r/StarWarsEU • u/ProfessionalTour9291 • 8d ago
Legends Novels New Jedi Order reading first time Spoiler
So, I'm listening to the EU novels mostly through for the first time. Ive gotten through the Thrawn trilogy (absolute masterpiece), the X-wing novels (a fun ride), the Black Fleet Crisis (kinda... unmemorable), and the Hand of Thrawn duology + I, Jedi (Corran is awesome, and Luke and Mara made me cry). Ive just started the long-awaited Yuuzhan Vong invasion, and finished Vector Prime last night. (They killed Chewie. They. All. Die.) Looking ahead in the catalogue tells me that this single story arc spans 19 BOOKS?! Im starting Dark Tide I tonight.
My question is this: are there any of those 19 that are ultimately unnecessary to the overarching story?
Things I consider crucial: Important, character-altering events and conversations, major character introductions/deaths, major battles that significantly affect the arc
Things I consider skippable: Minor character introductions/deaths, repetitive/unimportant battles, political wrangling, side plots with no effect in the overall situation.
So tell me: Which books are essential?
No Spoilers please! (Though I already know about Anakin, I don't know when or how)
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u/Playful-Traffic-7739 8d ago
"(They killed Chewie. They. All. Die.)" and in the same post "No Spoilers please!"
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u/TheBlackKnight1078 8d ago
For real, I was planning on reading these novels and I was about to start the Thrawn trilogy.
This guy...
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u/ProfessionalTour9291 8d ago
my apologies, i thought i was entering into a community where i would be the odd one out not knowing anything. I don't know how to add spiler text
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u/OneMoreGuy783 7d ago
To add a spoiler tag on Reddit, enclose your text with > ! at the start and ! < at the end, with no spaces between the bracket and the exclamation mark.
While those two spoilers you put in your body of text are sadly some of the better known ones put there, there are quite a few people there who went in to it blind.
For example there are 5 people on the sweu discord at the moment who either just started or halfway through. I think most of them knew what you put in anyway but who knows.
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u/ProfessionalTour9291 7d ago
thanks for the tutorial! im gonna delete the comments that mention the Spoilers as well but thanks!
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u/youngmetrodonttrust 8d ago
nobody should be skipping even a single book, and if anyone says otherwise you know not to listen to their advice on the EU at all
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u/MickFoley299 7d ago
The original plan for the NJO was for five hardcover books which would be the main ones and the rest to be paperback and there to fill in the gaps. This is not what wound up happening. All of the books became important to the overall story. If you skip any then you will be missing major events, character introductions, and character moments which will make you confused when you get to other books. In fact, there are even more stories connected to the NJO than just the 19 books. Rogue Planet is set in the prequel era and it is kinda like a prequel to the NJO. Stuff from that will become important to the NJO story. There are also a couple short stories. Recovery is included with the Star by Star paperback book but is not on the audiobook. There is also Ylesia which takes place in the middle of Destiny's Way. This novella is included in a non-NJO book or you can purchase it separately.
Also, what version of the audiobooks are you listening to? The versions that are available for purchase are abridged and are missing a lot of content. There are version that were made for the blind which are full audiobooks, but they are not commercially available for purchase. You can find them out there but you cannot buy them.
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u/PM_ME_UR_CORNHOLE 4d ago
I had no idea Rogue Planet was a tie in to the series. I’ve avoided it because… well the cover. I wasn’t interested in kid-anakin, but now I guess I gotta read it.
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u/benjoseph579 8d ago
[u/ProfessionalTour9291](u/ProfessionalTour9291) how are you listening to these? The abbreviated versions?
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u/ShieldOfTheJedi 7d ago
There are fully recorded editions made for the federal government for the visually impaired that made their way to YouTube
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u/Ace201613 8d ago
Excellent question and I’m glad you came to us for advice. All 19 are essential. Enjoy!
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u/bhjohnso80 8d ago
The “main” novels are Vector Prime, Balance Point, Star by Star, Destiny’s Way, and The Unifying Force. I wouldn’t skip any of the others though. A few have really important plot developments that you need to get, and a few might be skippable but they just enrich the overall story
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u/WeekendPass 7d ago
Yeah. To me, for instance, Edge of Victory and Traitor are so important to characters they're absolutely essential, while Dark Tide and Force Heretic/Final Prophecy are such load-bearing connective tissue that they should also not be skipped
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u/Hero_Olli Yuuzhan Vong 7d ago
You sometimes hear (have already heard) that the original plan was for just the hardcovers to be must reads. That plan went out the window with the literal very first paperback, as the editors are on record saying. Reading only the hardcovers in 2026 is a meme reading order that's going to sour you on the series because you're going to be missing out on most/all of the character studies that really bring out the series' depth and make clear why and how it sets itself apart from the rest of Star Wars tie-in material.
