Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well. Today I'm starting a series chronicling the history of Star Wars novels from their beginnings in the mid to late '70s to when Disney ended the original Expanded Universe, now known as Legends, in 2014. This topic is vast, so I'm splitting it up into twelve parts, each one covering a particular block or series of books in publication order. I don't know if I'm doing this weekly like I have other overview series that I've done over the years, but it will be something that I put out semi-regularly. Of course, I'm starting at the very beginning. So let's get into it.
The Expanded Universe was the backbone of the Star Wars franchise for a good chunk of my life because while the Original Trilogy had wrapped up in 1983, and the cartoons and TV movies were all finished by 1986, there was still an appetite for stories set in this universe, even if mainstream audiences had forgotten about it once the movies were over. These books, comics, video games, and short stories helped to fill in the gaps left by time constraints in the movies. Some dealt with the backstory of characters like Han Solo and Lando Calrissian, others dealt with what was happening in the universe after Return of the Jedi, and the rest simply filled in what the characters might've been doing between the movies. Like how Luke got a new Lightsaber between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, and how the Rebels abandoned Yavin IV and found Echo Base on Hoth after A New Hope.
For me personally, the books, the ones published by Bantam Spectra from 1991 to 1999 in particular, are what turned me into a Star Wars fan. I liked the movies of course, but because I was born a Star Trek fan, I felt the movies lacked that sense of scope that the television format allowed Star Trek to build out its universe. So while I enjoyed the movies, it wasn't until I started reading the novels that I began to fall in love with the characters and the world George Lucas had started building in 1977 with that first movie.
The Star Wars expanded universe of novels began with the novelization of the movie on November 12th, 1976. Titled Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker, the book was written by Alan Dean Foster, though George Lucas's name is on the front cover and the book's title page. Because this book came out in November of 1976, a little over six months before the movie was released in theatres, this is actually the very first piece of Star Wars media to ever be released. It's been re-released many times over the years and is still in print today.
The Expanded Universe truly began with a novel that began as a potential low budget sequel to A New Hope, should the movie be a moderate success rather than the gargantuan hit that it ended up being. That's why Splinter of the Mind's Eye takes place on a misty swamp planet so they could build the set easily and cheaply enough for such a low budget sequel should it get made into a movie. Published on February 12th, 1978, Splinter is a weird entry in the EU because, well, it has no connection to any other piece of Star Wars media, and alot of the stuff in the book would be retconned or removed by future movies and books. But, when you only have one movie to use as source material for your tie-in novel, there's going to be some discrepancies that end up popping up as more material comes out. This would be the last thing that Alan Dean Foster would write for Star Wars until 2002.
The first book in The Han Solo Adventures, Han Solo at Stars' End, was published on April 1st, 1979. Written by Brian Daley, this book is set prior to the events of A New Hope, where Han and Chewie are smugglers and free lance pilots always trying to get rich on various schemes and adventures. This one pits Han and Chewie against the Corporate Authority, the militant arm of the lawless Corporate Sector. This book shows that Han, despite his sarcastic, tough exterior, has a softer side, which gives us insight into why he rescued Luke from Darth Vader in the Death Star trench in the last act of A New Hope. While the Empire is mentioned in this book, they don't appear at all.
The second book in the Han Solo Adventures trilogy, Han Solo's Revenge, was published on October 12th, 1979. Also written by Brian Daley, the book has Han and Chewie trying to go after people who owed them 10,000 credits following a job gone bad that happened to involve slavers, which Han and Chewie REALLY didn't agree with given their dislike of the slave trade. This was the first book to introduce Gallandro, a hired gun that Han had many encounters with over the years, and would return in later novels set in the original Expanded Universe. This book was the first appearance of Roa, an old Smuggling buddy of Han's who'd acted as his mentor when he and Chewie had first arrived on Nar Shaddaa, the Smuggler's Moon.
The novelization of The Empire Strikes Back, written by Donald F. Glut, was published on April 12th, 1980, a little over a month before the movie came out in theatres. While this novelization was alot closer to what we saw in the movie, there's still at least one thing in it that isn't mentioned in the movie at all. Boba Fett's backstory as someone who wore the armor of a group of evil warriors defeated by the Jedi during the Clone Wars. Of course, this would get retconned completely by Lucas in the Prequel Trilogy, but it's still interesting that Lucas had Boba Fett connected to the Clone Wars in some fashion, even if the movies never say what until the prequels.
Four months later, on August 12th, the final book of the Han Solo Adventures trilogy was published. In this one Han and Chewie are chasing a long lost treasure with their friend, Badure, who would be mentioned in A.C. Crispin's Han Solo Trilogy published by Bantam Spectra in the late '90s, though he would never appear in person again after this book.
