How many of you read the star wars novels

Have many of you ever gotten into the star wars books and what not and if so what do you think of them.

I have often thought about trying to read a few of them but there are a few things that hold me back and keep me from seeking them out.

Alot of them are written by different authors so I wasn't sure if all the books would contradict eachother or if all of them follow one storyline.

Also there are so many of them that it is hard to figure out which one to get. If they all follow one storyline I would want to try to read them all in order. So does anyone know of a website somewhere that tells you in which order you should read them if you want to follow that storyline.

Here's a good order to get you started.

Begin with Shadows of the Empire, which takes place between TESB and RotJ. Good read, and the game is based on it.

Then go in this order, if you want the important stuff (there are things like the X-Wing series, but that doesn't give much new plot):
(hyphens show same series)
The Truce at Bakura
The Courtship of Princess Leia
(The Admiral Thrawn Trilogy)
-Heir to the Empire
-Dark Force Rising
-The Last Command
(The Jedi Academy Trilogy)
-Jedi Search
-Dark Apprentice
-Champions of the Force
I, Jedi
Children of the Jedi
Darksaber
The Crystal Star
(The Black Fleet Crisis Trilogy)
-Before the Storm
-Shield of Lies
-Tyrant's Test
The New Rebellion
(The Hand of Thrawn Saga)
-Specter of the Past
-Vision of the Future

With VotF, that ends the main part of the Star Wars concept - the war between the Alliance and the Empire. After that comes the New Jedi Order books, which the most important opening one is probably Vector Prime, which has such an improbable event as you will find. I won't give it away, but when I read it 3 or 4 years ago, I cried. :p

I own about 50 of them, so yeah. :D Most of them are great books, and while they all have individual storylines, they're kept within the same universe and almost never contradict each other. If you look in any of the books printed in recent years there's a timeline within the first few pages that will tell you where each book fits into a period of several decades (not including the novels that take place before the movies, or we're going waaaaay back.)

I read four of them when I was younger. The Jedi Academy series, and one other.

They're pretty poorly written. Ok for fans, but I wouldn't recommend them to the casual reader.

I don't read; reading leads to more knowledge. xD

I've read a couple over the years, mainly just picking them up because I didnt have anything else to read. I enjoyed them, but there's some pretty dumb melodrama that goes on in some of them so I'm not an avid reader.

I know I read the Showdown at Centre Point trilogy, and some more, but I cant remember which.

I read the Thrawn trilogy but I don't remember much of it anymore, I liked it but that may just be that I'm a big starwars fan, I was raised on those movies.

Timothy Zahn's novels are by far the best ones I've read. On the whole I wouldn't say many of the books, with the exception of the Young/Junior Jedi Knights, are poorly written. A few other books are dull, but on average they're somewhere between decent and excellent. If you're not a fan, though, you probably won't get much entertainment out of them.

rogue squadron was pretty boring but i read with anticipation until i stopped

read that one where luke had to vomit poison eggs or something

also some assasin called mara or something

that's all i remember
but when i was 10 i read everyone of those huge things that i could find in my school library
my teacher told me i couldnt do reports on star wars books after a while

Mara Jade! Egome Fass! Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina!

man, only a nerd would read those books. :D

Oh yes, Mara Jade, Luke's (SPOILER)future wife. I couldnt stand her.

I remember reading one Star Wars book a long time ago. I couldn't tell you what's it called, but I remember it had some dude that wanted to be like Darth Vader real bad, and had this glove that emitted some high-pitched frequency that elicited the same effect as Vader's "I find your lack of faith disturbing" throat-closing act.

Star Wars novels? O____O

oh yeah that one ship that made stars go supernova or something
and at the end the guy packed himself into a message shuttle by breaking his bones

I also think it depends on your age... I read like 30 or so when I was in middle school (I tend to read alot). They were enjoyable for me, from what I can remember, but I do think you'd need to be a Star Wars fan. I stopped reading after Shield of Lies, I think, because the main characters were getting old and decrepit. It made me sad. Also there was one that was really poorly written. I think it was Darksaber, Crystal Star, or Children of the Jedi. It involved Luke being trapped in a ship with a phantom jedi chick. It was significantly worse than any of the others, though, in my opinion.

I read them, yes. I've read so many, I don't have a clue what the number would be now. Great books, although some of them, I admit, are boring. Like Vector Prime, that turned me off from the New Jedi Order series, as it was boring. It took the whole book to sum up something that could be written in 5-10 chapters.

I don't like the ones after Return of the Jedi, so all the ones I've read were before A New Hope.

The han solo ones, by wossname and Ann C. Crispin were good, though.
(I can't remember what wossname's name was, but they were stuff like Han Solo at Stars' End and such)

Brian Daley. :)

My favourites are Timothy Zahn's Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, and The Last Command (these three novels also known as the Thrawn Trilogy), because there are memorable characters and a good story that's faithful to the Star Wars saga. Some of the Star Wars novels I've read have been quite good, and others have been awful, but I've liked reading most of them nevertheless.