with um Dawn of the Jedi, and it it I don't know. It was it was forgettable. Wasn't like the worst book I've ever read, but it wasn't great.

[00:05:00]>> Yeah, the Dawn of the Jedi like I understand the the impulse to start with the timeline order, but um for one is that one's so separated and it just doesn't mesh well and they were trying to write something totally new while at the same time make it seem kind of like Star Wars.

[00:05:17]>> Yeah. And so, but but also if you go through timeline order, you'll miss a lot of the nuances of what happened in release order because there's a lot of stuff where they're setting stuff up and the later stuff released before the earlier stuff. And so that's why it's you have to curate overall. There's certain things you can read whatever order you want. A lot of standalone scan, but some of the stuff it's like, yeah, you should look at what year they came out.

[00:05:44]>> Yeah. Um Okay, cool. So, we usually do like a roundroin question. Um, I figured for this stream we probably do who is your favorite Star Wars character and you probably have a whole bunch of characters I haven't even heard of because you've read so many books.

[00:05:57]>> All right. So, um I'm going to give two if that's okay because my my true answer is like everybody says this and so it's just it's it's just cliche but it's Grand Admiral Thrawn. Um, he is so great in not only the original Thrawn trilogy, but they've brought him into the cannon and Zan's written six books with him there and he's great there, too. Uh, but just he's such a layered character, a great villain. He's not just villainous.

[00:06:24]He's a he is a villain who you also respect and you're kind of like, I wonder if he he might be a good he might be a good guy. Um, so he's great. Uh, but since everybody else picks him, I'm gonna say a left field answer. And that's going to be the character Annalene Caldwell. She is in one book and is my favorite Star Wars book, which I will probably spoil someone else's question, which is Kenobi by John Jackson Miller. Um, she is uh the woman who runs the cantina in this book, and she is most excellent.

[00:06:58]>> Interesting. What uh what do you like about her?

[00:07:02]uh she has this kind of uh ruggedness because she you know her uh her husband had died years before so she's raising her two children and she has to deal with tuskkins and she has to deal with um uh Jabba's henchmen and she has to deal with drunks and she has to deal with this guy who has weird abilities and and is doing weird stuff around i.e. Kenobi. Um so she has to deal with all that and she's just like never flinches.

[00:07:28]She just she's she's >> rock solid.

[00:07:31]>> Sounds like being a Waffle House employee.

[00:07:33]>> Yes, that is a that is a great comparison.

[00:07:39]>> Waffles.

[00:07:40]>> Yes.

[00:07:40]>> Yeah. I I would say Thron, but I haven't read the books yet, so I don't know. I would say my I probably would pick two.

[00:07:45]Like my all time is Darth Vader, and that's probably super basic, but I just love Darth Vader, dude. Uh and then the mechanic in me. I I love R2-D2, dude.

[00:07:54]He's the mechanic. He keeps things running. I love me some R2.

[00:07:57]>> Bills ass out of trouble. in like every movie.

[00:08:00]>> Yeah, >> he is the most foulmouthed character in all Star Wars. Every single line of his is bleeped.

[00:08:08]>> He's so not PG.

[00:08:10]>> How about you guys?

[00:08:10]>> I god, I wish that was canon that he was just like R2 was just cussing people out.

[00:08:15]>> Cutting people out.

[00:08:16]>> All you idiots just >> only speaks an F-word. There is there I I I can't remember which project it is, but there is a project where he starts talking to someone. No, no, no. It's in one of the movies where uh uh uh where C3PO says, "Watch your language." So, yeah.

[00:08:34]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:08:36]>> He's he does >> he's a spicy one, dude.

[00:08:40]>> What about you guys? You guys got your favorite characters?

[00:08:43]>> Uh I'm a big This is a deep dive into the EU, specifically the video game side. I'm a big Kyatarn guy.

[00:08:49]>> Yeah. uh Dark Forces, uh Jedi Cast, Jedi Academy, though he doesn't really do much in Jedi Academy besides tell you what to do. Um >> also, I have to note the Sith ninjas in Jedi Academy because if you turn on Force Vision, you see all the bad guys like up in the walls like this, like waiting to drop down and attack you. And there's like a guy like every like 30 feet like up in like the corner of the ceiling like holding on to like what the hell.

[00:09:20]>> For clarification so you don't get your hopes up too much. Jedi Academy video game no relation really to Jedi Academy the trilogy.

[00:09:30]>> Gotcha.

[00:09:31]>> Yeah.

[00:09:32]>> Sounds good, dude. Um >> if you get them on Steam, they're like dirt cheap. They're fun.

[00:09:37]>> Yeah.

[00:09:37]>> Also difficult. I'm a console pleb, so I don't have a gaming PC yet. In the future, it will happen. Uh, yeah. Quick quick agenda overview. I think we'll probably talk about your uh your YouTube video because it's like a two-hour long video, right?

[00:09:50]>> Yeah.

[00:09:51]>> Maybe that whole process. Um, and then maybe go over like your five best series, standalones. Um, and then just kind of wrap it up with some some general EU opinions if that sounds all right with everybody.

[00:10:04]>> Yeah. Uh, so yeah, your YouTube video um I judging by like I I I try to look it up and there's not really any hard numbers to really uh corroborate what I'm trying to say here, but basically I asked rock how many what percentage of readers have read all all the Star Wars >> and it and it said yeah it can't really verify but it's guess would be very small >> from 1% to 0.1% have read all of them.

[00:10:31]So you are uh you're basically a legionnaire my friend. You are the 1% of the 1%. Um, >> I wish I was wealth as well that wealthy to be in 1% of the 1%.

[00:10:40]>> Yeah. Uh, how how long did it end up taking you to read the all those books?

[00:10:46]>> Well, okay. So, from when I picked up like the first book uh in 2016 to when I picked up the last one that I finished in like December 2015. So, it was like under 10 years. But it's not like that was the only thing I was reading in that time. And it's not like I was consistent with it during that time. There were periods where 3 to 6 months I would be not reading any uh EU books and then I'd pick them up again and stuff. And about a third, a little under a third of it was all last year because I realized I only have 42 left uh in January. I was like, let's just make that a goal. Knock knock knock out those 42. Mhm. How do you like when you got like a book because obviously you don't like all the books. There's there's I mean there's ones at the bottom of the 157.

[00:11:33]>> Yes, there are.

[00:11:34]>> And like you're trying to get through all these books in a year, but you finished all the books, I'm assuming. So like how do you because for me a lot of times I'll be like I don't want to finish this book. I'll just DNF it and move on to something else. Especially like trying to get stuff for the channel, you know? So like I don't know.

[00:11:48]How do you power through those books that you're like this is terrible but I'm just going to keep reading anyway?

[00:11:52]>> Well, I got the jump scare for everyone that's at the bottom. from the Crystal Star. Don't don't don't read this.

[00:11:58]>> I wish had a soundboard make like a >> Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, so um >> sucks.

