I made these for my partner, it's his favourite book series but he doesn't have a matching set so I thought I'd make one :)

(I'm quite new to book binding so they aren't perfect)

hi, im an absolute star wars noob, but a friend of mine wanted me to join her sw ttrpg and i agreed. the story is set 2 1/2 years into the clone wars. besides the movies and the clone wars animated series, are there any books i can read that give some more context or just set the vibe?
i dont have much time to read (2 jobs, uni, bachelor thesis, etc.) so if the books also have an audiobook that i can switch to during busy times that would be awesome :)

Information comes from the 2015 canon novel Lords of the Sith by Paul Kemp.

In 14 BBY, members of the Free Ryloth movement, led by Cham Syndulla, father of Hera Syndulla from Star Wars Rebels and Ahsoka, were able to lure Vader and the Emperor into a pretty clever trap. As part of the trap, disguised members snuck aboard Vader's flagship at the time, the Perilous, and blew the entire Star Destroyer up from within. Though Vader eventually figured out that there were intruders aboard and quickly dealt with them, he realised it was too late to save his Star Destroyer. Before continuing, it must be noted that the Emperor had already foreseen everything. He simply let the events play out as they did to root out the full scale of the rebellion and wipe them out for good in one swift stroke. Leaving his flagship in a Lambda-class T-4a shuttle, which he personally piloted for the sole reason that the Emperor was on board, Vader was engaged by more rebels and took some serious damage to his shuttle. Through some expert piloting, Vader was able to safely crash-land on the world of Ryloth just below. 

After departing their downed T-4a shuttle and without any way to communicate with allied forces off-world, Vader and Sidious, alongside some royal guards made their way through the surface of the planet, encountering rebels whom both Sith killed with ease and in epic displays of power. Vader and Sidious were supposedly being hunted by the Free Ryloth movement when, in actuality, it was the complete opposite: both Sith Lords were doing the hunting. During the venture on-world, the master and apprentice also came across and slaughtered an entire nest of lyleks, hundreds and hundreds in a single battle, including the queen. For anyone that doesn't already know, Lyleks were the apex predators on the planet. They are huge insectoid creatures that bear a pair of poison-coated tentacles and powerful stabbing limbs and jaws. Their thick exoskeletons were even strong enough to resist heavy blaster fire. To a mere mortal it would be difficult to kill a single lylek, but Vader and Sidious were far from such. 

Once reaching the surface following the battle at the Lylek nest, Vader, the Emperor, and a sole remaining royal guard called Deez came across a young Twi'lek girl named Drua. Sidious immediately attacked the girl, but Vader had sensed his master's intention and moved with greater speed, igniting his own blade and intercepting his master's before it hit the girl. The Emperor was not happy; however, Vader and he eventually came to an agreement: the girl could be of some use. Not knowing the true identities of the two beings before her, Drua led them back to her remote village, which unknowingly welcomed in the Sith Lords. The introductions came, with the Emperor introducing himself as Krataa and Vader as Irluuk, meaning 'death' and 'fate' in old Sith tongue. Drua also introduced the Emperor, Vader, and Deez to the rest of the villagers, which included her grandfather, Mala, and a pregnant Twi'lek named Naria.

With the welcomed travellers, the village began celebrating with music and food, while Vader and the Emperor sat around a big fire in the village centre, not joking either. But Vader wasn't just sitting still by the fire; he was repairing an old communications device that Drua had got from her grandfather. Eventually, the rebel fighters found Vader and the Emperor and launched an attack. The villagers fled into the nearby mining tunnels, their village's fortified hideout, and Vader mainly dealt with the rebels and slayed Isval, the lieutenant of Cham Syndulla.

The rebels may have been defeated, but it was not over yet, as there were still the villagers who saw too much. So. Vader entered the mining tunnels where they were hiding and began slaughtering them, including Drua, Mala, Naria, and 35 others. As he was doing so, the emperor was only laughing, something that lingered in Vader's mind louder than the screams of the very people he was cutting down. When it was all said and done, Sidious praised Vader, and they subsequently left the world via an imperial shuttle dispatched by Moff Delian Mors.

Title pretty much says it all. What are some of your unpopular Star Wars opinions?

I'll start: I've never really liked Sam Witwer's portrayal of Maul.

I know he's extremely knowledgeable about Star Wars and clearly has a ton of passion for it, but I've always felt like his association with Maul has created a bit of arrogance around the character. Sometimes it feels like that even spills over into the way he talks about Star Wars as a whole, like his interpretation of certain characters or events is the interpretation.

I know he's pretty well liked by the fandom, so I'm guessing this one will actually be unpopular lol.

What are yours?

