9 Best Star Wars Novels That Take Place Between the Prequels and Original Trilogy

The television shows Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars: Rebels left a lot of unanswered questions about fan-favorite character, Ahsoka Tano. What did she do after she left the Jedi Order? How did she become involved in the Rebellion? And how did she become the operative Fulcrum? Her eponymous novel shows her in the aftermath of the Clone Wars cartoon. She scrapes by as a mechanic and tries her best to cope with the horrors of of the Clone Wars and the destruction of the Jedi Order. Though the Order wounded her to the point where she left, it was also her home and family and Order 66 hits Ahsoka hard. But has the evils of the Empire come to her attention, she finds that she must make a choice. To once again become part of a larger whole and fight. Or to be alone and safe but to let injustice endure. Fans of The Clone Wars and Rebels will eat up this tale of a brave woman fighting for what’s right.

Before the announcement of the Han Solo prequel movie, this was the Han Solo backstory Star Wars fans were familiar with. The books begin with young Han Solo picking pockets as a way to supplement his swoop racing income and ends with him sitting down at the Mos Eisley Cantina to negotiate with two potential passengers to Alderaan. From swoop racing to daring breaks for freedom, from sabbac games to wisecracking heroes, the Han Solo Trilogy has everything you would expect from a story about Star Wars’ most charming scoundrel. We learn how Han Solo met Chewbacca, how he acquired the Millennium Falcon, how he became indebted to Jabba the Hutt and about the women in his life before Princess Leia. The trilogy explores the underbelly of the Star Wars universe as Han gets entangled with slavers and the Hutt gangs of the Outer Rim, providing rich world building to the Star Wars galaxy. We won’t know how the Han Solo prequel movie turns out until 2018. But even if it turns out to be the worst Star Wars movie since Phantom Mence, we have this rip-rollicking trilogy to be the back story for our favorite galactic smuggler.  

This book follows two of Rebels’ main characters, Kanan Jarrus, a former Jedi Padawan and Hera Syndulla, a pilot for the Rebellion. The novel takes place six years before the cartoon and the two characters start the novel in places you wouldn’t expect. Kanan, rather than being a steadfast member of the Rebellion and mentor figure, is a bit more Han Solo than Obi-Wan Kenobi. He’s a womanizing scoundrel! Hera, rather than acting as a mom figure for the crew of the Ghost, is a bomb-throwing, revolutionary agent provocateur. The two come into conflict as the Empire continues to tighten its grip. Kanan doesn’t want anything to do with revolution and is doubtful that anything can change. But Hera sees his potential to help her cause. Goodreads reviewer Timothy Stone said of Kanan, “I can kinda empathize [with him]. When I went in the Army, I was the uber-patriotic guy... but I had rose-colored blinders on then that have since been lifted. I thought it would be heroic… Actual war dissuaded me of that notion.” If you enjoy these characters and want to see how they became Space Mom and Space Dad, this is definitely the book to pick up.

It’s only fitting that Star Wars has star-crossed lovers in it’s wide galaxy. This young adult novel follows two original characters, Ciena Ree and Thane Kyrell. They begin their lives as childhood sweethearts, but as they grow up, they find themselves on opposite sides of the Empire vs. Rebellion conflict. This novel explores the lives of the normal people of the galaxy, people who are not Jedi or Sith or generals or even dashing rogues like Han Solo. It shows how this spanning, epic battle between good vs. evil affects people who just want to make it through the day. It does so in an empathetic way, even to people on the side of the Empire. If you just watch the movies, it can be hard to understand why anyone would side with the Empire, after all the horrible things they do. But the novel shows how the Empire seems to some as the only option of stability and the reader understands the Empire-sympathetic point of view. The tension of the novel is tight as the two character struggle between their ideologies and their love for each other. And as the tension builds to the final conflict, the reader knows what will happen on the grand scale, but not knowing what will happen to Ciana and Thane will keep them reading late into the night.

Speaking of the Empire, few better represent the tyrannical government better than Grand Moff Tarkin. The blurb for the novel brags that the story gives Tarkin the “Darth Plagueis treatment," promising to go deep into the psyche of someone that embodies evil.  If you’re interested in in the inner workings of the Empire, this novel goes directly to the heart of Palpatine’s regime. Tarkin was the face of the Empire’s dictatorship in A New Hope, but he was not always near the top of Empire’s chain of command. This novel focuses on Tarkin before the Emperor puts him in charge of the Death Star and the circumstances that lead to his task of running the project to build and run the deadly space station. It shows how he is able to commit horrible acts such as destroying Aldeeran and all the people on it. The novel does not shy away from the fact that Tarkin is a horrible person. There are moments where we can sympathize with him, but we are never encouraged to want him to succeed, even though we know it is inevitable. But make no mistake, this novel isn’t Tarkin contemplating his life. It’s action-packed and exciting and Tarkin gets his hands dirty in the fight scenes. Fans who love reading about the villain and people who want to know more about the Star Wars’ world and it’s inner workings should definitely pick this up!

Fans of the video game Star Wars: Battlefront will enjoy this Rebellion-focused novel. Rather than focus on one character, this novel looks at an a group of soldiers officially called The Sixty-First Mobile Infantry but are better known as the Twilight Company. These are the toughest, grittiest soldiers in the Rebellion and they’re no stranger to impossible odds. In the Star Wars films, the on-the-ground soldiers do not get much attention, since the movie mostly focuses on the protagonists thrilling heroics. The heroes in Twilight Company aren’t Jedi, princesses or smugglers, but ordinary people in a grim war. The fighting they see is mostly brutal battles where stormtroopers dominate. The novel’s plot starts when an unlikely ally offers new information, the Twilight Company has an opportunity to leap out of the trenches and strike at the heart of the Empire. The book has all the action and dark humor and one could expect from a military thriller. But this one can be a hard read. We know from the A New Hope opening scrawl that the Rebellion’s only major victory was stealing the Death Star plans. Therefore, the Twilight Company’s efforts will be in vain. But the characters do not know they are doomed to fail, and give it their all against an impossible enemy.

This noirish take on Star Wars was unfortunately kicked out of canon when the Expanded Universe was gutted. This might be a good thing since the novel series creates a bit of a continuity snarl when it comes to the fate of certain Jedi.  But the adventures of Jax Pavan can still be enjoyed. Much like Kanan, our protagonist survived the Jedi massacre. But instead of fleeing to the far reaches of the galaxy, he hid in the underbelly of Coruscant known as the Blackpit Slums. Jax makes his living as a private detective. Also unlike Kanan, Jax has not completely lost hope. He still strives to do good even though he must keep his Jedi identity secret lest bounty hunters and Imperial agents find him and try to kill him. The book has a unique flavor from the rest of the novels. Star Wars has many influences, but noir isn’t generally considered one of them. This novel has a detective with a past, a hard-boiled reporter and layers of secrets. If you wants something a little different from the normal Star Wars fare, give this a read!

Last on our list but certainly not the least, is a novel about the main scientist behind the Death Star and father of Jyn Erso, Galan. This novel goes into detail about Jyn, Galan and Jyn’s mother, Lyra, before the events of Rogue One.  While the movie will have flashbacks of Jyn’s childhood, a novel can go further into depth on the subject and Catalyst takes advantage of that. Unusually for a Star Wars novel, neither the Rebellion nor the Empire are painted in a particularly flattering light.  Both want to use Galan’s research to destructive ends. The main representation of the Rebellion, Krennic, deceives Garan, leading him to believe that his research will be used in peaceful ways. While not essential to understanding the events of Rogue One, the novel gives insight into the Ersos and the Rebellion that will enhance your enjoyment of the movie.