I just finished reading Star Wars: The New Jedi Order: Vector Prime, by R. A. Salvatore. I thought that the book was pretty good. The story involves the original Star Wars cast and, of course, some new people.
The main new Jedi include Han Solo and Princess Leia's kids. They have three teenagers who are strong with the Force. Jaina and Jacen are twins. Jaina is a totally cocky girl Jedi who's the best pilot in the galaxy. Jacen is very philosophical about the meaning of the Force. The youngest, Anakin, is fifteen. He's headstrong like his grandfather.
There's also Luke Skywalker's wife, Mara Jade Skywalker, who is powerful with the Force as well. Unfortunately, she's been poisoned. She uses the Force to hold off the poison from completely killing her right away.
There's also some new Jedi who are roaming the galaxy. They're kind of like wild west heros that do whatever they think is best. Luke is attempting to rebuild the Jedi Council in order to unite and organize the Jedi.
There's a strange new enemy that our heros encounter in this story, the Yuuzhan Vong. They're organic beings that hate technology. They're blindly religious and seem to be a warlike society. They abhor droids because they believe they're a blasphemy against their organic ways of living. These Yuuzhan Vong are not Vietnamese, but they're strange humanoid beings that only use organic things as weapons and ships.
It's amazing how all the Star Wars books are so cohesive. All the writers seem to know the history of all the characters from all the other Star Wars novels. This really makes the Star Wars universe seem real. I guess they don't want to piss off any nerdy fans who point out every single error at those dorky Star Wars Celebration conventions.
Personally, I liked the Timothy Zahn novels, The Thrawn Trilogy, better. It included the books, Heir to the Throne, Dark Force Rising, and The Last Command. That series takes place about 9 years after Episode IV: A New Hope. I really relived my Star Wars moments with those books since it had all my favorite characters.
Even though the books are amazing, I still love the Star Wars movies more. Star Wars is meant to be a cinematic experience. The special effects are supposed to blow you away. With the books, you have to use your imagination and memories from the past movies to make the books fun.
Nevertheless, it was cool to see my favorite characters again and read about their other adventures. Han, Leia, and Luke seem to be getting old now though.
What I don't like about Star Wars books and science fiction and fantasy books, in general, is reading all those strange names. It's almost like learning a new fake language.
The biggest surprise in this book is that our beloved Chewbacca dies. A lot of nerds were outraged by this and actually sent death threat letters to R. A. Salvatore.
What I didn't like about the book was reading about teenage Jedi angst.
I love Star Wars. I think it's my favorite movie series. I wish I didn't chop off my Star Wars action figures' heads when I was a kid though. After I had battles with my action figures, I chopped their heads off. I pretended that Darth Vader killed Yoda and chopped off his head. Then I pretended that Luke chopped off Vader's head. I kept doing it one day, until I chopped all their heads off. In the end, everyone died. I buried them in my backyard in La Canada. I wonder if the new owners found all my buried Star Wars action figures with missing heads. No wonder my parents never bought me any toys. I always had to make my own paper action figures and ships after that.
I recommend reading Vector Prime to all you Star Wars fans. If you want to read it, let me know. I'll send you a copy.
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