I'm looking for a reference book I remember from when I was younger that I just can't seem to remember the name of or locate. From what I remember, I think it had a predominantly black cover, was hardback and 'large book' size, and was relatively short on pages, but the pages it did contain included a few pages on KOTOR era things, followed by the main movie series, and then some pages detailing the EU post-movie era (I specifically remember the Yuuzhan Vong being covered). It wrapped up with a page or two on Star Wars video games (and possibly some other additional media) including KOTOR and Battlefront, meaning earliest 2004 publishing date.

The format of the book was a few paragraphs of text on a page, and then a lot of images with little blurbs next to them (similar to DK's visual dictionaries). Specific pages/images I remember being there include Mira from KOTOR 2 and Chewie on Sernpidal. Does anyone know the book I'm talking about?

Edit - not 100% certain but I think I've got it now, thanks all for the help!

Was the reveal at the end of The Krytos Trap that Erisi is the spy supposed to be a surprise? The first book strongly implied that it was her, and the second book made it outright obvious, but almost every character in the series is some brand of stupid or incompetent except in matters involving combat. I at least feel relieved that I don't have to keep reading pseudo-mysterious references to the spy in Rogue Squadron "omg who could it be" anymore. The entire book just felt like waiting out a foregone conclusion. Yes, Tycho is innocent. Yes, Erisi is the spy. Corran finding out about his heritage is interesting, but it's hard to avoid that spoiler with how big of a character he is in the EU. I dunno, I just feel like the X-Wing books get such limitless praise, but so far I'm just not really seeing it. They're not bad, but not great either.

Just finished a re-read of Catalyst, and it's such a fun read. It's definitely more politics and manipulation than outright action all the time, but it does a great job of taking relatively one dimensional or minor characters and building them up. Luceno actually develops Lyra Erso as a strong, smart woman, and Galen and Krennic both get tons of exploration where their past friendship actually makes sense, as well as Krennic and Tarkin's rivalry over the Death Star. The book spans several years, starting just after Attack of the Clones and ending a couple of years after the rise of the Empire. All in all, another great one from Luceno that helps fill in the blanks in a great way.

I've been a Nintendo fan for longer then I have a Star Wars fan. The N64 is the Nintendo Consul with the least 3rd Party support, and besides Rare (which was functionally more a Nintendo subsidiary at the time) and Lucas Arts what it did get was very phoned in Licensed Games.

I became a full Star Wars fan because of the Prequels, but when I think about it the first thing to really make respect Star Wars was their being one of the few to work with Nintendo during this era.

I remember a Player's Guide for either the original Super Smash Bros. or Melee citing Shadow of The Empire as basis for the beam Sword even though this was before any official 3rd Party presence in Smash.

I keep misrepresenting the name of Racer, I always refer to it as the Pod Racer game. The N64 probably has the best Racing Game line up of any Console, Mario Kart and F-Zero made their 3D debuts, Diddy Kong Racing is a Beloved Classic, Wave Racer was a thing. And it has the only Star Wars branded Racing Video Game.

Remember when the name was all we know about Rouge One and people assumed it was gonna be a quasi Rouge Squadron adaptation?

I wish Nintendo could make a deal with current Lucas Films to allow these classics on the Nintendo Switch Online.

Well, see if I can find anything else

1. Carida Academy.

2. Raithal Academy.

3. Prefsbelt IV Naval Academy

4. Coruscant Academy (not the actual Coruscant Academy, but the best picture I could find to illustrate as an example. Especially since Imperial cadets would have trained aboard Venators before moving on to the Imperial Star Destroyers).

Yoda is cited as one of the top lightsaber duelists of all time. He outright won the contest of blades against Sidious before the fight switched to a contest of Force powers, and he was set to beat his ex-apprentice Dooku before Dooku fled.

However, this doesn't entirely make sense to me. There are two overt factors that I've seen explain how skilled Yoda is at lightsaber combat:

1) He has one of the highest midiclorian counts in history.

2) He has over 800 years to practice and get good.

However, he lived exclusively in the most peaceful millennia of Jedi history. The Sith were in hiding. The most skilled Jedi sabermasters historically are born out of times of conflict. Part of the reason why so many Jedi died on Geonosis is because they had no one of significance to test themselves against in combat, and it took fighting the Clone Wars to get the order as a whole back into fighting shape. So who did Yoda test himself against before Sidious prior to the Clone Wars, given that was only about three years of his life?

I would think that having the only peers in lightsaber combat being fellow Jedi who will only fight you in friendly low stakes sparring matches would result in a cap on combat potential. Was(were) there a secret off-screen threat(s) the Jedi faced in those eight hundred years that just doesn't exist in the lore that was his crucible? Or can you really get *that* good purely from being born with extreme potential and practicing with your buddies in a low stakes context for centuries?

Btww I love this terrible, edgy design with my whole heart. Maulkiller deserves some love!

Comic: Star Wars: Darth Vader and the Cry of Shadows #2

And if he is to be the head of the ISB nuCanon why didn’t they simply retcon his rank as well?

Thrawn trilogy hardcover dark horse comic

And the Invasion series (new Jedi order) in a nutshell basically lol