[00:12:03]>> So, I'm very much a completionist. I almost never DNF books, >> even if I'm hating them. Uh which I don't really use the word hate. Uh I just I I really don't DNF books. And I'm also a kind of a completionist in that I kind of want to be able to say I've read the whole series. So I usually stick with it. There's some book series uh in fantasy and science fiction that I'll be like okay tapping out but it's either I'm really disinterested in the series as a whole or I'm some something else is up. Uh so for this it was pretty easy. I knew I wanted to finish them all. And so even the ones which were interminable to finish, I mean interminable to finish. I just knew, hey, once I get this done, I'm set. You know, it's I'm not having to do these like deep analyses. I'm not having to go page by page. Like I know some reviewers, they'll write like dissertations and stuff and I'm like, I'm I'm writing like an 800word this is what I thought about the book. Let's skip through it. All right. Goes on the shelf.

[00:13:09]Looks like we got some contention for your your last >> Yeah, Ian Ian has a lot of weird I I I know Ian. He's been on my channel before. He has a lot of weird uh EU opinions, but uh he says not nearly as bad as portrait princess slay sacrifices Jedi Eclipse sacrifice. Well, I I won't go into that, but it's it's it's the worst. Trust me.

[00:13:31]Uh how long did it end up taking you to make the actual video? like going through ranking them all and then editing that 157 book video.

[00:13:38]>> I don't put that much edits in my videos so not as long as you'd think.

[00:13:43]>> Um uh I recorded it over Christmas break. Um uh really my parents live an hour away and so sometimes I'll spend like a weekend with them and I was had been spending time there. drove over to my place, recorded for it took me a couple hours to to record um and then drove home and edited it and it took me a day or so to edit.

[00:14:07]>> It's like it's like a two-hour long video, right?

[00:14:09]>> Mhm.

[00:14:10]>> Is by far my most successful and I knew it would be, but man, that was it was filling filling a void. All right.

[00:14:17]>> Yeah. Uh how was your overall ranking received by your by your viewers?

[00:14:24]I knew exactly which placements would make people angry and so I think I blunted a lot of the surprise. For instance, there's this author who is like to some people a Star Wars god and that is Matthew Stove.

[00:14:41]>> I'm not a big fan of his books. So, I knew that was going to be a point of contention and so I tried to address it and you I still got so many people angry even on like Reddit people people were eviscerating me on Reddit for that.

[00:14:58]>> And then and then like overall there's a few like there's another author that like the people who love Stove they hate Denning and I quite like Denning and so I got a lot of hate for for for liking his stuff. Um, but it's like I didn't get that many like, oh, you're a fake fan or anything, thankfully.

[00:15:23]>> Oh, no.

[00:15:25]>> I don't know what Ian means by that.

[00:15:27]>> I don't know.

[00:15:29]>> Oh, thank goodness, Ian.

[00:15:32]>> What is your uh Are you like a speed reader or are you just a regular mortal?

[00:15:37]Uh like there's like the people who like skip words when they speed read or people who just happen to read really fast. I read I I read depending on the book between 50 and 100 pages an hour. A Star Wars book I will hit 100 pages an hour just because I'm familiar with most of the words and terminology and it's not like hard for me to picture or you know I could pick it up start. I'm writing.

[00:16:03]>> Yeah. Uh, like what are you doing like a year as far as how many books you put down?

[00:16:09]>> Depends. I've been averaging 120 to 150 the last couple years.

[00:16:14]>> Dang, dude.

[00:16:15]>> You can start up some Gan Wolf and drop that down to like three, but it'd be rewarding three, >> right? Yeah, >> dude. That's crazy. I I do 40 and I'm like, "All right, I I did some work."

[00:16:29]>> Hey, 40 40. You're again the top 1% onetenth of 1%. If you're doing more than like 10, you're you're doing quite well.

[00:16:36]>> All right, dude. I need I needed that morale boost. Thank you.

[00:16:41]>> Yeah, my 60 felt good until that number came out. And then I think when we started writing more, but you know, >> yeah, obviously we started writing more, we slowed down reading significantly.

[00:16:54]>> Yeah. And I also, one thing that really helps is switching genres constantly.

[00:17:00]Like I'll read a sci-fi, then a fantasy, then a historical fiction, then a legal thriller, then a uh no, I'm I'm I'm I'm Miller's biggest fan. Um uh anyway, but like I'll like switch the genres constantly and switch like the size of the books constantly. And so because of that, like it keeps everything fresh and I really never have burnout. I really don't have burnout often.

[00:17:24]>> Yeah.

[00:17:25]I I for me I like to do like a mix of audio and and uh you know regular reading. I I don't know what you call that regular reading. Uh >> just reading >> real real.

[00:17:36]>> Yeah.

[00:17:38]>> Not hard reading, not the soft reading.

[00:17:43]But yeah, dude. I totally like like so I'm trying to get through the rest of Galaxy's Edge this year, but like I can't just as as much as I love Galaxy's Edge, I can only do so many before I got to take either.

[00:17:54]>> I purchased two of those books and have them I didn't I didn't have them close enough to grab, but I just got the first two. So, I'll be collecting those.

[00:18:02]>> Oh, you're you're you're in for a ride.

[00:18:04]I will not talk about Galaxy's Edge because no easy way to gauge where people are. In my defense, you're in one of the most confusing You were in one of the most confusing books. Like, oh, is he on the planet or the moon with the same damn name?

[00:18:21]>> Yeah. Uh, it's okay. I don't even remember what you spoiled, so it's all good. I just I forgot.

[00:18:26]>> I don't either. I just You guys give a [ __ ] for that all the time.

[00:18:29]>> Yeah, I'm sure everybody read past whatever it was that you spoiled. Uh, and I don't remember what it what it was. So Jonathan already pumped Kenobi as his favorite book and Anelise from the book as his favorite non-thrawn character. Oh, just giving >> So he's just telling him, you know, that how he's he's he's establishing my bonafites as uh John Jackson Miller's biggest fan cuz like he also but for clarification, not just for Star Wars, he wrote my favorite Star Trek novels.

[00:18:53]He wrote my favorite Batman novels. That author, he can jump around and do whatever and it'll be great.

[00:19:00]H I have never even thought about a Batman novel because I always just picture either the cartoon or the comics.

[00:19:05]>> Yeah, they're they they just did two uh the last two years and they were both magnificent.

[00:19:11]>> Really? That's >> they're set they're set in the Burton like like the Tim Burton Batman verse.

[00:19:16]You don't have to like if if you don't like Tim Burton's Batman, it's okay.

[00:19:20]Just go with it anyway.

[00:19:21]>> I love Tim Burton's Batman.

[00:19:22]>> Oh, perfect. Then then go with that, too. But they're they're magnificent books. First one has to deal with um well I won't spoil who the first one's about. The second one's about the Riddler. Um they're both they're both very good.

[00:19:35]>> Nice dude.

[00:19:36]>> That's a that's the thing that happens is tyin novels like for for IPs and things like that.

