Organization of the Bantam Novels

[Falconer]

Here’s how I think of the Bantam series:

THE THREE-BOOK CYCLE (1991-1994)
1)  Heir to the Empire	Timothy Zahn
2)  Dark Force Rising	Timothy Zahn
3)  The Last Command	Timothy Zahn
4)  Hammertong	Timothy Zahn
THE TWELVE-BOOK SERIES (1994-1997)
1)  The Truce at Bakura	Kathy Tyers
2)  The Courtship of Princess Leia	Dave Wolverton
3)  The Jedi Academy Trilogy	Kevin J. Anderson
4)  The Crystal Star	Vonda N. McIntyre
5)  Children of the Jedi	Barbara Hambly
6)  The Corellian Trilogy	Roger MacBride Allen
7)  Darksaber	Kevin J. Anderson
8)  Shadows of the Empire	Steve Perry
9)  The New Rebellion	Kristine Kathryn Rusch
10)  The Black Fleet Crisis	Michael P. Kube-McDowell
11)  Planet of Twilight	Barbara Hambly
THE MINI-CANON (1995-1999)
1)  Rogue Squadron	Michael Stackpole
2)  Wedge’s Gamble	Michael Stackpole
3)  The Krytos Trap	Michael Stackpole
4)  The Bacta War	Michael Stackpole
5)  Specter of the Past	Timothy Zahn
6)  Wraith Squadron	Aaron Allston
7)  I, Jedi	Michael Stackpole
8)  Iron Fist	Aaron Allston
9)  Vision of the Future	Timothy Zahn
10)  Solo Command	Aaron Allston
11)  Isard’s Revenge	Michael Stackpole
12)  Starfighters of Adumar	Aaron Allston
MISCELLANEOUS (1995-1999)
Tales (5 collections)	various
The Han Solo Trilogy	Ann C. Crispin
The Bounty Hunter Wars (trilogy)	H.W. Jeter

[Falconer]

Here’s my explanation.

“Hammertong”: An unabridged audio production of this story was included in the 1994 Thrawn trilogy audio cassette collection. The text was later included in the Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina collection. It is the “origin story” of a minor character from The Last Command—Shada—who would later go on to be a main character in later novels.

“The Twelve-book Series”: In an interview with Timothy Zahn from 1994, he says that, after The Thrawn Trilogy, “Bantam is doing 12 more books. I have tentatively agreed to do the last of the 12. At the moment I’ve got, I think, a fair idea for a story that would bring back several of my characters from the trilogy.” (February 1994, Star Wars Adventure Journal, Vol. 1, Issue 1, “From Heir to Last Command” by Ilene Rosenberg, p. 52.) So here I have listed the eleven novels which were published between The Last Command and Specter of the Past, treating trilogies as single books (in which form indeed they were published by the SF Book Club). The Hand of Thrawn would be the 12th book, of course, but it was published as two books (Specter of the Past and Vision of the Future), but I have included them in a separate section. These 11 books are of notoriously uneven quality, and while Zahn references them in passing in The Hand of Thrawn, he doesn’t incorporate their ideas in any substantial fashion, and in many ways works to repudiate them, it seems to me. I haven’t read any of them; any favorites?

“The Mini-Canon”: These authors famously worked closely together to right the ship. The cheese factor is low, and if you like the Thrawn trilogy, you’ll likely like these. They incorporated each others’ characters and ideas, especially starting with The Bacta War.

“Miscellaneous”: Well, it’s short stories and prequels which came out after the twelve-book series.

[Falconer]

Most of the best short stories from Star Wars Adventure Journal (periodical from West End Games) were reprinted in the Tales collections (albeit the SWAJ originals were accompanied with illustrations and RPG stats and hooks). However, two of the best stories from SWAJ, both written by Timothy Zahn, were not reprinted in the Tales books:

Mist Encounter (Adventure Journal 7)

Command Decision (Adventure Journal 11)

These should ideally be read before Vision of the Future, but I didn’t and I still enjoyed them.

[finarvyn]

Jul 6, 2018 9:46:46 GMT -6 Falconer said:

“Hammertong”: An unabridged audio production of this story was included in the 1994 Thrawn trilogy audio cassette collection. The text was later included in the Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina collection. It is the “origin story” of a minor character from The Last Command—Shada—who would later go on to be a main character in later novels.

