Tales of the Star Wars Expanded Universe

I. HEIR TO THE EMPIRE

While Star Wars was certainly still a known franchise after the original trilogy’s conclusion in 1983, the series did in fact hit a bit of a slump and it was a long way off until George Lucas eventually had started developing the prequel trilogy in the late 1990s. To most it would seem Star Wars was collecting dust for over a decade, but that was far from the case when out of nowhere Lucas introduced us to Hugo Award winning author Timothy Zahn (an already prolific sci-fi writer himself) who rode to the rescue with his own trilogy of novels set 5 years after Return of the Jedi. And while there were certainly Star Wars novels and comics that had been published previously, the Expanded Universe which kept the series alive from that time into the 2000s would not exist without Heir to the Empire, which is considered by many as the first true sequel story to the original film trilogy and the definitive gateway entry into the EU. First published on May 1, 1991 under Bantam Spectra, the novel introduced us to many ideas that Lucas would carry over into the prequel films, particularly the galactic capital planet of Coruscant and cloning technology (the latter of which was up until that point mere background lore in A New Hope). Chief among the novel’s contributions was its villain, the blue-skinned and red-eyed Grand Admiral Thrawn of the Imperial Remnant. Rather than being a typical mustache twirling villain gifted with the powers of the Force ala Emperor Palpatine, Thrawn was established as a stoic and wily military genius who observed his enemies like a scientist looking at specimens under a microscope, to the point of even studying the art and culture of his foes to psychologically and methodically best them as opposed to relying solely on overwhelming force. So good was Thrawn as an antagonist that even after Zahn’s conclusion to his trilogy with Heir to the Empire’s sequels, Dark Force Rising and The Last Command (known colloquially as The Thrawn Trilogy), the specter of the Chiss officer loomed long afterwards. Combine that with the introductions of other new recurring characters at the time like the smuggler kingpin Talon Karrde and the red-headed ex-Imperial agent and future wife of Luke Skywalker, Mara Jade, Heir to the Empire is a required read for all fans of Star Wars. 

II. X-WING: ROGUE SQUADRON 

Ask anyone who has any passing knowledge on the subject to name three things associated with Star Wars and they’re guaranteed to list either Darth Vader, lightsabers or starfighters. While Star Wars is certainly not short on anything starring the heroic Jedi and their battles against the villainous Sith, pilots flying starfighters at high speed velocities through thunderous battles in the void of space has long been a favorite core aspect of the franchise since the beginning with A New Hope and the introduction of the X-Wing, the famous cross-winged starfighter utilized by Luke Skywalker to destroy the Galactic Empire’s dreaded Death Star battlestation. Launching from Bantam’s hangar bays in January, 1996 came Rogue Squadron, the first in the 10 book X-Wing series penned by former BattleTech scribe Michael A. Stackpole, a perfect fit for telling tales of hotshot fighter pilots in the galaxy far, far away (although he would only write half of the total volumes whilst letting the late Aaron Allston helm the ship for the rest). The story takes place after Return of the Jedi but before Heir to the Empire, starring veteran Rebel Alliance X-Wing pilot Wedge Antilles, who appeared as a recurring side character in the original film trilogy as Luke’s wingmate in A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, and again flying alongside Lando Calrissian and the Millennium Falcon in destroying the second Death Star in Episode VI (played onscreen by Scottish actor Denis Lawson). Billed by fans as Top Gun in the Star Wars universe, the plot centers on Wedge as he reassembles the eponymous Rogue Squadron which he and Luke previously commanded together, and acts as the lead up for the Rebel Alliance’s invasion of the Imperial capital world of Coruscant following Emperor Palpatine’s demise. The novel is also notable for the introduction of more recurring EU characters, including but not limited to ace pilot and future Jedi knight Corran Horn, his wife to be Mirax Terrik, and Gavin Darklighter (cousin to Biggs Darklighter who perished in the first Death Star battle in Episode IV). For those looking for a slightly more grounded military sci-fi take on Star Wars juxtaposed with thrilling fighter battles, Rogue Squadron and the rest of the X-Wing series afterwards has readers covered. 