[00:19:42]>> They they actually can pull in some really good writers and have some really good books and they just kind of get lost in the sauce because people look at it and they're like, "Oh man, that's just it's just the movie all over again." like a I I stand up for the Riddic book, uh, Pitch Black and, uh, The Chronicles of Riddic, the actual novel, >> all the time, because they were actually really well written and you got a lot of details that they couldn't put in a two-hour movie. So, >> yeah.

[00:20:10]>> Uh, yeah, I mean, I that I can imagine that book obviously has a good writer, but like just the premise because I love Pitch Black. Um, I like Pitch Black more and I think like the Chronicle of Riddic movies, although I do I still do like those. But also, there was a uh a Chronicles of Riddic. I can't remember it's called Pitch Black or Chronicles of Rick. There was like an Xbox game and it was probably on PlayStation >> from Butcher Bay. It was it was >> Yeah, dude. That was so >> I remember that.

[00:20:33]>> Yeah, that was a good game.

[00:20:36]Uh, see, we got uh Scuma Joe. JJM is the goat. Never read his Star Trek books, but his Batman books are fantastic. I like them more than the Burton movies.

[00:20:46]My alternate accounts are working.

[00:20:49]>> It's got a whole phone bank of like going >> all all the AIs.

[00:20:55]>> All the all the monkeys from uh Superman.

[00:21:00]>> Which one was that? Was that the new one?

[00:21:02]>> Yeah, the new one. Yeah, where they have all the the monkeys acting as the bots.

[00:21:05]>> I didn't see that, but I think I remember hearing that on Twitter or on X. Um, okay. Okay. So, what are your because obviously we don't have time to cover all all 157 and do your your basically go through your ranking, but >> what are your five best either your series or standalones, however you want to >> range.

[00:21:22]So, my number one series um in terms of quality is the Hand of Thron duogy. So, this is one set about 10 years after the Thrawn trilogy. And unfortunately, the premise partially is a spoiler for the Thrawn trilogy, so I won't do that. I'll just say instead of one villain, you have like three villains. Um uh and uh some you could call them a triumvirate or you could call them the uh uh the Mo and Larry and from the uh Yeah, they they Yeah. Yeah.

[00:22:01]Exactly. So you have So that's a great duogy and it's by Timothy Zhan. I would also put the I would also put the New Jedi order up there. It is it is lives up to the hype.

[00:22:15]It's 19 books. It's huge and the it's so amazing that they got so many authors that were all consistently excellent in that series. Um uh they it's it's and they tell do a lot of subg genres that are really good. the original Thrawn trilogy and then Dark Horse one. Nobody talks about it because nobody got that far because they a lot of people nope out around New Jedi Order, but the Fate of the Jedi, which was the final series that they did was amazing. And they brought in they had two previous writers, Alustin and Denning, who had been writing the whole time. And then they brought in a new writer who hadn't written anything yet, uh Christy Golden, who's known for doing Star Trek and um uh World of Warcraft and stuff. She's known for a lot of stuff. And she breathed new life in and they breathed new life in and this was a nine book series was incredible. The what they do with um where they can go with the Sith is just crazy. So what's that? That's my I think that's my fourth. And then for my fifth series, probably would be the uh the Han Solo trilogy, not by Brian Daly, but by AC Crispen. That trilogy was fantastic. And then maybe for Ian, I'll throw in the uh ex the first four X- Wings are also like would be an honorable mention for series. And then I'll just mention two standalones. So, Outbound Flight by also by Timothy Zhan.

[00:23:47]And then I mentioned The Alzheimer is Kenobi.

[00:23:51]>> Nice, dude. Man, Zan seems like just I really got to read this guy. He sounds great.

[00:23:55]>> He's there's a reason he's there's a reason he's at the top of both the canon and the EU list. He's just >> Yeah.

[00:24:01]>> And then also to plug his others, he writes amazing standalone just original science fiction and he writes great science fiction just pulp series. So he's he could just write whatever and I'll read it.

[00:24:15]>> He is easily my favorite. I think he might be the only author I've read every single one of his books. I really honor period.

[00:24:24]>> I love everything he's done. Um >> he was >> we were there was a con last year around this time when um everybody was um he was actually signing and autographing thing. He's a wonderfully like he's a wonderful gentleman too. He's an incredibly just >> like he is a wonderful human being. But um I he got really excited because I had one of my I had my original printing old paperback of a triplet.

[00:24:47]>> Oh man. Yeah.

[00:24:48]>> Like I had which was it's an old one.

[00:24:52]And uh and uh he was excited to see it.

[00:24:55]He said, "Whoa, I didn't realize these still these things still existed because it was kind of >> what's what's your favorite of his originals?"

[00:25:01]>> Dead Man Switch probably, but triplets really high up there. We unfortunately those don't hold up great. So, Deadmond Switch. I wasn't going to bring that to him because the original cover is actually gone. It's so we read it so much, but >> uh for Karen and I, that's my wife. Uh we that's probably our favorite.

[00:25:17]>> Mine of his originals. I love Manta's Gift so much.

[00:25:22]>> And then um uh The Green and the Gray I read last year. Blew me away.

[00:25:27]>> My Yeah, my we've been getting I trying to convince our daughter who's 13 and does not like sci-fi. She's very much she likes her fantasy. Um but um she really enjoyed coming of age which was sort of a YA >> with Teleconnect Power book and then Green and the Gray she really enjoyed as well. So he's he's a phenomenal book. He he does weird like he he went with Athon you know sci-fi and lit RPG people. He went and did a technothriller >> which he had already written before but he like we did >> that one was fantastic >> very much stretching his muscles. Yeah.

[00:26:06]>> Yeah. I kind of agree with you. Oh, go ahead, bud.

[00:26:08]>> Well, like you got to get out of your comfort zone or else you're gonna get stagnant.

[00:26:13]>> Right.

[00:26:14]>> That's what Korea does, right? He always you like doesn't just write Monster Hunter all the time. He does a bunch of cool stuff. Um, yeah, Ben, I kind of agree with your like I had a similar path as your daughter. Like I only like fantasy growing up. Like I need to have like dragons or fantastic beasts, wizards, magic, whatever. Um, and then as I got older, like I I think honestly military sci-fi is probably my my go-to, like my favorite genre now. And just sci-fi in general, I think has kind of edged out fantasy. Not that I don't like fantasy anymore, but I think I just like sci-fi better. Um, so >> military sci-fi, especially well-written military sci-fi is like you read it and like with the characters, you're like, "Oh, I get these people."

[00:26:55]>> Mhm.

[00:26:56]Yeah. I love it, dude. Um, let's see from the chat. We got they want some X-Wing talk. Ian says we need some X-wing talk. Uh, Scuma Joe, I love the Stackpole X-Wing books, but I am with Ian and preferring the, uh, Alist books, but I love both. the so um the X-Wing series they hired Stackpole to do four and then he had went under contract because those were all mass markets and since they were so crazy successful the third one knocked Stephen King off the Times list which in the '9s you that didn't happen. Um anyway, and so that series was so successful that they said we'll give you a hard cover. Well, they still had con they still had the deal to do more X-Wing novels at the publisher.