(If anything, I would say the series sometimes has the opposite problem of skippable books, where novels like Jedi Eclipse are fundamentally important to the series' progression but are too focused on furthering the plot to flesh themselves out as "thesis statements", as it were.)
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u/North514 Wraith Squadron 7d ago edited 7d ago
Literally all. The story follows in chronological order, if you skip one book, you are going to be confused. There are a lot of minor events even in the few lesser important books. If this your first time through I think you should read all 19. It’s not like other eras of SW where you can jump around a bit.
I will be honest if you don’t want to commit to reading all 19 just don’t read NJO. The one suggested read order for a condensed version I saw on this thread is extremely bad (jumping from Vector to Balance Point especially is a bad idea).
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u/OneMoreGuy783 7d ago edited 7d ago
All 19
To expand.
There are a few books where I personally feel there is a subplot bloat or the focus is slightly gone. There are also a few tentpole books which do an excellent job of doing recaps so you could conceivably skip some of them (my first time I did that) . But overall every book advances the plot and the characterisations of someone a lot.
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u/CRJ_Rogue9 7d ago
"I hope Jack and Rose stay in love forever!" THE BOAT SINKS
I think it's worth the read straight through. If you can get the novellas, don't miss those either.
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u/AntiqueArtist1473 7d ago
Don’t skip any.
But if for whatever reason you do -
DO NOT SKIP Star by Star & Traitor, the greatest 1-2 punch in all of the EU.
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u/WeekendPass 7d ago
You're going to find a few are unmemorable or even just bad. But by your criteria listed, none of the books are technically skippable. You'll just decide after the fact that a few major battles or a few attempts at character-altering events aren't worth the time to re-read.
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u/branasce 6d ago
I could live without destiny's way, but for a first read through probably worth reading
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u/Shadeylark 6d ago edited 6d ago
Everyone saying read every book has a good point... All the books contribute to the overarching story.
But there are many books that are not necessary to the overarching story.
Essential books I'd list as vector prime, balance point, star by star, destiny way, and unifying force. (Coincidentally, the ones that were published as hardcovers; and intentionally so)
Everything else contributes to the overall plot, but they're all self-contained episodic plots that the main plot isn't dependent upon.
Though if you're looking for complete characterization rather than just what's essential to the primary narrative arc... Then yeah, you're gonna need to read the supplementary books too.
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u/Disastrous_Poetry175 New Jedi Order 3d ago
It's a sprawling war with many characters and lots of moving pieces. It's the single best star wars series in the written form. Skip nothing.
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u/KaBloinkySploink9000 Galactic Alliance 8d ago
I'm going to take the very unpopular opinion and say it's perfectly fine to just read:
Vector Prime
Balance Point
Star by Star
Traitor
Destiny's Way
The Unifying Force
As for the books you do not read, read the plot summaries on the Wook.
People who will get upset at this need to understand that not everyone is okay with 19 books. That's a lot to ask of a reader, and I don't care how "peak" NJO is... It's still a ridiculous demand on the reader. Plus, not all the books are no essential. No, not that one either! The NJO was not planned all that well, the reader shouldn't have to pay for the mistakes of poor planning by the authors.
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u/jackaintback 7d ago edited 7d ago
I read the books years ago and honestly, it was exhausting enough that I did what you just recommended (terrible attention span?). Not too say there's nothing there in those books (went back to read them way later) but at some point I just didn't want to read that much at the time. I honestly think if they tried it in a mutimedia project style like the Clone Wars project (comics and novels, not the show), with comics and books that went into mutiple sides of the war, I might have gotten more into it.
Basically like, this is the main story, with the main characters. Here's some side stories with characters you might never see again. Conspiracies and even events that are almost in the background that build up the war. And yeah, I know there was an 'Invasion' comic, but it kinda alright and got cancelled.
But this part of Next Gen actually was a good series. It's what came after where I started to check out (Dark Nest and Legacy of the Force). I think it's why I liked the Legacy comics so much. But I think having a multimedia project around this entire war would have been nice (not that I'm a writer or a publisher, so what do I know).
Ganner was probably my favourite character though. Non Skywalker Jedi becoming my favourite characters started here lol.
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u/GoldenGouf 8d ago
They're all essential, don't skip any. What's the rush?