My Star Wars Experience: Young Jedi Knights, Junior Jedi Knights and the Impact Both Series Had on the Star Wars EU of the 2000's

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well. Today I wanna talk about two Star Wars young reader book series that were published when I was growing up in the 90's. They're the Young Jedi Knights series by Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta and the Junior Jedi Knights series by Rebecca Moesta and Nancy Richardson. So let's get into it!

Published from 1995 to 1998 for a total of fourteen volumes, Young Jedi Knights tells the story of the Solo twins, Jacen and Jaina, as well as their friends, Tenel Ka, the daughter of a warrior from Dathomir and the prince of the Hapes Cluster, and Lowbacca, the nephew of Chewbacca, and their adventures at Luke Skywalker's Jedi Academy on Yavin IV. The series was split into three story arcs. The first one, encompassing the first six books of the series, told the tale of Jacen and Jaina's fight against the Second Imperium and its Shadow Academy, led by Luke's former student, Brakiss, who was first introduced in the second book of the series, Shadow Academy, and went on to play a role in The New Rebellion by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, which was published in 1996.

My first introduction to the series was sometime in late 1997 or the summer of 1998 when my mom picked up the seventh book in the series, Shards of Alderaan, from the public library for me. I eventually would go on to read the first six books in the series with four of them being borrowed from my fifth grade teacher, who had them in his classroom library when I was in grade 6 in 1998-1999. I loved them.

Junior Jedi Knights was a series aimed at slightly younger readers, as in the kids who were reading Goosebumps and Animorphs in the late '90s. The series was published for six books from 1995 to 1997, with Nancy Richardson writing the first three books and Rebecca Moesta writing books 4 through 6. The series focused on the youngest Solo child, Anakin, and his friend, Tahiri Veila, a girl who was raised by a tribe of Tusken Raiders/Sand People on Tatooine, while they train at Luke's Jedi Academy under the tutelage of the ancient Jedi Master, Ikrit, who looks like an animal that you would own as a pet. 

I only ever owned the first two books when I was a kid. They were actually owned by my brother, but not until sometime in the early 2000's. I don't think we ended up keeping them though, because I don't remember them being part of the huge batch of Star Wars novels that I got rid of in 2015-2016, before we moved.

I also wanted to mention something interesting. So in the first two or three books of Young Jedi Knights, it's mentioned that at the time of those two or three books, Anakin Solo wasn't quite old enough to start attending the Jedi Academy on Yavin IV, so one would assume that Junior Jedi Knights takes place after Young Jedi Knights. However, the weird thing is that every timeline of the Legends continuity, from Wookieepedia to The Essential Chronology and The New Essential Chronology to the early timelines included in the novels published by Del Rey from 1999 to 2003, namely the New Jedi Order series, place Junior Jedi Knights in 22 ABY (After Battle of Yavin) or 22 years after Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, and Young Jedi Knights in 24 ABY. If Anakin Solo was not old enough to train at the Jedi Academy in Young Jedi Knights, then why would Junior Jedi Knights take place BEFORE Young Jedi Knights? Like I said, it's not even an error on the timeline of Legends Books on Wookieepedia either. This placing in the timeline has been included in officially published reference books and timelines since 1999.

While neither series had much of an impact on the novels published by Bantam Spectra during the time they were being published by Berkley Jam Books and Boulevard Books, as mentioned earlier, Brakiss did appear in The New Rebellion in 1996. And because of his appearance in that book, Luke and Brakiss's encounter on the planet, Telti, was mentioned by Luke in book #6 of Young Jedi Knights, Jedi Under Siege, which was published just two months before The New Rebellion came out.

Brakiss's time at the Jedi Academy appeared briefly in I, Jedi by Michael A. Stackpole, which was published in 1998. This book served as a bit of a retcon of The Jedi Academy Trilogy by Kevin J. Anderson, as it placed both Corran Horn and Brakiss at the Academy during that trilogy of novels, despite neither of them having been created when the trilogy was published in 1994.

