Books for people who liked Star Wars

Probably not the novelization of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace by Terry Brooks.

Also probably not The Glove of Vader series about the guy with three eyes who's like "I'm the...son...of...the Emperor because I have like three eyes or something and I found Vader's glove and it has magic Force powers or something, I think, so I'm basically the new bad guy", and then there's like some asshole called Zorba the Hutt who's like "I'm like Jabba only not dead yet", and then it turns out that the actual son of the emperor is this dude with three eyes only his third eye is in the back of his head instead of three eyes in the front of his head like the bad guy who found Vader's glove or that guy with the hat from that episode of The Twilight Zone where everyone's like "let's all accuse each other of being aliens because it's a bottle episode and one of us must be the alien who crash-landed his space ship nearby" and he's all like "hey I'm the Emperor's real son, the other guy is lying, and I'm probably not evil but honestly I don't even give enough of a shit to remember and now there's going to be an anticlimactic ending to the series or something I think".  Because those sucked.

Also probably not the series of books about Qui-Gon training Obi-Wan, because those probably weren't good either.

That's all the Star Wars books I've read, so I'm afraid I can't help you if you're looking for good EU books.  If you want a different (albeit pretty tonally different) space opera epic to read though, there's Leviathan Wakes, the first book in the Expanse series, which is being made into that new SyFy show The Expanse that's getting really good reviews.  I'm reading it right now and it's getting to be pretty decent, and everyone I've talked to on here who's actually read the books that are currently out in the series (as opposed to the first ~250 pages of the first book like me) has enjoyed them.

Most of the EU (including the Thrawn trilogy and pretty much all of the books) is no longer canon.

Oh yeah, but I think Shadows of the Empire isn't part of the official canon either, for whatever that's worth.  And I think I remember reading that The Glove of Vader was, at least tacitly viewed as non-canon even before Disney's purchase of the Star Wars franchise, because it was so terrible.

Yeah, I think you're right re: what is and isn't officially canon at this point.  And I was unaware that characters from the Glove of Vader series show up in other books, as I haven't read much EU stuff.

He might actually be the only one, and his non-Glove of Vader appearances are few and relatively minor, mostly mentions of him existing as opposed to him actually appearing in the book as a character.

My favorite part of the EU is probably the old Marvel Comics series, which is just the writers having fun in the Star Wars universe without real concern for the wider implications. As a result, there's some stuff in there that is completely contradicted by later material, and other stuff that utterly ridiculous, but it's also some of the most fun Star Wars stuff out there. It was collected relatively recently in five omnibus volumes that were subtitled "A long time ago"; the first is this one, to give you an idea of what to look for if you're interested:

www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-Omnibus-Long-Boxed-ebook/dp/B00PJ2CEIK/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1450791024&sr=1-3&keywords=star+wars+a+long+time+ago

That one starts with the adaptation of the first movie, but goes off on its own direction afterwards.

EDIT: Note that that's a link to the kindle version.

This could be a bit of a long shot, but China Mieville's Railsea feels similar, although it's steampunk as opposed to sci-fi. Imagine a post-apocalyptic world that's a massive desert covered in train tracks. It's like Mad Max meets Moby Dick meets Treasure Island. You've got some scrappy youths as your protagonists, a whole bunch of desert train pirates chasing them down, giant monster carnage, friendship, adventure, all that good stuff. I remember it being enjoyable in the same way as Star Wars a lot of the time.

I'm going to say Lois McNaster Bujold's The Warrior's Apprentice.

Really, many of the Vorkosigan series of books would work (and can be read in various different orders) but that's a solid introduction; you have an unlikely young would-be hero from a feudal backwater of a planet who finds himself swept up in galactic adventure. There's no aliens and it's kind of on the mil sci-fi end of space opera, but it's in space, it's snappy, succinct and fast-moving with likeable characters, which I think are elements typical of Star Wars in general and the Force Awakens in particular.


I feel like this would be one of my top recommendations for Star Trek, especially Next Generation.

Going into some Golden / Silver Age SF -

Doc Smith's Lensman series are classic space opera.  An organization of (more-or-less) force users are the backbone of the Galactic Patrol. Also has some of the planned breeding of Dune -  Ancient aliens seed planets and nurture the development of races that can fight of an invading threat to the galaxy.

Edmond Hamilton's Star Wolf  trilogy - Natives of a heavy gravity planet develop a 'viking raider / pirate' culture because they're able to withstand higher acceleration forces in their starcraft.  One raider is exiled after a dispute with another Star Wolf and goes on the lam.  Incorporates some 'hard sf', but mostly gritty.

Glen Cook's Starfishers - Space Mercenary family / business.  Gritty, and focused more on the 'grunts'.  Trilogy, with a one-off about the crews of space 'submarines' (the ships are able to more-or-less compress down to an undetectable size.  Very Das Boot)

Donaldson's Gap sequence - already recommended, but I'll add that it's explicitly Wagner's Ring cycle in space.  Very bleak in parts, but there are a lot of reversals. Has a lot of the trademarked Donaldson mix of morally repugnant heroes and devoutly principled leads, and a lot of viciousness on the part of all of them.  Well written, overall - you can practically hear Wagner's music in the background of most of it.

John Steakley's Armor - a split story about a space scoundrel type (in the book's present) and a power-armored Marine fighting in a war against bug-like aliens (in the book's near-past).  Very 'grunt' focused - almost an incredibly gritty response to Starship Troopers.  Light on politics, heavy on the PTSD and coping.  Also shares some of the thread of the Gap Sequence, with characters aware of their reputation and the stories around them as part of / separate from their actual personalities.

Julian May's Saga of Pliocene Exile / Galactic Milieu - Best read in publication order, starting with The Many Colored Land.  In 'the very near future' a galactic coalition invites Earth to join after humans develop psychic powers on a large enough scale to be noticed.  Humanity is very much the young, upstart culture.  Humans are expected to join in the galactic 'group consciousness' and become well-adjusted members of society.  In the Pliocene books, a time disturbance is discovered in the Rhone valley, and researchers develop a 'portal' that can send things back to the Pliocene, but things coming forward are aged by the trip, so it's a one way journey.  Non-psychosensitive people who can't adapt to galactic society are offered a choice of death or exile to the past.  The books follow the exploits of one of the weekly groups who are sent back, and what they discover there. (The back covers of the books may spoil some of the plot, but nothing too horrible. Also, these books cemented my general rule that if books had maps and Whelan cover art, they were probably going to be great. Track down The Pliocene Companion, too - lots of background on the philosophical stuff May researched for the books, in addition to more info about the setting / characters.)

The other books go back and cover humanity's development of psychic powers, focusing on a Kennedy-esque 'first family' of psychics, the initial contact with the Milieu, and the revolt by a group of psychics who reject joining the group mind.  Some of the villains are monstrous, but most are just on the other side of a violent philosophical argument.

May goes into a lot of detail about how psychic abilities work - heavy on real world philosophies, mythologies and religions.  She spent years developing background for the whole thing, and throws in a lot of detail about music, food and other fiddly bits.  It's a real joy to read - heavily on the 'operatic' side of space opera, lots of conflicted emotions and noble sacrifice.  One of the few big space operas written by a woman, too, so most of the female characters are well developed, the leads are a fair mix of genders and species and few, if any, characters exist solely to be injured as a spur to action for another.  I can't recommend this series enough.  I'm itching to go back and read it again after writing this.