Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well for a Friday. So today I'm going to be talking about some Legends novels that haven't been published with the Legends banner across the top. This is going to be in their original publication order. Let's get into it.
Originally published on February 2nd, 1995, Ambush at Corellia was the first book in the Corellian Trilogy, written by Roger MacBride Allen. While the second and third books in the trilogy, Assault at Selonia and Showdown at Centerpoint, both got reprints in the mid 2010s that included the Legends banner across the top of the front cover and the spine, for whatever reason, Ambush at Corellia didn't. There's not really an answer as to why all the novels I'm talking about today haven't gotten a Legends banner edition. They just didn't. I also don't really know how well the Corellian Trilogy is regarded by Star Wars fans in general, but, unlike with the Essential Legends Collection, the fan reaction to the books didn't seem to play a factor into what books were published with the banner and which ones weren't. As I'll mention again a little bit later. I also remember enjoying this book when I first read it sometime in the 2000s, though obviously not enough to get the rest of the trilogy, and not enough to keep this book in the collection in 2015 and 2016.
Originally published on May 1st, 1995 in hardcover, and then published in June 1996 in paperback, Children of the Jedi was written by Barbara Hambly as part of the unofficial Callista Trilogy, named after a Jedi character that appears in the book. Again, there's no actual reason as to why this book didn't get a Legends banner reprint. Especially because its follow up novels, Darksaber (by Kevin J. Anderson) and Planet of Twilight (also by Barbara Hambly) each got one. I honestly don't really know why Children of the Jedi didn't get a Legends banner reprint. I know it isn't as well regarded as other Star Wars novels are, but it's not hated like The Crystal Star is. In fact, even if it was, it still would've gotten a Legends banner reprint because The Crystal Star did, and that book is probably the most hated novel to come out of the Bantam era. I also don't remember if I've read Children of the Jedi or not. I know I owned the original hardcover sometime in the late 2000s and early 2010s, but I don't remember if I read it then, or if Garrett lent the paperback edition to me when we were in the same grade 5/grade 6 split class in 1998 and I read it then
Tales from Jabba's Palace is a weird one to me for a book to not get a Legends banner edition. The reason being that the rest of the Tales anthology books all got one, including Tales from the Empire (1997), and Tales from the New Republic (1999). Tales from Jabba's Palace is another book that I don't remember if I've read or not. I'm pretty sure I did either because I borrowed it from the public library or because Brad lent it to me when we were in high school, but I don't remember for sure.
While the second book in the Black Fleet Crisis Trilogy by Michael P. Kube-McDowell, Shield of Lies received a Legends banner edition, for whatever reason the other two books in the trilogy, Before the Storm and Tyrant's Test, haven't. Now, I'm a fan of these three books, and they're some of the ones I kept in my collection during the Great Collection Purge of 2015 and 2016 that I performed before we moved and while I was unpacking my things after the move. So, it baffles me that Shield of Lies got a Legends banner reprint, but Before the Storm and Tyrant's Test didn't. Especially because Shield of Lies is the weirdest book in the entire trilogy because of the way the author structured the story in that book.
Medstar II: Jedi Healer by Michael Reaves and Steve Perry was published in 2004 as part of the Clone Wars Multimedia Project, but for whatever reason, didn't get a Legends banner reprint. Its predecessor, Medstar I: Battle Surgeons did, but this book didn't. I didn't read either book until 2005 or early 2006 when I borrowed them from the branch of the Ottawa Public Library that was right next door to my high school, and I wasn't connected to the Star Wars fanbase back then as I didn't have regular access to the internet, wasn't on fan forums, and didn't have regular access to Star Wars Insider. So, I had no idea how well either of these books were received. But, again, how well received a Star Wars Legends novel was has nothing to do with the book getting reprinted with the Legends banner on it. So it confuses me as to why half of a duology of novels gets the banner and the other half doesn't, like in the case of the Medstar Duology.
Like with the Black Fleet Crisis Trilogy, the Coruscant Nights Trilogy only got one book reprinted with the Legends banner on the cover. And that was the first book in the trilogy, Jedi Twilight. I realize I'm sounding like a broken record here, but it absolutely baffles me that one book in a trilogy would get the Legends banner treatment, but the other two books in the trilogy wouldn't. The Coruscant Nights Trilogy was published in 2008 and 2009, similar to how the first two books in the Han Solo Adventures trilogy were published in 1979 and the final book was published in 1980. Now, I've never read any of the books in this trilogy, so I have no idea whether they're any good or not. When these books were originally published, I was busy with college and barely had any time to read for pleasure. And when I did have time to read, I was catching up on the books I'd missed in The New Jedi Order when that series was coming out between 1999 and 2003.
This last one, Knight Errant by John Jackson Miller, is probably the weirdest one to not have a Legends banner reprint. Originally published in 2011, Knight Errant was a tie-in to the Knight Errant comic book series being published by Dark Horse Comics around the same time. So while it was slightly less high profile than Darth Plagueis or X-Wing: Mercy Kill, both of which came out in 2012, due to the tie-in to the comic, Knight Errant should've gotten a Legends banner reprint.
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What's funny is that even though it didn't get a Legends banner reprint, in 2024 Knight Errant got a reprint which was a part of the Essential Legends Collection. So far this is the only book in that collection to not already have a Legends banner reprint. Which is interesting because the rest of the books in the collection are the most popular Star Wars novels to have come out in the last 46 years and have all had mid to late 2010s reprints with the Legends banner on them.
That's all I wanted to talk about today here on the Star Wars Journal. I'll be back next week with more posts on both blogs. So until then have a great weekend. May the Force be with you!
