Happy twwenty-fifth anniversary, Young Jedi knights. · 3:53am Jun 2nd, 2020
And one more for the road...
So today, June First 1995, the first book of the Young Jedi Knights book series was published. And sometime in the later months of that year I wandered into the local Waldenbooks and picked it up... and it changed my life.
The... entirety of the 1990's were bad years for me, living with an emotionally and verbally-abusive stepfather that made my and my mom's life a living hell. These books provided me a bit of a haven from him, until he left us... and our lives got better.
Just... let me try and make this clear. I read these books before I had seen all three of the original Trilogy in their entirety. As legit heretical as it might seem to some folks, they are more important to me than any of the SW movies. One of the characters it introduces, Tenel Ka, is one of my favorite characters in fiction AND my favorite character in Star Wars period.
they also got me into writing fanfic. I read the first one several times and thought, "How would Jacen or Jaina react on the Enterprise-D?" And... it went from there. I still own my original writings. :D
So happy anniversary, Young Jedi Knights. no matter what Disney says, you're my Star Wars.
I don't know the books, so I can't make any judgement about whether or not they're objectively good. But "good" is not the same as "important". I'm glad for you that you found something that was important enough to you to stay with you, to get built into you as part of you. As an extra, I'm glad for you that it was hopeful and inspiring, as opposed to cynical and depressing. 😉
Heh. Those novels were among my favorites to read when I was younger. Not nearly as important as they were to you, but solid bits of YA literature. With Zekk, the warrior princess, lobacca, stuff on Jedi Training, war, xenophobia, redemption, realigning priorities, wild cards, the lightning rod, wrestling with the dark side, surprise reveals during the story.
They were fun times. Although, I think my favorite of the series was actually only the 4th one. Lightsabers. Seeing our 4 main characters get their own custom sabers, seeing Tenel Ka come to better terms with who she is, an unusual journey in regards to prosthetics, and different types of enemies too.
Thanks for being willing to share about something you loved. Legends never die.