III. DARTH BANE: PATH OF DESTRUCTION 

“Two there should be; no more, no less. One to embody the power, the other to crave it.” So said Darth Bane, the Dark Lord of the Sith, whose Rule of Two code was paraphrased ominously by Master Yoda in The Phantom Menace in 1999. The Sith, the dark reflection of the Jedi, are as powerful as they are elusive. While the Jedi operated under the conduct of master and apprentice pairs, the Sith for a millenia took this methodology to the extreme where only one strong master and a potentially stronger apprentice existed at any given time, whilst scheming in the shadows until their time to strike at the Jedi came after meticulous planning. But there was a time when that wasn’t entirely the case, where the Sith were more numerous and prone to slaughtering each other in their gluttonous plays for power besides from fighting the Jedi themselves - which is where Darth Bane came into play. The idea for the Sith Lord known as Bane first appeared courtesy of George Lucas and author Terry Brooks for the novelization of Episode I, and he would make his first proper physical appearance in the Jedi vs Sith series by Dark Horse Comics in 2001. But we would not fully know who Bane was as a character until September 26, 2006 when Canadian writer Drew Karpyshyn was given the pen to tell the Dark Lord’s story to completion. Set 1,000 years before the events of the films and published this time by Del Rey, Path of Destruction tells the origin of Darth Bane and his Rule of Two, starting from his humble beginnings as a mistreated miner, through his eventual ascension up the hierarchy of the Brotherhood of Darkness during the New Sith Wars where he carved his name into history as the man who destroyed the old order of Sith and started the one which ended with the reign of Darths Sidious and Vader. Like Heir to the Empire before it, Path of Destruction is also followed up by two sequels which further round out Bane’s story, Rule of Two and Dynasty of Evil, both of which were also written by Karpyshyn and altogether as the Darth Bane Trilogy are considered by fans as not just an excellent trio of Star Wars novels, but fantastic dark fantasy books in their own right. It also helped that Karpyshyn already had prior history with the franchise due to being the senior writer behind the video game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. And speaking of which… 

IV. KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC 

Star Wars and video games fit together as naturally as chocolate does to peanut butter in a Reese’s cup. Between the sorcery and lightsaber clashes of the Jedi and Sith, gunslinging bounty hunters and smugglers, to various aliens, starships, robots, giant monsters and an ever growing list of strange planets, the franchise was ripe for exploring further possibilities within the realm of gaming. George Lucas, innovator that he was, formed a younger sibling company to LucasFilm, LucasArts, to develop and publish video games for Star Wars and other properties. While plenty of Star Wars games were straight up adaptations of the films, a great many others took a page from the EU novels and comics where they crafted all new stories tied to the greater universe, putting players into the perspectives of characters old and new. And while there was and is definitely a considerable variety of Star Wars games from flight simulators, to shooters and action-adventure titles, LucasArts sniffed out a certain little studio from Edmonton, Alberta known as BioWare which was then given the keys to craft a Star Wars roleplaying game in the vein of Dungeons and Dragons in July 15, 2003 that to this day is hailed by many as one of the greatest Star Wars and RPG games of all time; Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR for short). Much like the previously mentioned Darth Bane Trilogy, KOTOR takes place in the distant past during a much more chaotic and violent time period in the Galaxy’s history. Set 4,000 years before the films, the Old Republic and the Jedi Order are besieged by the Sith Empire and their nigh unstoppable armada of dark side warriors and warships led by the game’s villain, the merciless Darth Malak. Put into the shoes of an amnesiatic Republic soldier gifted with the powers of the Force, you and a motley crew of Jedi, scoundrels, soldiers and droids joined to you by destiny embark on an adventure reminiscent of the films where all throughout you not only learn about the ancient histories of the Galaxy’s warring factions (including the fan favorite Mandalorians), but also who you the player are and where you fit in the greater tapestry. While there is certainly a canon way to play KOTOR, the game largely leaves you in the driver’s seat to weave events in motion by your decisions. Best part? Nowadays you can play the game everywhere, including on Nintendo Switch. And while the gameplay may not be the most polished, the story and characters of KOTOR are very much worth the price of admission alone and in a lot of ways even match the Star Wars movies themselves. And yes, it even has a sequel that’s just as well liked, Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords. 