[00:27:40]And so the the editor said, "Hey, um uh who should we get if snackpole is not available?" And they said, "Oh, just get Austin." That editor left and didn't hadn't hired Austin yet. He just had a name on a piece of paper. And the new editor comes in and calls Austin says, "Hey, where's this book you were supposed to turn us in?" And Austin's like, "Nobody told me anything about this." And he said, "Well, you have three months." So he he wrote the whole from start to finish in like three months. And then they said, "Okay, we need the next one three months from now." And so they he wrote those his his first three just so incredibly fast, which is really impressive. I still like the first four by Stackpole. But it's really impressive how fast he wrote those books.

[00:28:24]>> That's great. Imagine getting a call from somebody and being like forced to take a job.

[00:28:29]>> Forced, but just like, "Hey." Oh, hey.

[00:28:30]Trust me, it was it was more money than he was going to be getting from his originals, but uh uh still the stress of that.

[00:28:37]>> Yeah.

[00:28:38]>> Yeah. Well, Austin was not he it was probably less abusive than his other employer of note, which was TSR. He was He's actually the guy who compiled the rule encyclopedia.

[00:28:49]>> Like, so that's like basic Dn D. He was the guy who he's like the last author of the basic line. So, on the RPG side, he that's kind of where his fame is there.

[00:28:59]So, I'm sure they were easier to work with than TSR was.

[00:29:04]>> Uh, Ian says, "Also, my favorite ZO book outside of Star Wars is Night Train to Regal series."

[00:29:10]>> I have the I have the first two. Still need to collect the other F three.

[00:29:16]>> Uh, heck yeah, dude. So, I I did watch uh I didn't finish the whole two hours of your video, but I watched a lot of it. Um, and you kind of mentioned like some of the authors that were lower on your list. You said like you said in like I don't remember what her name was, but she's a good sci-fi author, but she her Star Wars book just didn't feel like a Star Wars book. Like she's good at sci-fi, but just not Star Wars.

[00:29:39]>> There's there's a couple.

[00:29:40]>> Yeah. Uh like what for you? Like what is this like the Star Wars signature feature that makes it different than other sci-fi for you?

[00:29:48]>> Uh there needs to be this kind of familiarity with it. Um, uh, you can tell when an author is like super comfortable in the in the space because when they use terminology, when they write character dialogue, when they do descriptions, when they when they create a new alien and when they set up situations, you can tell this person's comfortable and you can tell this person's not. And um uh a couple authors as you were describing, you have Vonda McIntyre, she wrote fantastic Star Trek novels, fantastic science fiction books, just not a Star Wars writer. Barbara Hamley, she also wrote amazing fantasy and and Star Trek and fiction just didn't fit in. And when you're reading their descriptions, they're just so different and they just don't mesh.

[00:30:39]Whereas the ones there there's a reason that certain authors get contracted for so many books, it's because they're they mesh so well. I know with ZH it was he would drive on um road trips and his they'd have like a portable DVD player for his son in the back and his son would be watching Star Wars and so as he was driving he was listening to the dialogue over and over on their road trips and that got the the the tone of the characters voices well and things like that. There are sometimes where people are like, I'm gonna create a whole new species and it's like you didn't need to do that there or or they create a new species. It's like we we don't need that right now. It's you could use this existing one. And sometimes it is good to create something new, but that balance of when is the right time. It's like a it's it's it's a you know it when you see it type thing.

[00:31:33]>> Yeah.

[00:31:34]Uh yeah. I wonder I'm assuming that the the Star Wars movie that he was playing for his his kid was an original trilogy cuz >> Oh yeah.

[00:31:42]>> I can't imagine he's listening to Anakin [ __ ] about sand.

[00:31:44]>> Well, this was back, you know, this was back in the 80s and 90s.

[00:31:46]>> Okay, the news for sure.

[00:31:49]>> I hate sand.

[00:31:51]>> It's everywhere.

[00:31:54]>> Those movies are those movies are quotable. They are very they may not be amazing, but they are quotable.

[00:32:00]>> Very indeed. I agree with you on that one. Star Wars should have a good uh blend of the three Fs. Fighters, military battles, force, mystical, spiritual, and fringe scoundrels. Yeah, that's a good point.

[00:32:11]>> The three.

[00:32:11]>> I agree with that.

[00:32:14]>> Uh yeah. So, you kind of already touched on it a little bit, but do you have any like reading order tips? Like, so for me, like when I was I didn't look into it at all. I was just like, I want to start from the beginning. I read Dawn of Jedi, and that that sucked. Uh, so yeah, you have you have any like reading order tips for maybe like someone who hasn't read any EU books and wants to get into it?

[00:32:32]>> So there are what I would describe as three general phases of EU publishing that they had. They had the 1990s, which was the Banam era, back when they were published under Phantom Books.

[00:32:46]Ironically, side note, Banam would go into a bidding war with Del Rey for the rights to continue publishing Star Wars.

[00:32:54]Del Rey would win and then uh I think it was Banttom's uh parent company bought Delray so it ended up all the Anyway, um but so Banttom was in the 90s 91 to 99 and then Del Rey took over from 99 on and so they they'll have two eras there.

[00:33:14]Banom, you have start out with Thrawn trilogy, then you already have Jedi Academy, >> the first the first couple X-wings, and then there's a standalone I Jedi, and then the Hand of Thron duology. Those are the essentials essentials there. You can sprinkle in the other books that were published by Banttom at the time.

[00:33:35]Um, and they're all there's there's some great ones in there, but they're not like the essential ones. So, if you're trying to be like, I need to know which order, the order I said there is the order.

[00:33:45]>> Then once you've gotten those, then you can start the New Jedi order. And from there, it's just read all those books in order. And and it's uh from the timeline once you get when you're looking at the um uh the timeline either in the back or the front of the book. Once you get to the last page that has New Jedi Order, Legacy of the Force, Fate of the Jedi, it's easy. Once you get to this point, it's all straight through.

[00:34:11]>> The prequel stuff and the stuff like uh in the dark times, which is between episode three and episode four, look at like publication order. Sprinkle in whenever you feel like it. Certain things, you know, it's just kind of whatever it feels like. You can read the Darth Bane trilogy at any time. You can read Kenobi or uh the Darth Vader uh Rise of the Dark Lord Rise of Darth Vader at any time. So, uh the prequel stuff, it's more when you're feeling like it, it works best when you sprinkle it in amongst the post uh Return of the Jedi stuff so that it's like fresh and it kind of jolts you out if you're reading a lot.

[00:34:55]>> Gotcha. So, uh, yeah, the I Jedi, that was when I posted that, I got the, uh, the Thrawn trilogy. A lot of people recommended I Jedi, uh, the X-wing books like you said, and, uh, yeah, the Jedi Academy trilogy.

