The Star Wars trilogy

I'm a big fan of the Star Wars films but these novelisations of the classic trilogy did nothing for me I'm afraid. I hadn't really expected to be bowled over by the quality of the writing but I had hoped for a reasonably enjoyable read and some additional insight into the Star Wars canon. I got neither.

George Lucas's Star Wars was the best of the bunch (which surprised me, given the brain-dead and cheesy dialogue he gave his characters to spout in the prequel trilogy). Donald F. Glut's The Empire Strikes Back and James Kahn's Return of the Jedi were little more than slightly fleshed-out versions of the film screenplays but Lucas's book felt better than that, like it was the first time he'd written about the story that was in his head. The other two books, in comparison, felt like rush jobs to cash in on the films. The quality of the writing in Empire and Jedi is fairly poor and I was ready to slap James Kahn for his over-use of gambling analogies when he was describing Lando Calrissian.

The other thing that struck me was that (apart from a brief mention about Boba Fett's armour being the same as that worn by the Clone Troopers) it is apparent that George Lucas had no real idea of how he wanted the plotlines for the entire saga to pan out and there are several occasions in these books where there are contradictions to the events of the films. I can't say that this bothers me too much (especially since the prequel trilogy itself appears to contradict the original films sometimes) but some readers might not like this.

To sum up, I think there is some value in reading the first book but as for the second and third ones - you'd be better off sticking to the films.