Since we are about to have our discussion / review or the recent SWTOR Novel "Revan" we are having a little contest. We want to give away a digital copy of Revan through iTunes. Listen to this very short podcast to figure out how to enter. After that head on over to the forums to sign up. Contest submission deadline is 9pmEST December 5th.

One quick note, sorry for telling you about this contest on such short notice. We like to think that it will give our loyal dedicated listeners a slight edge.

Haven't read/purchased Revan yet, so going to go with the second option.

My favorite Star Wars novel is Heir to the Empire, the first book of the Timothy Zahn Thrawn trilogy. Sure, it introduced the concept of "Force Dead Zones" with the Ysalamiri, but it also gave us Grand Admiral Thrawn, Mara Jade, Talon Karrde, and a bunch of other favorite characters, and really are what the prequel trilogy should have been.

The Grand Admiral Thrawn trilogy by Timothy Zahn (and I can't believe the one person ahead of me has picked it already). Let me try to differentiate.

While there were many cool aspects to the trilogy, such as a cloned insane Jedi Master C'Baoth I believe his name was, the dead Force space around the monkeys that Grand Admiral Thrawn had aboard his ship, and the silent assassins that were recruited by Darth Vader under false circumstances, the one thing that I thought was really cool was that Grand Admiral Thrawn figured out how to defeat his opponents by studying their artwork. He got all of their strategies just from studying that. Really cool, really original ideas in this series, and if anybody hasn't read the trilogy, I highly recommend the books.

I'm planning on buying Revan next week once I finish the Darth Bane trilogy, so if you choose me give it to somebody else. I just like competing in contests. Cheers.

I currently do not own the book because 1) I am finishing 'Game of Thrones and 2) neither Books A Million nor Walmart had it when I was last paid. Therefore, i have yet to read it. Looking forward to it though.

THEREFORE

Although I have not read a whole ton of Star Wars novels, Deceived is my favorite Star Wars novel. Not only was the detailed explanation of the 'Deceived' trailer incredibly awesome (learning extra details that we did not see), but the rest of the book made me very interested in the Sith Empire. I really enjoyed the characters, even the one shot characters like Zeerid, and hope to see them in game eventually.

But the thing that blew me away, that made this book my favorite out of the handful I have read, was Malgus. I had thought Malgus was cool prior to the book but this was totally different. Learning the inner workings of his mind and seeing the events through his eyes was just awesome and I really enjoyed the character. I very much hope that eventually we get to work alongside him (on the Imperial side) and that he doesn't become some kind of boss in an instance or something. If there was a section in the game where you had to choose between Malgus and the Emperor, I would join Malgus in an instant. That is how much I liked this book. I would betray an all powerful god emperor. XD

Edit: 300 posts!

I don't own the book as of yet. Money, money, money...

I can't quite pick one favorite because for me it comes down to the Timothy Zahn Thrawn Trilogy of Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising and The Last Command. In that series we met with many new larger then life characters, who grew, changed and advanced. And I of course was not the only one who when it was announced that Lucas was going to make more Star Wars movies, that the Thrawn Trilogy would be the bases of the new series. At last it was not to be, but I did have my hopes. I think I still have those and quite a few other Star Wars books and Comics in storage. Hum maybe a bit of really early spring cleaning is in order?

Even though the Zahn trilogy was very very good, and made me spent years afterwars reading Star Wars novels, I'm not going to pick that, even though it probably is my favourite..

I will pick something else entirely, and I know not a lot of people with agree with me on this one.. But as a single book (as compared to a series) I think Courtship of Princess Leia is my favourite.

Why? Well, for one it introduced (afaik) the Nightsisters to the universe, and it had tamed Rancors as riding beasts! It contained hints to a secret Jedi mission, and perhaps some clues as to the origin of Yoda (bear with me, it's been years since I read it).
It was basically just a very very entertaining read, and I totally love the Nightsisters..

I bought Revan just the other day for my Kindle, have not started it yet due to so many other books on my plate.

As for my favorite book / series for SW. Well the Zahn books are good but not what I would pick right away.

Infact for me the books I have read the most and continue to re-read (even re-bought them in digital form) are the X-Wing books. I really loved getting more time with Wedge and Tycho and frankly it was nice to be away from the core group. We also got so many new character in the series that turned into recurring roles in later books.

Such as Mirax Terrik, Corran Horn, Pash Cracken, and many more. To me those books that stepped away from the normal lets see what the mains are up to role, were just super fun and really fleshed out some of the more behind the scenes events.

All 9 books in the series are worth a read if you have not already read them.