[00:35:07]>> So, for that I Jedi, what makes it interesting is it's by the author who did the X-wings, but when he wrote it, it takes place at the same time as the Jedi Academy trilogy. they're like at they're they're at the same time and the author uh he wrote it in 30 days and every day he was on the phone with the author of the other trilogy and they made it blend and it's basically um if you've ever heard of this famous novel called uh Day of the Jackal where they took um this character and weaved him through historical events. Well, I Jedi takes a fictional character and weaves him through fictional events.

[00:35:44]I have not heard of that book, but as people familiar with my stream know, I haven't heard of a lot of stuff on that.

[00:35:51]Uh, let's see. We got a probably someone you're familiar with. Uh, Jonathan and so are you lads for having. Well, thank you.

[00:35:59]>> A thanks Sean.

[00:36:01]>> Great to see you.

[00:36:02]>> Yeah, dude. Uh, what about Knights of the Old Republic? I got I think I had a few people recommend some some culture stuff. So, they they did a Nights of the Old Republic comics series by what author? My man John Jackson Miller. He's a great he did great comics there. I've only read some of them. I'm not a comics reader, so I've only read some. Uh so, if you want to get into comics specifically, he did 52 issues, I think, um of that series. And then, uh they don't have novels specifically for the video game really.

[00:36:36]There is one, but it's not good. And it's it's Revan.

[00:36:42]And like you like you see Revan on the cover. It's too far for me to reach. Uh you see Revan on the cover and he looks so awesome. And you read the premise and it's set right after the first game and you're like, "Yeah, let's go with Revan and I won't spoil what happens, but I'll just say he's not in it that much." And uh uh it's >> he's not in his own book.

[00:37:02]>> Yeah.

[00:37:04]>> Oh jeez. is it's such a poor decision making in Netflix.

[00:37:07]>> The later seasons of The Witch are on Netflix, too.

[00:37:09]>> Knowing knowing what happens in Cotor 2, I'm not completely shocked that he's barely in the book that is Revan, >> which Cotor 2 could have maybe used like a little bit more time in the oven, >> right? Yeah. And uh >> Yeah. So, yeah, unfortunately, there's not great tie-in material for the Knights of the Old Republic series, but if you want the Old Republic, the Bane trilogy, it's just like really dark.

[00:37:33]excellent dark side stuff. If you want a horror novel for Star Wars, you have Red Harvest.

[00:37:40]And then if you want like uh in the fantasy world, what we'd call Noblebrite, um you have the novel Night Erant, which is about a single Jedi having to deal with like an entire galaxy of Sith around her. And each group of Sith is different. Uh the author described it as what if each group of Sith is like the different kinds of communists? Because you in real life the Chinese communists hated the Russian communists and the Russian communists hated the Pakistani communists and so like they they all hated each other but they were all communists so ostensibly they had to like get along and he does that with the Sith in Night errant and it's brilliant.

[00:38:20]>> That sounds like the savages in Galaxy's Edge.

[00:38:23]>> Yeah, >> the culture comic is my favorite thing in the whole EU. It's set between the tales of the Jedi comic which created the old republic era and ctor the game.

[00:38:33]>> What are you gonna say, Tyler?

[00:38:35]>> I mean like the Sith aren't quite posthuman monsters yet.

[00:38:39]>> Yeah, they got cool eyes though.

[00:38:43]>> They do. I mean like most of the Sith are like on some level like still people. The savages are are really not people.

[00:38:52]>> Yeah. I mean Darth Vader is probably the most savage. At least the ones that I've read because he's like, you know, mostly half cyborg. He's a >> cyborg.

[00:38:59]>> I think you'd like the Bane books because that's >> I think I think you think you'd enjoy that. Just >> I definitely like dark side stuff. Like I said, Darth Vader is my favorite. I think I would like Darth Bane, too.

[00:39:15]>> Bane's kind of cool because he's like smart, competent, and gets things done.

[00:39:18]Mhm.

[00:39:19]>> And then I would also recommend, it's not officially Old Republic, but it's like bridges the Old Republic in the prequel era, and that's Darth Plegus.

[00:39:26]Um, uh, and that novel, uh, it's I I know some English teachers, friends of mine, who are Star Wars fans, and they're like, I wish I could teach that in my class because there's so many literary elements to it. And that's by James Lino, who wrote Catalyst.

[00:39:42]>> Yeah, I like Catalyst. I thought it was a it was okay book.

[00:39:45]>> Yeah.

[00:39:45]>> I don't Yeah, it was good. Um, oh [ __ ] What did you just say? What was the book you said before? Catalyst. You were just talking about >> Darth Plegus.

[00:39:54]>> Darth Plegus. Yeah. Okay. I was going to make a joke about Do we learn about the tragedy of Darth >> Pleus? Darth Pus.

[00:40:02]>> It's a comedy to me because I was happy to see him gone, but no.

[00:40:06]>> Have you heard of the co Have you heard of the comedy of Darth V?

[00:40:11]>> Totally ruined my joke by forgetting what I was gonna say. Dang it.

[00:40:15]Uh, >> it'd be funny if he turned out to be like a Howard Andrew Jones villain where he's just like stupid and greedy and like is his own downfall on that.

[00:40:26]>> Now, I don't I'm not usually an audiobook guy, but I would have loved if they could have gotten Ian McDarad to be the narrator for that one.

[00:40:33]>> Oh, that would that would have been really cool.

[00:40:35]>> That was one time they actually went with a different uh narrator than normal. And it's off-putting in the best way cuz you can start it and if you're like a big audiobook person, you're like, >> "This is different. This is weird." And it's a foreoding opening anyway. So, uh yeah, but the the problem is for getting the audio books, it's expensive to get the actors involved. They do get uh um uh for some of the YA books, uh they get some of the voice actors from the TV shows. So, the gal that voiced Ahsoka, she did an audio book for this Ahsoka novel. Um, and the the gal that voiced Padme in the Clone Wars TV show, she voiced uh the Queen's Peril trilogy, uh, which is not a great trilogy, but she voiced the the the audio book for that.

[00:41:20]So, they have done that where they and and for the EU, they did bring in Sam Witworth to recently to do the audio book of Darth Maul Shadow Hunter, which that's also you like dark side stuff, that's a pretty good book. It's basically it's what's if you read a horror novel, but um Maul is the is the monster.

[00:41:40]>> He is a monster. I love him.

[00:41:42]>> I love Darth Maul. Uh the anti-Sith propaganda in this stream is off the chain.

[00:41:47]>> The Empire did nothing wrong. You know, there was law and order and then the rebels came and they just terrorists came and threw the galaxy into turmoil.

[00:41:57]Uh let's see here. uh at a convention, Ian McDermad did say that he read the Dark Pllegus book.

[00:42:05]>> Yeah, they uh uh I know he did that. I know that um John Jackson Miller read the Kenobi novel. Some of the actors, especially more recently, have been more willing to get into the books, but paying them to produce it would be a nightmare.

[00:42:19]>> Man, I would crowdfund that just because I'm a huge Ian McDar fan as Emperor Palpatine. He was the most delightful part of anything that he was in.