The Han Solo Adventures would get collected into a single volume in 1992, and while each book would get an individual reprint in 1994, the collected edition version is the only way these books are available these days unless you want to try to track down second hand copies of either the original editions from 1979 and 1980 or the 1994 reprints of the individual volumes. Personally, I've never found the 1994 reprints, and the only original paperback edition I've found outside of the collected edition version, is the original paperback printing of Han Solo at Stars' End, and that was one Brad gave me when we were in high school.
The novelization of Return of the Jedi by James Kahn was published on May 12th, 1983, only twelve days before the movie came out. Unlike the previous two novelizations, the one for Return of the Jedi has Obi-Wan's Force spirit give Luke a more detailed explanation about how his father, Anakin, became Darth Vader. This backstory has Anakin and Obi-Wan fighting over a lava pit, with Anakin falling in, destroying his body and requiring him to wear the now iconic Darth Vader suit. About a year later George Lucas would talk about "The Duel", as it had become known as, in interviews, and this would become the official backstory for Darth Vader, which Lucas would refine for Revenge of the Sith 22 years later. But this is something that every Star Wars fan knew about long before we would actually see it on screen in 2005. I even remember talking about it with my friends in the school yard at Greely Elementary School when I was in grade six, in late 1998/early 1999, just before The Phantom Menace came out.
Like with The Han Solo Adventures the novelizations of the three movies were collected together twice. The first was a boxed set called The Star Wars Saga, which contained the individual novelizations, which was published in 1983. The second was a three books in one compilation called The Star Wars Trilogy, which was originally published on May 12th, 1987. This compilation would have numerous reprints and editions over the years, with the most recent one being from sometime in the last three or four years. The novelizations have also been reprinted and republished individually over the last 48 years and are still available individually.
The first book of The Lando Calrissian Adventures, Lando Calrissian and the Mindharp of Sharu by L. Neil Smith, was published on June 12th, 1983. This book chronicles Lando's adventure on Rafa IV in the Centrality while he still owned the Millennium Falcon. He and his Droid partner, Vuffi Raa, attempt to stop a planetary governor from resurrecting the ancient Sharu civilization.
The second book in the trilogy, Lando Calrissian and the Flamewind of Oseon takes place immediately after Lando Calrissian and the Mindharp of Sharu and was published on September 12th, 1983. This time Lando is trying to just be an independent freighter captain for hire, but Rokur Gepta, the Sorcerer of Tund from the previous book seeks revenge on Lando for what happened in the Rafa System. And Han thought that he had bad luck. It appears that Lando has worse luck than Han.
The final book in the trilogy, Lando Calrissian and the Starcave of ThonBoka, was published on November 12th, 1983. This has Lando facing Gepta one last time, before deciding to settle down and be responsible. This was the final Star Wars novel that was published before Bantam published Heir to the Empire seven and a half years later. The movies were finished and books featuring the main heroes of the Original Trilogy had been published and people were already starting to move away from Star Wars thinking that it was over now that the movies were done. Even George Lucas wasn't sure if he would ever come back and make the prequel trilogy or a sequel trilogy.
The Lando Calrissian Adventures would get compiled into a single volume in 1994. Unlike The Han Solo Adventures, the individual volumes of The Lando Calrissian Adventures never got reprints in the '90s. So the compilation edition is the only way you've been able to get these books for the last 29 and a half years.
With the exception of A.C. Crispin's Han Solo Trilogy, this era of Star Wars novels has been almost completely ignored by later novels, even the ones that Del Rey published from 1999 to 2014, before Disney wiped away the EU in favour of its own novel and comic book canon. Vuffi Raa appears in Crispin's trilogy, and Roa appears in other books as well, but because of how disjointed and out of date these books are, it's really difficult to fit them into the Legends canon that started with Heir to the Empire in 1991.
When I was first collecting and reading Star Wars novels in the 2000s and early 2010s, I ended up having all ten books published during this era. Today I just have the novelizations of A New Hope and Return of the Jedi, the 1992 edition of the paperback for The Han Solo Adventures and the Legends banner paperback of Splinter of the Mind's Eye. The Lando Calrissian Adventures are just so inconsequential for the Legends continuity that it's a fun trilogy to read once, just as an example of Star Wars novels being published during the time of the Original Trilogy, but it doesn't really contribute anything to the overall lore of Legends.
That's it for this segment of my Star Wars Legends Novels Overview series. Next time I do this, we'll be entering the Bantam era, which is the most important era of Star Wars. Not just for Legends and not just for the novels, but for the franchise as a whole. I don't know when I'll get around to doing this again, but definitely soon.
And that my friends is it for me for today. I'll be back soon with more posts. So until then have a great evening and I'll talk to you later. Take care.
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