If you want even more general info check here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_X-wing_%28book_series%29

Currently Star wars Deceived is my favorite star wars book. It did a really good job of setting up Darth Malgus as the best kind of bad guy. a Bad guy who truely believes in what he is doing and that his cause is just and true and ANYTHING that gets in the way of that will burn.

my review of Malgus:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5T1ZE0f ... ideo_title

Now on that same note the other characters are very well established and stay true to themselves throughout. some of the action is fairly predictable but superbly written with many of the action sequences playing out elegantly and are still easy to read. the book flows well from scene to scene. the book end with an amazing battle and a closes the story in a excellent fashion

a Must read for an Star Wars enthusiast

Well I also have not yet read Revan so I am going to comment on a couple EU novels.

Timothy's Zahn's masterpiece trilogy has already been talked to death and rightly so. It is easily the best piece of SW fiction I have ever read. I own two copies of each one already, one for reading and one for safekeeping and also I will be getting a third copy now that they have released the 20th anniversary edition which is full of tons of interesting commentary and tidbits.

http://www.amazon.ca/Star-Wars-Heir-Emp ... 0345528298

Beyond that as rmorse mentioned the X-wing series is fantastic, you get great character development, a ton of humor, and some awesome space combat scenes.

Seeing that those have been covered I am gonna instead talk about my third favorite book/series and that is the New Jedi Order. This series got a lot of flack for its length and some of its content but I thought the Yuuzhan Vong threat was amazing, it just brought a whole different flavor to the Star Wars universe and the writing was very well done, dramatic and emotional you really got involved in this series.

If I had to choose one book out of the group to focus on then Star by Star with Troy Denning would take the cake. To me this book felt like the "Empire Strikes Back" of the series, things seemed really dark for the Republic and the Jedi, desperate even. The character and story development in this book was fantastic and the two major storylines that it was covering were absolutely engrossing.

If you havn't read the NJO series I will tell you it is worth the read. To me the only thing since this series that has come even close to being as engaging was Drew's Bane series.

So I have read Revan, and absolutely loved it! However, so that I don't add any spoilers, I'm going to send a PM to Zach and Evan with my review, and will edit after the show.

So instead, I'll just mention my favorite Star Wars novel is I, Jedi by Michael A. Stackpole. I'm a huge EU fan and have ready almost all the novels and this one was really just the most enjoyable for me.

I, Jedi is about Coran Horn, and his road to becoming a Jedi Knight. Part of the reason I love it so much, is that it is similar to the X-Wing: Rogue Squadron series, but includes Coran as a Jedi. As a Jedi, Coran sucks at telepathy, and his primary force ability is Force absorb, which makes for an interesting take on a lot of Jedi encounters. I think one major aspect, is that this novel spans across several other Star Wars EU novels, namely the Jedi Academy trilogy. In one book, Corran goes from Rogue Squadron Pilot, to investogator trying to find his wife Mirax, to training at the Jedi Temple with Lukes first class of students(And participating in all the events of the Jedi Academy Trilogy from a different point of view), to infiltrating a pirate organization, and then facing down the Jensaarai, who are force users that wear ornamental cortosis armor, and are Gray force aligned, and were tricked into working for the Invid.

Coran's character and personality intrigue me because he is very similar to Han Solo, being from Corellia and all, but on the opposite side of the law as a former Corsec Detective. And of course he falls in love with and ,marries a smuggler, because in Star Wars it's always like that: Falling for someone the polar opposite of themselves. (Han & Leia, Luke & Mara Jade, Coran & Mirax)

Overall its a great read I's recommend!

EDIT>
REVAN REVIEW(spoiler free):

First, the prologue is a nice wrap up to the first KoToR game in a way I would bet most players imagined: Save the Republic; get married to Bastila. I find it intriguing that the author very strongly implied that Revan had become a "Gray" Jedi, and that his marriage to Bastila was allowed so that he wouldn't spread his heretical teachings. Playing as a "gray" Jedi has never appealed to me until reading Revan, and in the face of TOR launching early access in 10 days I find myself a bit wistful that there were "Gray" alignment vendors and rankings. Hopefully this is something that will come in a later patch.

Having played the beta and a Sith Warrior, images immediately came to mind during the Sith story line following Lord Scourge. I believe that having experienced a lot of what is described helped me to enjoy the sub-plot more than I feel I would have otherwise. I most likely would have felt that the Sith side distracted from the real story about Revan, but I enjoyed it, even still.

Revan's quest to help Canderous was a fabulous explanation of what Revan was up to during the beginning of the Exile's story in KoToR 2, and is quite satisfactory at explaining Revan's disappearance, in my opinion. The Exile's quest to find Revan alongside T3 is just what I imagine KoToR 3 to be; or rather it makes a convincing argument to fill in as such; and bridges the gap between then and the current TOR timeline in it's entirety. My only complaint(it's minor) is that the ending seemed to wrap up pretty fast, but everything was tied up nicely that I can think of.

Overall, this book definitely got me even more pumped about playing this game, and the stories waiting to unfold before me in game. I enjoyed it and would recomend it to anyone planning on playing TOR!

Seth/White Fox