[00:42:27]>> It's true. every single >> I I quote Emperor Palpatine way more often >> uh than I than I like.

[00:42:35]>> I got when I went to um >> to to Disney World, I got a bust of uh uh Darth Cyius and I put it uh on my desk at school. It's a paper weight and uh it stares at the kids so when when they mess up.

[00:42:49]>> Oh, that's good.

[00:42:51]>> Well, that's perfect, dude, because I got get got you going with the emperor cone thing now. So, you're gonna have to >> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:42:55]>> take that into your classroom. I think you will find that this literature test is fully operational.

[00:43:04]>> Oh gosh, dude. Uh yeah, so those reading tips that that's that's good tips, man.

[00:43:08]Um I'm definitely going to have to take it take uh your advice on that. Um so what are the five worst books or slashseries?

[00:43:18]>> All right. Um, so I already mentioned Crystal Star by Vonda McIntyre, the two Barbara Hamley books I'm gonna put together. It's funny that's part of a trilogy, an unofficial trilogy where the middle book is a uh Kevin J. Anderson book. Delightful book, but that's the middle one, but the the first and like not worth not worth it. Not trust me.

[00:43:39]Um, so you have those.

[00:43:42]I'm not a fan of the Lando books. I know the people who read them back in the 80s were, but I'm I just those are too weird. They went too far. Didn't didn't fit Star Wars. And then I'm trying to think of like the like the the weakest series. I guess I'd have to put the um uh the Bounty Hunter trilogy, the uh KW Jeter. first book was really entertaining and the books two and three were big letdowns. Um, I don't know if I can get I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to I'm not going to enrage people.

[00:44:23]>> Say it, dude.

[00:44:24]>> The I am not a fan of the Republic Commando that much. I respect the like the literary qualities of it, but it's it's basically it's basically Mill sci-fi, but I don't like the way that she interpreted how things operated for the clones and the Mandalorian and stuff. So, I'm not the biggest Karen Travis fan.

[00:44:44]>> I was about to say that's Karen Travis, right?

[00:44:46]>> Yeah.

[00:44:47]>> I know people who love her and they're like they're her biggest fans and I'm just like her her stuff doesn't work for me.

[00:44:54]>> Not for me. Nice, dude. Uh what we got going on here?

[00:44:59]She she wrote she was going to write some stuff for Galaxy's Edge, like some very distant prequel stuff, >> but then they realized into her book, too, that like, oh, wait, the timeline doesn't line up.

[00:45:11]>> I I did have a question about that cuz when I whenever I look up the list of the Galaxy's Edge novels, there's it's every list I see is different and some of them include her books and some of them don't.

[00:45:24]It's changed because like when I first read through the series, they didn't include uh ah what's the one with what's his face? Goth solos. Imperator.

[00:45:33]Imperator.

[00:45:34]>> Yeah. Emperator wasn't like a mainline GE book. It was like a standalone.

[00:45:40]But like when I went to go look it up for Bruce like a year ago, I was like, "Oh, I guess Imperator is like book eight or something now."

[00:45:46]>> I think they have it. It's hard because they >> five.

[00:45:50]>> Yeah. because they'll write a book that's like backdated in the in the timeline so it like kind of shifts things around.

[00:45:57]>> Uh but yeah, like >> Stariller favorite >> start Yeah.

[00:46:03]>> Starillers >> Stariller canon in either Disney or EU or Stariller just cannon in the video game. Uh this there's a who boy is there a debate about the video game versus the the literature because it's uh did he actually pull the ship down or did he just use some force to get the mechanics of the ship that pulled it down so it wasn't really him just ripping it down?

[00:46:28]That's a whole that's a whole debate stuff. I liked the first book. Um the second book was like this could have been like a nolla. It was like a 300page book that should have been a 70page novel.

[00:46:40]>> Well, I mean that's the second Force Unleashed game was so rushed because you spent so much time on Kamito. You leave Kamo to immediately go back to Kamito.

[00:46:49]>> I I had a friend tell me that he he played the whole game in like two and a half hours. The whole start to finish.

[00:46:56]>> Yesesh.

[00:46:57]>> That's rough, dude.

[00:46:59]>> Like my my complaint at the end if Attack on Titan applies to Force Unleashed 2. like you [ __ ] You don't have to live like this.

[00:47:10]>> That's the thing with uh with video games though. That's I I there's I hate how often it happens, but have and killed winning awardwinning very profitable series over again. Um because they they start really making good money and then there's this push to crank one out.

[00:47:39]They literally creators will be scraing the studio saying no, we can't do that. That's we're not ready. We don't have what we need of it out there anyway. And that that that affected Forced Unleash 2. Uh the original Tomb Raider trilogy was affected by it. Like I could forever on on game after game that was hit with that.

[00:48:05]>> Yeah. I mean, I don't think it's it's even just localized to games because like obviously, you know, a show adaptation can can really >> Yeah, same thing. This is like Well, because like the writers will like, yeah, we'll make a Halo show. We'll never play the video game or like read the lore. We saw a poster with Master Chief on it. So, like that's that's all the reference we really need.

[00:48:26]>> Not only we're not going to read it, we're we actively hate it.

[00:48:30]>> We're going to subvert your expectations so hard.

[00:48:36]Uh, you know what drives me crazy? Like think when you were talking about Stariller yanking that ship down. Uh, one thing that drives me super crazy in Star and it's cool, but like also the power inconsistencies in Star Wars kind of driving me like like there's a scene in Revenge of the Sith right at the beginning, the battle over uh, Coruscant when like Obi-Wan and Anakin are in their Jedi star fighters and the little, you know, little buzz droids are on there and he's like trying to like shoot the buzz droid off and ram his jet.

[00:49:03]>> Flick him off with what? What the hell, dude? But yeah, that's that's like one of my biggest pet peeves. Like it's just that >> he's stressed. He's not thinking of it.

[00:49:12]And I mean, I don't know. I People have an issue with Stariller's power level. I don't because Stariller was just a force atomic bomb that was just pointed Darth Vader just pointed him at the Jedi and eventually found it pointed back at himself.

[00:49:27]>> Yeah.

[00:49:28]>> I I view it as that's why I prefer soft magic systems because it's like, "Oh, you need the magic to uh pull down the whole Star Destroyer. All right. Well, we use the magic to pull the whole thing down. Oh, we need the magic that you're only moving a tea kettle, you know, a couple of inches. All right, then it's only working that much. But >> I mean, we could introduce you to magic landmines where, well, sometimes you have enough horsepower to pull out the star destroyer, but there's a one in 10 chance it kills you slightly wrong.

[00:49:53]>> Yeah, you can't control where it's coming down.

[00:49:58]>> So, yeah. And it's a lot harder to push it back up.

[00:50:03]>> You're kind of committed.

[00:50:05]>> Yeah.

[00:50:07]Uh, okay. So, with the EU in general and all the different eras that it covers, what would you say is like the best and worst era uh in Star Wars as far as just like, you know, the quality of the writing?

