Finished this today and wrapped up phase 2 with it except for edge of balance.
Will be interestinv to see how phase 3 will bring things home. For phase 2 I think the 2 ya "path" novels are the nost essential reading, but as mentioned before, the narrative o the Main Story oc this era is far more spread out about the different Formats than in phase 1 where the adult novels carried the most weight storywise
I have about 275 pages of Cataclysm left to go, plus the final few issues if High Republic Adventure comics yet to come out, before I'm done phase 2 and I generally agree with the YA assessment from what I've seen so far, but I'm definitely excited to see what Phase 3 does with all the strands. Gonna be a loooooong couple years!
I have about 275 pages of Cataclysm left to go, plus the final few issues if High Republic Adventure comics yet to come out, before I'm done phase 2 and I generally agree with the YA assessment from what I've seen so far, but I'm definitely excited to see what Phase 3 does with all the strands. Gonna be a loooooong couple years!
I enjoyed The Blade much more on a collected second reading then I did reading it monthly at first. It still feels like an odd outlier for Phase 2, but I imagine it's more about setting up Porter Engle's Phase 3 story than connecting with the rest of Phase 2.
Trying to get up on my clone wars and rebel knowledge before ahsoka since i've never seen those. Since i do not want to see the clone wars 140+ episodes i found this helpful
So Im not a big Clone Wars (2008) fan. There are individual arc's that are great, but as a whole (imo) it devaulues Star Wars as a whole by introducing idiotic plot points, and playing fast and loose with lore. Filoni treats characters that aren't established in the films as malleable objects he can apply any backstory or personality to. Are you an established character from the novels? Doesn't matter, here's a new personality, age, basiclly a new character. Before the continuity reset Filoni would kill characters off in his show who appear in later novels, just pissing off the EU writers as a whole. The show is like his Star Wars fan fiction, starring his OC, just shoved into canon without regard for impact. (Granted, it fits better now with the continuity reset, and Disney basically tailoring their new lore around it, but that's more forcing the lore to adapt around you then you adhering to it). I have similar feelings about Rebels.
That said I was/am a big fan of The Mandalorian and was looking forward for years to seeing Ahsoka...now I havent watched it yet, but reading plot details of what's happened so far online, namely Filoni reintroducing the most asinine, bullshit plot device to ever make it's way into Star Wars Lore
The world between fucking worlds, aka time travel
.
The good news; this kickstarted me back into a desire for good Star Wars material and I finally cracked open Path of Deceit (technically got about 40 pages in before putting it on pause). Feels good to be back engaging in solid original SW content.
So Im not a big Clone Wars (2008) fan. There are individual arc's that are great, but as a whole (imo) it devaulues Star Wars as a whole by introducing idiotic plot points, and playing fast and loose with lore. Filoni treats characters that aren't established in the films as malleable objects he can apply any backstory or personality to. Are you an established character from the novels? Doesn't matter, here's a new personality, age, basiclly a new character. Before the continuity reset Filoni would kill characters off in his show who appear in later novels, just pissing off the EU writers as a whole. The show is like his Star Wars fan fiction, starring his OC, just shoved into canon without regard for impact. (Granted, it fits better now with the continuity reset, and Disney basically tailoring their new lore around it, but that's more forcing the lore to adapt around you then you adhering to it). I have similar feelings about Rebels.
That said I was/am a big fan of The Mandalorian and was looking forward for years to seeing Ahsoka...now I havent watched it yet, but reading plot details of what's happened so far online, namely Filoni reintroducing the most asinine, bullshit plot device to ever make it's way into Star Wars Lore
The world between fucking worlds, aka time travel
.
The good news; this kickstarted me back into a desire for good Star Wars material and I finally cracked open Path of Deceit (technically got about 40 pages in before putting it on pause). Feels good to be back engaging in solid original SW content.
For comics, Dark Hose's flagship SW series "Star Wars: Republic", written by the legendary John Ostrander is brilliant, and has several spin-ff miniseries. Half the time it follows Obi Wan and Anakin through major battles of the Clone Wars, and the other time follows Quinlan Voss and his padawan Ayaala Secura as they struggle with the moral dilemas of war. Ostrander is awesome; Lucas himself was a fan of the series and included Ayaala's Order 66 scene in ROTS as an homage.
The novels are gonna be more character focused. Shatterpoint is arguably the best standalone SW book ever written, and easily the best depiction of Windu. It's basically Apocolypse Now/Hearts of Darkness in the Clone Wars. I'm also a big fan of the Medstar duology; it follows Barris Ofree as a Jedi battle medic operating on the front lines. There's really nothing else like it in Star Wars literature. Yoda: Dark Rendevous is another good one. If you want to get the boots-on-the-ground Clone perspective you have the Republic Commando series, which I admitatly have not read (but would very much like to someday). Big cult following for that series and it's associated video game.
And then finally theres the Genndy Tartakovky microseries which aired in 3 minute increments and is a much better watch nowadays (since you can just watch them all in one go on Disney Plus). It's quick, but it's great.
So yeah, there's no real "starting point", you just pick what you're interested in, and chances are it'll be pretty good. I could write more about material covering the end of the war and the transition to the Empire, but that's another topic entirely
