Favorite New Canon Novel so Far

For me it's a toss-up between Tarkin and Bloodline.

 

I like all the novels but Lords of the Sith and Tarkin are high up on the list.

 

Bloodline, then Tarkin on my side. I’ve to read Lords of the Sith though.

 

Bloodline and Dark Disciple.

 

"Lost Stars" and "Bloodline".

 

Really loved the second Aftermath book Life Debt a lot more than I thought I would. So far, that's my fave. The trio of young adult novels from during the trilogy and Bloodline probably come next, and Rey's Story, written for little kids, it does give some more insight into her character, only mentioning it because I am sure several have overlooked it. The journal does as well.

 

Dark Disciple for me, if you like the force and seeing how hard it is to walk the balance of light and dark. This is a good book that explores turning to the dark side for reasons that seem legit.

 

I'm between The Force Awakens & Dark Disciple, I tried to choose for 7 hours straight, stuck with both.

 

Lost Stars and Bloodline are my favorite two in-canon novels so far. (My favorite non-canon would always be Darth Plagueis and Kenobi.)

Claudia Grey's writing is easy to follow and her characterization, particularly her lead female characters, is outstanding. I feel like I understand the players' motives clearly. Lost Stars in particular was special because it centered around original characters that were magically brought to life and who felt just as important as the usual suspects of Star Wars like Palpatine, Vader, and Luke. My only complaint with Lost Stars is that many chapters in the latter half of the novel retread on familiar ground. Instead of bringing us new battles, literally the same scenes from the movies are described from different points of views. This reminded me too much of Lion King 1 1/2.

If I was to give a prize for mere writing style, Chuck Wendig wins. He has the most unique way or wording things, as seen in both Aftermath novels. The problem with Aftermath, however, is that his plots are obviously holding back. The sequence of events in the first Aftermath was downright laughable because there was an all-important meeting deciding the new rulership of the empire that kept getting delayed again, and again, and again. So, to fill pages, Wendig was forced to insert this boring subplot involving Wedge. Diddo to Life Debt with the whole Han-Must-Rescue-Chewbacca storyline. I want to see some decisions getting made regarding the Empire and how this leads to the First Order.

 

Disclaimer- I've only read 'A New Dawn' and 'Ahsoka'. My vote & opinion is not based on as wide a selective scope as most of the others opining here.

From the two I've read, 'Ahsoka' is clearly the better novel, though it's not exactly a dazzler to itself. (Though as a highly enthusiastic fan of its main character, I greatly enjoyed what it had to offer.)

'A New Dawn' was my unfortunate first pick of the lot; the best I can say about it is that it is certainly a better novel than I myself could produce, but the qualitative margin may not be as vast as one should expect. Bluntly, I was baffled that it made it through the publishing filtration process at all.

From reading the previous posts on this topic, I'm grateful to be able to safely venture that (from my position) the best is absolutely yet to come.

Big thanks to all previous "posters" for their views.

 

What are the best books now in canon that are worth the read?

 

I'm about halfway through Ahsoka now. It is interesting, but the flow isn't that great. It's very repetitive of her missing Anakin and her loneliness.

 

Thanks so much. it's been a long time since I read any sw books. I still have some from the old canon. I grew up reading so much of the EU...I like to read all kinds concerning that galaxy far far away and I mean all over throughout the different time periods that go beyond what we come to know since the first star wars film. ☺

I want to go back to that place...to feel what it is like for the characters in that galaxy and just ...just take me to the places I always wanted to explore.

 

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Aftermath. Jakku seems to be immensely important. Looking forward to part 3 more than to rogue one.

 

Lost Stars, gave an interesting view from the perspective of the regular Imperial military personel, I liked it. Have not read Twilight Company yet but have read the others on the list and sad to say the quality is severely lacking. Very poor overall, Lost Stars, Bloodline and Ahsoka were the only half decent ones (and there may be some bias just because it's Ahsoka).

Lords of the Sith was particularly bad, I mean 5 years after the end of 'the Jedi's war' and people who lived and fought alongside the Jedi have no idea how Darth Vader does the things he does... seriously?!! The Force Awakens was the most shockingly badly written book I can remember reading although I'd recommend it purely to fill in the gaps from the film, the weapon makes a bit more sense as does Rey's inexplicable ability to suddenly use the Jedi mind trick. In general, they seem to be suffering from being aimed more at kids, unlike the NJO which was for existing Star Wars fans who are a bit older and they were all the better for it. Star by Star, that was a great SW book.

 

Just finished reading Ahsoka. Overall, I was impressed, even though I felt this one took a long time to get into the real story. Ahsoka was enjoyable because it didn't have lengthy chapters-long action sequences like many other novels (I for one have a hard time enjoying action sequences in novels.) But it explained the entire red-lightsaber-crystal dilemma, explained how Ahsoka became Fulcrum, gave Bail Organa the respect he should have gotten in Rogue One, and gave us our first real look of in-canon Inquisitors.
I give it 3 stars out of 5.

 

I really like Tarkin, A New Dawn and Lords of the Sith. Was meh on Ahsoka and Lost Stars (I'm just not that into young adult fiction). I'm very into the Aftermath trilogy and Bloodline because of what it might be for the ST. I really liked Catalyst a lot more than I thought I was going to. The Battlefront novel was a bit hard to read, but I enjoyed the Hoth section of the book. I really enjoyed Dark Disciple, although it took us back to the PT era and my mind isn't really there right now. I never read Heir to the Jedi, but I think the reviews of that book begged me to forgo reading it.

 

Catalyst is pretty good. I still have to finish Life debt which I think is really good.