[00:50:21]>> Uh, the best era was the New Jedi Order era. Um, certainly the I'm trying to let me give me give me just one second to like give you like a good scientific answer as I'm reading through this. Okay. So So this is not the worst era in storytelling because there was some great storytelling that happened in this era. But if we're limiting it to the adult novels, not the kids books, not the TV shows, not the um comics, just the adult novels, the Clone Wars era of the books was the weakest um in my opinion because so many of them did not land. A couple of them did. They had uh the books uh what's that? Jedi Trial and that really hit for me and the um uh Dark Run was fine, but most of them didn't. And so that's the one that's I think certainly the the weakest and and Ian says it's the Banttomime era. But you have to remember, Ian, is for all the greatness of the Banttom era, they also have a lot of weakness, whereas the the the New Jedi Order era is just pretty much straight excellence ac across. It's not it doesn't necessarily reach the heights of some of the Bandom stuff, but it's never reaches the lows.

[00:51:45]So, it's consistently excellent across the board.

[00:51:50]>> That's a good answer.

[00:51:53]>> Uh, okay. Um, let's see here for for the EU and when Disney came in and they, you know, they relegated the EU to, you know, it's just what they call Legends.

[00:52:03]>> Legends.

[00:52:04]>> So, what do you think is like the best character that Disney failed to utilize?

[00:52:11]I feel like I hear people say Mara Jade a lot. Um, and like they think that the uh the Thrawn trilogy should have been the sequel trilogy. That's what I hear that a lot on on the interwebs. Let me I'm I'm trying to think of like which one like if if they had been utilized would be great. We h we know he exists in the cannon. We haven't really seen him except outside of one scene would be Pelleon. Pelleon is a solid character.

[00:52:37]He's um Thron's number two captain. Uh the captain of his ship, the Chimera.

[00:52:44]I'd say Pelleon probably would be like if they if they could bring him in that would be he's he's excellent. Um trying to think of the ones probably Talonard I think would would work. Uh because he's not been brought in for anything.

[00:53:02]>> Yeah, >> it's basically all Zan characters.

[00:53:04]Pelleon was actually going to be my answer to the favorite character. Um, yeah, question you had there, Bruce.

[00:53:10]But, uh, >> yeah, that's I don't know why they don't want to have Mara Jade, but Talent Card is is also excellent.

[00:53:18]>> They don't want to take the easy layups.

[00:53:20]They want to, you know, prove they can do it better.

[00:53:23]>> Well, you're going to enjoy all of them.

[00:53:24]You're going to meet all of them in the uh >> in the original trilogy.

[00:53:28]>> Yeah, the original Thrawn trilogy. And you'll have a lot of fun. And that's partly the reason that we we mentioned those Zan characters is he like did the setup and then a lot of people took his characters and used them.

[00:53:38]>> Other people created other characters, but the most memorable ones kind of started with him.

[00:53:43]>> Yeah. So Thrawon Thrawn was in uh what was he in Andor? Is that what he was in?

[00:53:48]>> No, he's in he's in the Rebels TV show, the animated show. Yeah, the animated.

[00:53:52]And then he shows up in Ahsoka.

[00:53:54]>> Ahsoka, the live action show. Did they >> Andor is like like has like no connections to anything except for >> Oh, that's right. Andor's before before uh A New Hope. My bad. Um did they do do you think they did Thrawn? Well, did they do they capture the character?

[00:54:09]Well, >> I really love him. Now, the here's the thing is that I like the concept of him willingly losing some battles so that he can win others later. Mhm.

[00:54:20]>> Um uh they they demonstrated this excellently with season 3 of Rebels where they said, "All right, he's going to lose a bunch in a row, but he's going to gain information from all of them."

[00:54:31]And then at the end of the season, he like uses all his information all at once. And it's brilliant. And Timothy Zhan states the only way Thrawn can lose is if he has no idea uh about something, like if it's totally unforeseen to him.

[00:54:46]because if it's possible for him to to foresee it, then uh uh then he he'll still win. And so at the end of Rebels season 4, which is the Rebels finale, the reason they defeat him then is because it's totally unforeseen to him and it works really well. In Ahsoka, I don't think it's handled as well as Rebels, but I think it's still handled really well. And then of course in the novels, Timothy Zhan does a tremendous job. In fact, I prefer Thrawon as a character in the canon novels than his character in the EU novels.

[00:55:23]>> Which uh are is the duogy canon or No, >> the duology is from the the EU. So he uh he has 10 books in the EU and he has six in the canon so far. Um and the duology is is set about 10 years after. But read the other stuff before it's one don't don't jump from one the trilogy to the duogy. Don't don't don't do that.

[00:55:44]>> Did anybody write uh Oh, uh Wedge Antilles was done dirty by Disney.

[00:55:49]>> Yeah, he wasn't used much. Um uh he was really he's he's been in one book and in shown up in one movie for one season, but yeah. Uh he's not he's not been utilized much.

[00:56:02]>> Yeah. Was did did uh Zhan write all the Thrawn books or were there other authors that took a stab at him?

[00:56:08]>> Zan's done them all.

[00:56:09]>> Really? So there's no bad Thrawn books then?

[00:56:12]I didn't say that.

[00:56:16]Um, Thrawn Alliances in the canon isn't great. And I'm not a big fan. Well, how do I say this? Thrawn's not in the book, but it's a book about Thron's people.

[00:56:29]And that's Survivors Quest. I'm not a big Survivors Quest fan, but Outbound Flight, which is like the prequel to that book, that's amazing. So, he's he's generally amazing. He just has a few a few foul balls.

[00:56:44]>> Uh yeah. Okay. Well, that's fair. Um I guess we're we're almost out of time, so I guess my last question for you uh just on the EU in general, why does uh the EU in your opinion still matter to so many Star Wars readers?

[00:56:58]>> Well, for for so many people, it's that's that's their, you know, thing in Star Wars. You know, that's for some people their their their introduction was the TV shows and for some people their introduction was the original movies and for some people their like like not necessarily the first thing that they watch but the thing that made them love something and for people like me who are book readers were like I can take this property that I love and there's books about it and there's characters and we had not seen this pri prior to the EU. We there was no other franchise that had a long running interconnected where the same characters were there.

[00:57:38]>> You kind of had the the Legend of Drist stuff happening over at TSR, >> but most of that was just one author writing. So, it wasn't this multiple authors getting to write multiple characters of an entire universe. You didn't have that much. Star Trek followed suit in 2001 about 10 years later when they did their own uh uh thing with with where they had interconnected Star Trek novels but no one else had done this and so this is a truly special experience that's not been replicated. Um, other like franchises have tried like there are Halo novels.

[00:58:17]Um, they and and they're I've read some of them. They're great. They don't have that level of following these characters and and and the depth of of the the characters and the authors utilizing them in the same way. And so, it's something that's just not perfectly been replicated. Again, >> I I I've not read Warhammer, so I don't know if the 40k books or the Horse Heresy books work that well. Horse is awesome. I can't speak to uh for reg the 40k books, but horseair >> there's a lot of books there. Um that's the only one that I think rivals in terms of like how many books they've published. Star Trek has 800 novels.