V. CLONE WARS

For the longest time since it was first mentioned in A New Hope, the Clone Wars were an enigma in the Star Wars universe, what with that conflict being the centerpiece for the fall of the Old Republic, the Galactic Empire which rose in its place, and especially Anakin Skywalker’s decent into Darth Vader. While the second and third entries to the prequel trilogy, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, did feature the Clone Wars, they ultimately acted as the starting and ending bookends to it. Of course where the films lacked in this regard, the Expanded Universe made up for it with a battlefleet of material. In a similar vein to Shadows of the Empire in 1996, George Lucas greenlit the three year-long Clone Wars Multimedia Project from 2003-2005, which consisted of various novels, comics, video games, and finally an animated series… kind of. Enter the Clone Wars micro-series, directed by Samurai Jack creator Genndy Tartakovsky and first premiered on Cartoon Network. Divided into two volumes released in 2003 and 2005 respectively, the micro-series summarized the three years-long destructive conflict through traditional 2-D (and partial 3-D) animation which leaned heavily on visual storytelling, detailing various skirmishes between the clone and droid armies of the Republic and Separatist militaries. Most notably the micro-series showed Anakin’s ascension into the rank of Jedi Knight and introduced several major characters that nowadays are synonymous with the Clone Wars time period, such as the elite ARC Troopers (Advanced Recon Commandos), the cunning Sith assassin Asajj Ventress, the monstrous Gen’Dai bounty hunter Durge, and finally the vicious Kaleesh cyborg General Grievous. While the individual episodes as they aired were much shorter compared to traditional television shows (7 to 12 minutes long at the maximum), both volumes were released on DVD with their respective episodes tightly interwoven into the rough equivalent of two animated feature films. With the excellent, straight to the point visual storytelling and visceral fast paced battles, the Star Wars: Clone Wars micro-series is a brief but ultimately fun, undemanding little series that comfortably glues the prequel trilogy together where Episode II ends and Episode III begins.

VI. REPUBLIC COMMANDO

Jedi knights, crafty smugglers and daring starfighter pilots tend to be the more common character archetypes in the world of Star Wars with shockingly little amount of focus on ones who represent the common troopers who fight in the trenches, at least on the films’ side of things. While such characters were certainly present everywhere else in comics and novels, video games were the perfect playground for those who wanted to take fans down behind enemy lines to roleplay as the Galaxy’s ultimate soldiers. With the Clone Wars being the hot topic at the time and with Revenge of the Sith on the horizon, LucasArts on March 1, 2005 released such a title in the form of Star Wars: Republic Commando, a first-person squad based action shooter centered around a special ops variant of the white armored clone troopers. In the game you are placed under the T-visored helmet of “Boss”, leader of the elite clone commandos of Delta Squad, personally trained by Jango Fett himself and other Mandalorian mercenaries to stand leagues above the normal rank and file grunts. Accompanied by three of your fellow clone brothers Scorch, Fixer and Sev, you infiltrate and execute high risk operations against Separatist forces in combat zones set across three main chapters taking place at different points of the Clone Wars; from the desert world of Geonosis, to the Wookie homeworld of Kashyyyk and a beleaguered Republic assault ship. While it wasn’t a huge hit at release, Republic Commando has amassed a considerable cult fanbase over the years, both for its solid gameplay, gritty campaign, and endearing main protagonists (with Jango Fett actor Temuera Morrison voicing Boss). As a commando you have no access to the Force or lightsabers. It’s just you, your blasters, and ultimately your brothers. And if all of that sounds appealing to you and thought a video game was all there was, it just so happened that Republic Commando also spun off into its own series of novels, 5 in total, which further delved into the characters of not just the clones but also the fan favorite Mandalorian warriors, one of which is available in the collection, Order 66: A Republic Commando Novel, written by Karen Traviss. 

