Claudia Gray

Claudia Gray is, quite simply, good at Star Wars. Peruse our content, listen to our podcast, or hang out in our Discord server or Facebook group, and you’ll quickly find that she’s a favorite of the Youtini team. Her Lost Stars is part of our collection of Five Foundational Books, and for many of us, her four Star Wars books each have spots high on our list of favorites in this new era of Canon.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: if you think the “Young Adult” label means these books aren’t for you, you should really think again: The category only refers to the age range of the protagonist, not the reading level. And regardless of whether she’s portraying young pilots and princesses or Senators and Jedi Masters, Gray is a master at developing complex and nuanced new characters who immediately draw you into their plights; Lost Stars co-protagonists Thane Kyrell and Ciena Ree have, for many readers, occupied honored places in the pantheon of Expanded Universe characters. 

Gray also excels at taking characters we’ve met on screen and capturing them in a way that not only honors their cinematic portrayal, but expands on our understanding of them. In the first chapter of Master and Apprentice, she so perfectly captures the voices of Qui-Gon and Obi Wan that you’ll be hard pressed not to hear Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor in your head, and the way you view the pair’s relationship in The Phantom Menace will be forever changed. After Leia: Princess of Alderaan and Bloodline, Gray may as well be considered Leia Organa’s official biographer (if there were such a thing for fictional characters). 

Her Star Wars work has also appeared in From a Certain Point of View, the collection of forty short stories released to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Episode IV. In it, she casts the relationship between Qui Gon and Obi Wan in an even more fascinating light in a short story entitled “Master and Apprentice.”

Fortunately for those of us who can’t get enough of Claudia Gray’s takes on the Star Wars universe, more is on the way. We don’t know much about “Project Luminous” yet, but since it includes Gray in addition to Charles Soule (Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith), Daniel Jose Older (Last Shot), Justina Ireland (Lando’s Luck), and friend of Youtini, Cavan Scott (Dooku: Jedi Lost), we’re pretty sure we’re going to like it. At this point, we’re pretty sure we’ll like anything Star Wars from Claudia Gray, and if you want to join us, check out the following titles.