Huh. This is the first that I've heard of "Hammertong." 

I'll confess that I owned (but never read) some of the "Tales" anthologies. I got rid of most of my non-Zahn SW books in a great purge a few years back.

[rafael]

I misread "tong" for... Something else. That was one fun moment of bewilderment.

[finarvyn]

Funny that the "twelve book series" only goes to eleven. And that two of the "books" are actually trilogies, so the "twelve book series" could instead be counted up to fifteen. Neither number is twelve.

[Falconer]

See my second post!

[finarvyn]

Funny, but I swear I thought I had read that post thoroughly. I guess the answer is that "Hand of Thrawn" duology would be included as the 12th "book" in the grouping. Somehow I missed that the first time through.

[Starbeard]

Nice list! Good reasoning behind it.

I've now just finished the Thrawn trilogy, plus The Truce at Bakura (as an aside: the Thrawn books were lots of fun, but Bakura was a hard slog; it kept tilting dangerously into Romance Novel territory, and the Force seemed to be the author's main vehicle for that. The Force was definitely presented as a touchy-feely form of psychic emotional connection, like the sappier stuff in Elf Quest).

In order to decide what to read next, I've been perusing this list and the list of Star Wars novels by publication date on Wookieepedia (link). I started to notice some vague patterns in the release dates, which got me thinking whether or not book publishing has a traditional set of seasons.

Apparently they do. From what I gather, there are 3 seasons: Winter (December-March), Spring (April-May), and Fall (October-November). The summer months of June-September are traditionally the "off" season: sales are lower, but there's also less competition (i.e., you need to sell fewer copies for it to make the best seller list); so, the dead part of the year might be the time to send out your products that would otherwise get swallowed up by your main line of books, or which need the extra shelf time to gather up sales all the way through the Fall.

I put together a chart of the Bantam era books, by sale season. I found it interesting that the big trilogies tended to follow a specific format: the first and last book fell in the big Winter and Spring seasons, and the middle book fell into the dead summer months. I'll bet that was conscious, as if they knew that the second book would always be the hardest sell.

I think I also noticed some patterns in the release of standalone novels, too: The Crystal Star was conspicuously timed alongside the conclusion of The Jedi Academy trilogy, furthering the Han-Leia-Twins saga; same goes for New Rebellion and the Black Fleet Crisis trilogy, which is what it is supposed to launch off of. There's another pairing between I, Jedi and the end of the Han Solo trilogy, and Darksaber with the Corellian trilogy, though those aren't related in chronology or story. But I think that helps make it clear that both novels were intended to be part of the list of heavy hitters, that series of 12 that Zahn mentioned.

We can include Children of the Jedi and Planet of Twilight to that list as well, since 1) they were released during the "on" seasons, and 2) even though they don't form a trilogy with Darksaber, they are directly related in that all apparently involve the character Callista Ming, and therefore form the "Ming Cycle" of books.

Anyway, if we ignore the fact that the Ming Cycle isn't a true trilogy and consider it a single entry anyway, I think we can come up with a 13 book series that looks like this (remember, it's 13 books because Zahn said there were going to be 12 more after his original trilogy):

1. The Thrawn Trilogy

2. The Truce at Bakura

3. The Courtship of Princess Leia

4. The Jedi Academy Trilogy

5. The Crystal Star

6. The Corellian Trilogy

7. The Ming Cycle

8. Shadows of the Empire

9. The Black Fleet Crisis Trilogy

10. The New Rebellion

11. The Han Solo Trilogy

12. I, Jedi

13. The Hand of Thrawn Duology

Personally, I like patterns and I think it might look even better if we shimmy it around so that it alternates series-novel-series-novel, by bumping Courtship after the Jedi Academy trilogy and Crystal Star between the Corellian and Ming series. It's not perfect, since Crystal Star is supposed to follow off of Jedi Academy, but there's already a lot of chronological skipping about, anyway.