[00:58:56]>> So way more than Star Wars is, but uh not all of them were part of that interconnected universe. Only about 200 of them.

[00:59:03]Yeah.

[00:59:04]>> So, did Star Wars kind of kick off this like massive >> idea of having, you know, having your your film franchise and then backing it up with interconnected characters in a book and then obviously video games came after that, but did Star Wars kind of kick that off?

[00:59:16]>> Yeah, we there had been there had been attempts at it before certainly. Um, even there had been other George Lucas attempts before. Um, and there would be George Lucas attempts after. He thought, "Oh, I made this Willow TV show or this Willow movie. let's go make three Willow novels. Don't don't read don't read those books and they're written by George Lucas and you're like what what were you thinking? Um so they it' been tried but not successfully because it it had to strike when it did. Had Zan's trilogy come out five years earlier, I'm not sure it would have hit the same way.

[00:59:52]If it had come out five years later, I'm not sure it would have hit the same way.

[00:59:55]It was kind of the I think it was the perfect storm of when it started and how long it lasted. And uh uh from I've talked to some of the people who work in publishing and they admit the sales were even before the Disney buyout were already starting to decline. So if it had run another five or 10 years, it might have run out of steam and it lost its specialness. So it ended >> pretty much at the perfect time.

[01:00:23]>> Well, yeah, dude. That's awesome. Uh, man, you are just a a wealth of knowledge when it comes to Star Wars. I I appreciate you, dude.

[01:00:31]>> Oh, thank you. Thanks for having me on.

[01:00:32]I I I don't get to talk too many people about it. It's a, you know, a niche group of of people. So, I I appreciate it.

[01:00:39]>> Yeah. It's such a cool like uh like feat to have accomplished. So, I was like, "Dude, we got to talk to this guy about reading all these sweet Star Wars books." Even though ones are still sweet.

[01:00:48]>> I I know people are in my in my cute videos are like, "Do all 800 Star Trek books." And I'm like, "I'm not. I am not dedicated to that yet. I've done about 150 so far. So, I've put a dent, but I'm not doing all those. Right now, my goal is I have a bunch of just fantasy sci-fi series to go through. And then my next major non-S Star Wars thing that I'm planning is the Galaxy's Edge, but that won't be till at least 2027. It might be 2028.

[01:01:18]Yeah, I like they like Galaxy S is cool because they got their they got their main line which is, you know, like basically their Yeah. the main line and then from there they have, you know, they have a couple prequels. They have like offshoots that kind of run parallel to some portions of the main line. Um it's just it's so cool, dude. There's lots of different um I don't know. You don't have to start with Legionaire.

[01:01:37]Like you could do like one of the Order of Centurions is like a cool Most of those are just standalones. Um and I've only read two of the Order of Turions, but they're both awesome. Legion. That's the one I have. I have that to start with.

[01:01:48]>> Yeah. You don't have to, but you should.

[01:01:52]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:01:53]>> You could you could realistically start with just Savage Wars, but then Gods and Legionnaires, the second in the Savage Wars trilogy, is like the great filter >> because it's kind of a it's kind of a mindbender.

[01:02:05]>> Yeah. the gods portion, which is like the first half of well, over the first half of the book, is very mindbending and trippy and uh yeah, communist communist gobbledygook stuff. Uh yeah, but still great when and when you get to Legionaire half of the book, then it's like, oh, hell yeah, dude. Uh go to the abandoned spaceship with like Dr. Marose Island. So, yeah.

[01:02:28]But yeah, dude, uh thanks for coming on.

[01:02:30]Uh you're a badass for reading so many Star Wars books. That's great. Um I I look up to you. you're you're kind of my hero.

[01:02:37]>> Thank you.

[01:02:38]>> But yeah, dude, I really appreciate you coming on uh chat. Thank you guys for participating. I know most of you probably are Jonathan's friends or fans and not mine, but that's cool. I like you guys being here. Uh and next week we have uh see we're doing our actual book club uh for the month, which is Monster Hunter Files Volume 2. Jason Cordova is going to come on. I haven't heard back from Larry, so I don't know. Oh, I just reached out to uh Jason today to see if he's heard back from him or not. But hopefully we have Larry and Jason on. If not, Larry. We definitely Jason's coming on. So, some Monster Hunter action next week. But yeah, >> real quick.

[01:03:13]>> Thanks for coming on, Jonathan.

[01:03:16]>> What's up?

[01:03:21]>> Let's do it. Okay, we do this before we leave is veterans that decided that direction Star Wars Star Wars was going and they were going to do their side like cool space with blackjack and >> with blackjack.

[01:03:42]>> Yeah. No, not not really not really with black futurama joke. But but for real, they they decided they were military dudes or dudes that like military stuff, dudes that >> are a little bit more in the know about the reality actually aim that this would be what they were going to make. And it is really good and really cool.

[01:04:07]>> It's like what if the Stormtroopers and Jedi were kind of the same thing, but also like kind of the Knights Templar and the Rangers and Delta. And also, the force might be evil. Uh, >> and made by >> I don't know about that. I'm still trying to >> No spoilers.

[01:04:25]>> made by people that were so separate from humanity that they kind of became aliens.

[01:04:31]>> Yeah, it's definitely way more military focused than uh like the Star Wars movies are. That's that's what I'm worried about because um military sci-fi sometimes it works but sometimes it doesn't for me because I don't I really care about a lot of military like reading the military stuff so I'm like I don't >> Yeah, the legionnaires are Yeah, instead of Jedi, the galaxy uh has legionnaires, which they don't have powers, but they're [ __ ] badass individuals.

[01:04:59]Uh 1% of the 1%. But, uh, yeah. All right.

[01:05:03]>> Yeah, they're like Stormtroopers if they weren't like [ __ ] Um, >> yeah. I mean, there's still some [ __ ] I mean, the Legionnaires, the KTF, dude, they'll [ __ ] you up.

[01:05:12]>> KTF. Yeah. But like, uh, and then you get into like, what is it? What's book two called again? It's been so long.

[01:05:19]>> Uh, Galactic Outlaws.

[01:05:22]>> Outlaws. Yeah. That's you're full on into All right. Now, we're into the wretched hives of Scumman villain.

[01:05:28]>> Cool Galaxy.

[01:05:29]>> They have that one as well.

[01:05:31]Yeah, that one's that one's that's in the first few books, they really change styles a lot. And then I feel like once you get past like once you like Sword of the Legion, it kind of goes more into just like, okay, the Legion Legion and >> All right. Yeah, we're the galaxy's like at war now. Like we're doing military stuff.

[01:05:48]>> Yeah. But yeah, there's a lot of stuff that's kind of like the third book, Kill Team has a second person POV, which is crazy uh and fun. But uh yeah, Galaxy's Edge. Highly recommend it. I love it. Uh but yeah, Jonathan, thanks for coming on. Uh thank you, chat.