VII. DARK LORD: THE RISE OF DARTH VADER

If ever a character could ever be described as the face of the Star Wars franchise it is without a shadow of a doubt Darth Vader. Ever since his first appearance onscreen in 1977 with his caped, black armored physique, ghostly breathing and deep voice, the character has long captivated fans and audiences and endeared many more due to his tragic story; a troubled Jedi with the weight of the universe on his shoulders who fell into an abyss of both his and his dark master’s making, and was finally redeemed by the love of his son. Many tales have been written featuring Vader outside of the movies over the years across the Expanded Universe, but one particularly great entry by author James Luceno really took us into the character’s head with Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader, released by Del Rey on November 22, 2005, six months after the release of Revenge of the Sith. Taking place immediately after the film in question, Dark Lord details the very early days of Vader after Darth Sidious sealed his broken, burnt body into the walking coffin that is his cybernetic suit and mask following his crippling defeat to Obi-Wan Kenobi on the volcanic world of Mustafar, and is sent on a mission to hunt surviving Jedi in the wake of Order 66. At the same time the story flips back and forth to the perspectives of Jedi Master Roan Shryne and Padawan Olee Starstone, who are on the run from Palpatine’s new order and the crimson lightsaber of Darth Vader, like victims fleeing a killer in a slasher movie. While the Star Wars films themselves heavily feature Anakin Skywalker in his last years as the Sith Lord, Dark Lord is an entry worth reading as an immediate follow-up to Episode III for readers curious about the fallen Chosen One first adjusting to his time in the suit we’re all familiar with. 

VIII: JEDI KNIGHT II: JEDI OUTCAST

While a great many original characters came and went throughout the Star Wars Expanded Universe, several having their own dedicated series’ based on them as we all know, one character made a particular early impact from the video games and the greater EU with four titles under his belt. First making his debut in 1995’s Star Wars: Dark Forces by LucasArts (a first-person shooter game in similar vein as id Software’s Doom franchise) came Kyle Katarn, the Chuck Norris of the franchise. Katarn immediately became a fan favorite character for many, being a former Imperial stormtrooper turned mercenary, who in the aforementioned entry famously stole the Death Star plans for Princess Leia and sabotaged the Galactic Empire’s Dark Trooper battle droid project. Following this came the 1997 sequel Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight, where Katarn awakened his latent Jedi heritage to protect the Valley of the Jedi on planet Ruusan from Emperor Palpatine’s dark side inquisitors, the Force imbued resting place of long dead Jedi and Sith who perished 1,000 years previously in the New Sith Wars (the same time Darth Bane existed and was directly responsible for wiping out the old Sith). Come 2002 courtesy of Raven Software was the third entry, Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, which mixed first and third-person gameplay with expanded retro-shooter mechanics and at the time was the closest to simulating the playstyle of a Jedi in action, what with the use of Force powers to solve environmental puzzles and cause havoc upon hapless foes, and providing thrilling lightsaber combat that still feels satisfying to this day. The plot centers on the Imperial Remnant as they attempt to again harness the ancient Force energies of the Valley of the Jedi to create artificial dark side warriors known as the Reborn, led by Desann, a disgraced former Chistori student of Luke Skywalker. Holding the glue of the story together of course is the game’s returning protagonist, Kyle Katarn, the on again off again Jedi battlemaster with a no nonsense attitude and skills at a lightsaber and blaster to match, coming to grips with his place in the Force to both stop the Reborn from destroying Luke’s Jedi academy and rescue his love and partner Jan Ors from Imperial captivity. While not the first entry in this series, Jedi Outcast is still a great entry to jump into all the same, with a fun story starring a well liked character, accompanied also by beloved legacy characters Luke Skywalker and Lando Calrissian (complete with Billy Dee Williams reprising the role). And much like with KOTOR and its follow up, the direct sequel Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy is also available to immediately jump into afterwards on modern consoles.