If you want to take the books chronologically, but keeping the Thrawn books as the bookends to lend some Zahnian weight to the whole thing, then maybe this would be the list:

1. The Thrawn Trilogy

2. The Truce at Bakura
3. The Courtship of Princess Leia

- [Thrawn Trilogy would normally go here]-

4. The Jedi Academy Trilogy

5. I, Jedi

6. The Ming Cycle

7. The Crystal Star

8. The Black Fleet Crisis Trilogy

9. The New Rebellion

10. The Corellian Trilogy

- [pause here for prequels that draw ties between 10 and 13, by exploring both Han's past and the legacy of the Empire] -

11. The Han Solo Trilogy

12. Shadows of the Empire

13. The Hand of Thrawn Duology

[Falconer]

Starbeard , is there a reason you don’t include the X-Wing series? I loved it!

[Starbeard]

Sept 9, 2019 10:07:53 GMT -6 Falconer said:

Starbeard , is there a reason you don’t include the X-Wing series? I loved it!

Only because that deserves its own reading! This list focuses just on what appear to have been the A-list showcase novels, where X-Wing was its own thing, churned out on a set schedule; like the difference between the Star Wars TV shows now being punctuated by blockbuster movies.

Of course, as I read through the "real" main attraction EU novels, I'm realizing just how consistently better the "side" X-Wing series really is. If someone wanted to read classic EU and actually enjoy themselves, I'd point them to X-Wing and maybe the Tales anthologies, not the continuing adventures of Luke & Co (except for Thrawn, of course).

Or, put another way: your Thrawn Cycle + the mini-canon are what have really turned out to be the crowning achievement of the classic EU.

[Falconer]

Sept 9, 2019 15:46:20 GMT -6 Starbeard said:

Or, put another way: your Thrawn Cycle + the mini-canon are what have really turned out to be the crowning achievement of the classic EU.

So I’ve always heard, which is why those are the only ones I’ve read!

Actually, I really like to intersperse the (older Del Rey) Brian Daley novels, because I miss that old school Han & Chewie feel:


Thrawn: Heir to the Empire
Thrawn: Dark Force Rising
Thrawn: The Last Command
Thrawn: Hammertong

X-Wing: Rogue Squadron
X-Wing: Wedge’s Gamble
X-Wing: The Krytos Trap

X-Wing: The Bacta War
Han Solo: Han Solo at Stars’ End
Han Solo: Han Solo’s Revenge

Thrawn: Specter of the Past
X-Wing: Wraith Squadron
Han Solo: Han Solo and the Lost Legacy

X-Wing: I, Jedi
X-Wing: Iron Fist
Thrawn: Vision of the Future

X-Wing: Solo Command
X-Wing: Isard’s Revenge
X-Wing: Starfighters of Adumar

[Falconer]

Here are the Goodreads rankings:


4.22 The Last Command

4.16 Dark Force Rising
4.14 Heir to the Empire
4.10 Wraith Squadron

4.07 Vision of the Future
4.04 Iron First
4.03 Rogue Squadron
4.02 The Bacta War
4.02 Starfighters of Adumar
4.02 Solo Command

3.99 Specter of the Past
3.99 I, Jedi
3.97 Wedge’s Gamble
3.96 The Krytos Trap
3.95 Isard’s Revenge
3.92 Rebel Dawn

3.88 The Paradise Snare
3.88 The Hutt Gambit
3.82 Shadows of the Empire

3.77 Tales of the Bounty Hunters

3.68 Champions of the Force
3.66 Tales from Jabba’s Palace
3.65 Slave Ship
3.65 Jedi Search
3.65 Hard Merchandise
3.64 Dark Apprentice
3.62 Tales from the Empire
3.61 The Mandalorian Armor
3.61 Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina
3.60 The Courtship of Princess Leia

3.58 Showdown at Centerpoint
3.56 Ambush at Corellia
3.54 Assault at Selonia
3.52 Tales from the New Republic

3.45 The New Rebellion
3.42 Tyrant’s Test
3.41 The Truce at Bakura
3.41 Darksaber
3.40 Shield of Lies

3.39 Before the Storm

3.27 Children of the Jedi

3.10 The Crystal Star

3.03 Planet of Twilight


A decent indicator of popularity, if not quality. I have some quibbles, but thousands (in some cases tens of thousands) of votes should count for something.