While the New Jedi Order series heavily focused on the Solo children, Anakin and Tahiri were the main focus of the Edge of Victory duology by Greg Keyes, which were books 7 and 8 in the NJO series. 

Master Ikrit appeared in the first book of the duology, Conquest, as did Qorl, the Imperial TIE Fighter pilot who crashed on Yavin IV during the battle to destroy the first Death Star in A New Hope. Somehow Qorl was never found on Yavin IV until 24 years later, when Jacen, Jaina, Tenel Ka, and Lowie discovered Qorl's crashed TIE Fighter in the first book of Young Jedi Knights, Heirs of the Force, despite the Jedi Academy having been on the moon since 11 ABY. That's a major oversight considering how long Qorl was stuck on Yavin IV for, and how often Luke and his Jedi students explored the jungles of Yavin IV.

Star by Star by Troy Denning, which was published in 2001, has all of the Young Jedi Knights, including Jacen, Jaina, Anakin, Lowie, Tenel Ka, Zekk, and Tahiri, on a deadly mission to infiltrate a Yuuzhan Vong Worldship in order to destroy the Vong's voxyn Jedi Killers, who were genetically modified vornskr from the planet Mykr, the world we first see Talon Karrde on in Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn all the way back in 1991. Tahiri and the other survivors of this mission continue to be important characters in the rest of the NJO series.

Tahiri, Tenel Ka, Zekk, and Lowie, along with Jacen and Jaina, are key players in Troy Denning's The Dark Nest Trilogy, which was published in 2005. I've never read this trilogy before. I completely missed it during this period as I was actually trying to complete my NJO collection, and was reading through that series.

The same characters, along with Jacen and Jaina, are also major characters in the Legacy of the Force series, which was published from 2006 to 2008. I've read a few books in this series, though I haven't read all of them. There are plenty of surprises though, and the Young Jedi Knights all play major roles in the series.

Zekk, Tenel Ka, Lowie, and Tahiri all appear in the Fate of the Jedi series, which was published from 2009 to 2012, and was the last series of Star Wars novels to feature most of the Young Jedi Knights, with Jaina's last appearance being Troy Denning's 2013 novel, Crucible, before Disney ended the original EU in 2014. None of them have their own storylines in this series however, as they had during the NJO days of the early 2000's. By this point, they were all adults, and all Jedi Masters, with Jaina getting married to Jagged Fel, her long time romantic partner. 

I feel like both Young Jedi Knights and Junior Jedi Knights are often overlooked by fans of the Star Wars Legends novels, simply because they're young reader series. Which is understandable, especially if you didn't grow up reading them. They're great books, but there have been so many young reader Star Wars novel series that have come out over the years, and most of the Legends ones are never mentioned in any other piece of Star Wars fiction. Though I think events from Jedi Apprentice, Jedi Quest, and The Last of the Jedi were brought up in the Dark Times (between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope) era adult novels of the early 2010's, namely Kenobi by John Jackson Miller. 

My point in bringing that up is that both of these series introduced so many awesome and important characters to the Star Wars Legends mythos. Characters who stood the test of time and became heroes in their own right. Yet these books are often overlooked. Which is unfortunate. I loved these books growing up, particularly the Young Jedi Knights series. I actually just did a re-read of the first six books as I have them in two paperback compilations, which contain three books each, that were published in 2003, called Jedi Shadow (Books 1-3) and Jedi Sunrise (Books 4-6). They still hold up, aside from that weirdness of where the Junior Jedi Knights series was placed in the Star Wars Legends Timeline.

Alright my friends, I think that's gonna do it for me for this week. I'm not sure when I'm going to be posting next week as I've got stuff to do next week, though I don't know what day I'm doing that stuff on. But I'll be back at some point. Also, come watch me on The VHS Club Podcast tomorrow night on YouTube at 9 ET as I'll be talking all about VHS with Katie and Nat. Katie assures me that the technical issues we faced last week have been resolved and that we're ready to broadcast tomorrow night. So come join me for that. Until then have a great rest of the day, a great weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.