IX. THE NEW JEDI ORDER: VECTOR PRIME

For many years the Star Wars franchise and the Expanded Universe post-Return of the Jedi focused on the New Republic and their struggles against the Imperial Remnant, the scattered remains of Palpatine’s ruined Empire, with the occasional separate alien threat that popped up every now and then. While 1999 saw the return of Star Wars on the big screen with The Phantom Menace, the EU took the series further into a direction that attempted to introduce a new threat for the legacy heroes to struggle against, one not native to the Galaxy in Vector Prime, the first entry in The New Jedi Order series (1999-2003), published by Del Rey on October 5, 1999 and written by popular Forgotten Realms scribe R. A. Salvatore. Set 21 years after Episode VI, Luke Skywalker has since formed a new order of Jedi, with members including but not limited to his wife Mara Jade and niece and nephews (the twins Jaina and Jacen Solo, and their younger brother Anakin). What starts as another in the long list of diplomatic troubles for the New Republic in the Osarian system, and even internal competing philosophies on the methods keeping the peace by the Jedi within the Skywalker-Solo clan, turns into a new nightmare with the invasion of the Yuuzhan Vong, a grimdark faction of aliens which snuck through the boundaries of the known Galaxy via the mysterious Unknown Regions. Caught by surprise from their religious zeal and mastery over eldritch bio-technology completely foreign to everyone, the Vong enact a new conflict that greatly reshaped the Star Wars universe as it was at the time, and the repercussions especially impacted characters many knew and loved, for better or worse. 

X. LEGACY

Comic books have been joined at the hip of Star Wars for as long as lightsabers have been strapped to Jedi robes, with comic tie-ins to the films appearing almost immediately after the franchise’s debut in 1977. While Marvel was the first publisher of issues expanding upon George Lucas’s mythos in the early days, Dark Horse Comics reigned as the main sequential storytellers from the 1990s all the way up to the 2010s, much of which introduced core Expanded Universe lore that dripped into Lucas’s films themselves. While stories detailing the Galaxy’s wartorn history from the ancient days of the Great Sith War, to the Clone Wars and Galactic Civil War are certainly plentiful and varied, very few ever took the plunge into telling a Star Wars story set further into the future passed a 100 years timespan post-Return of the Jedi. Enter John Ostrander and Jan Duursema with Star Wars: Legacy, published from June 2006-August 2010, and set 130 years after the movies in a galaxy that is simultaneously quite familiar and very different from the one we’re familiar with. The series follows Cade Skywalker, the scruffy descendant of Luke and Mara Jade Skywalker who survives the New Jedi Order getting sundered by the new One Sith order led by main antagonist Darth Krayt. Jaded and living amongst bounty hunters and pirates, Cade grapples with re-embracing his family heritage and the baggage that comes with it, and doing right not just for himself but for the universe he calls home. While certainly an edgier series compared to others both in tone and visuals, Legacy is still a must read due to its more fresh setting and the character of Cade rising up from the deluge to strike back against the One Sith with a united front composed of surviving Jedi and Imperial Knights of the Galactic Alliance and the Fel Empire (the modern reorganized and reformed descendants of the New Republic and the Galactic Empire respectively). All told, Legacy was a window into a future Star Wars could have and perhaps should have gone. 

Whether you are newly discovering the Star Wars universe or are a longtime fan seeking to revisit its expansive mythology, the Winter Park Library offers a wide range of Star Wars media available for checkout—including books, graphic novels, films, and video games. To further celebrate this enduring cultural phenomenon, we invite you to join us on May the Fourth for a special screening of Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back in honor of its 45th anniversary, beginning at 2:30 PM. We hope you’ll take this opportunity to explore the legacy of Star Wars through our collections and community celebration.