Hello all,

As you all know franchises like Star Trek and Star Wars inspired a lot of spin off media, comics and games which we are probably all familiar with and novels which some might be less familiar with.
Over the years quite a lot of writers have made books that take place in these universes, adding their own ideas and lore to the already existing material, some good but also some quite bad.

Being more of a 'Trekker' than a SW fan I focused more on books taking place in the classic series setting, the TNG setting, and the publisher's spin off series The New Frontier.
But I also have read some SW books too, mostly focusing on books of Timothy Zahn who is in general regarded as one of the better Star Wars writers with his Thrawn Trilogy, I also really enjoyed the Hand of Thrawn books and I still occasionally go through them to read my favorite parts.

So what are your favorite books, mini series or spin offs?

Regarding Star Trek

The Final Reflection
How much for just the planet
Ishmael
The Three Minute Universe
The Wounded Sky
Federation

Peter David's New Frontier series, The Rift, The Captain's Daughter, Strike Zone, A rock and a hard place, Vendetta, the Worf stories from the Starfleet Academy series, and probably several more once I had the time to read them.
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I'm more a Star Wars novel fan, rather than Star Trek, although I do like both Sci-Fi Universes.

For Star Wars books, there are loads of great novels written and all are worth reading.

Some of the most recent releases, set in the Old Republic era are great, especially if you have played any of the KOTOR games. They are set about 4000 years before the original films.

From the Clone Wars era, Order 66 by Karen Traviss is one of the best.

Moving forward a bit, the Han Solo Adventures, and the Han Solo Trilogy are a great set of books that go into great detail of Han Solo's early life, filling in much of his initial dealings with the Huts and smuggling. A must read.

Death Troopers by Joe Schreiber is a slightly different take on Star Wars as it involves zombie storm troopers and prison ships. If you like a bit of horror you will like this twist on SW.

Shadows of the Empire by Steve Perry is a great book set between Empire and Return of the Jedi, and fills in much of the events that took place between the films.

But the following 2 books are my current favourites to date:

The Truce at Bakura by Kathy Tyers
The Courtship of Princess Leia by Dave Wolverton

I've read both of these a few times and they are brilliant. They are centred around events after ROTJ and are about Han and Leia and their romance.

The book that follows these, Tatooine Ghost by Troy Denning is also great.

You mentioned Thrawn Trilogy and I agree that is a good one, as is the following trilogy "The Jedi Academy Trilogy" by Keven J Anderson, whom is another good SW writer. And actually so are all the trilogies and duologies in that era.

And the whole New Jedi Order series is a great complete story, but I would recommend reading those before it so you know what is going on and who everyone is.
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I'm also a Star Wars fan then a Star trek fan.

I read in the past some SW books, some many many years ago. Last 2 book, 2 or 3 years ago were:

Dark force rising
Shadows of the Empire

I remember this last one with prince Xizor, and the action if i am not in mistake take's place at the same time as Empire Strikes Back, i remember there is a part in the book where Xizor is near the Emperor, and the same scene happends on the film, but xizor didnt show up, but he is there behind he Emperor. Very cool, because it shows some stuff that occurs at exactly the same time as in the film.
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The only think with the Star Wars universe is how complex the timelines are now. All novels, comics/graphic novels, audio dramas etc have to be checked by Lucasarts for universe consistency, plus all of the regular writers help each other out to maintain consistency within the timelines.

You do get most of the main events taking place in the novels, but the graphic novels often have events in the main timeline between novels, so for example in Jedi Search and other other Jedi Academy Trilogy novels it mentions a lot of events that took place after the end of The last book in the Trawn Trilogy. These events took place in the Dark Empire graphic novels, which there were 2 series of 6 books each, so a lot of content... events including the resurrection of the Emperor as a clone and Luke's shift to the dark side. These are also dramatised as audio plays, and that was how I filled myself in on the events.
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