In 2014, the Star Wars story group had the great canon purge, where 30 years of Expanded Universe (EU) material was deemed null-and-void. In an effort to tighten up the canon, only materials published after the purge would be considered “official,” and all the games, novels, and comics which came before were optional stories which had no bearing on the official story. You’re free to enjoy them as “Legends,” but they don’t count towards the continuity of the overall saga.

Obviously, longstanding EU fans were heartbroken at this news. The EU was Star Wars in the years when no films were on the horizon. Yes, they’re hokey, dated, and were often later contradicted by the films and Clone Wars cartoon series, but they were also special to the fans who saw them keep the story of Star Wars alive.

The problem with the great canon jettison of 2014 is that it took a scorched-Earth solution to the problem of the EU. Granted, everything following Return of the Jedi had to go. We didn’t like it, but it was understandable that the new movies didn’t want to be beholden to having Chewbacca dead along with two out of three of the Solo kids. The post-ROTJ canon was going to go its own way. Still, there was a lot of good material set before ROTJ, and the mass-deletion of everything seemed overboard.

In celebration of May the 4th, here’s a list of ten EU works which still “work” with the canon. Keep in mind that Star Wars‘ official policy is that nothing is canon unless it’s officially reintroduced by the story group, so no, these stories are not canon. They’re just stories which, if reintroduced, wouldn’t contradict the canon. Also keep in mind that we’re not picking the “best” of the EU either. Star Wars: Legacy and Heir to the Empire are great, but we’re talking pre-ROTJ works which don’t contradict the current canon here.

With that, here’s some stories to consider reading:

1. Shadows of the Empire (Steve Perry-Novel; John Wagner/Kilian Perry-Comic): Before the Prequels, Lucas and company whetted our appetites for more Star Wars with Shadows of the Empire (SOTE), essentially a “movie without the movie.” SOTE included a toy line, novel, comic adaption, video game, and action figures–all the merchandising you’d expect from an actual film. SOTE bridged the gap between Episodes V and VI by showing how Boba Fett got from Bespin to Tatooine, how Luke got his new lightsaber, and more. SOTE can still be read comfortably between those two films, with perhaps only a slight contradiction with the new-canon novel Moving Target. It’s a shame the story group deleted this one, because it really was a Lucas-driven project which doesn’t hurt anything in the new canon.

2. Purge (Various): Star Wars Rebels had a recent line of dialogue suggesting that Darth Vader wiped out any Order 66 survivors, but the new canon has yet to show it. Purge was a series of one-shots (and one two-parter) with various stories about a young Vader hunting down the Jedi. Sometimes Vader is absolutely brutal; other times, it shows that he’s still a Sith-in-training who barely knows what he’s doing. Either way, it’s a fun ride seeing Vader in his prime dueling other Jedi. Only one of these issues–Seconds to Die–has an explicit canon problem with a dying Jedi having a vision of the old EU’s future. And hey, we can excuse that with “always in motion is the future.

3. Labyrinth of Evil and Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader (James Luceno):  James Luceno really has a knack for writing Star Wars, and it shows in the quality of the prominent novels he authored over the years. Luceno did well enough that he wrote the bookends to Revenge of the Sith, with Labyrinth of Evil leading into the movie and Dark Lord immediately following it. The former concerns Anakin and Obi-Wan’s quest to uncover Darth Sidious’ identity and how tragically short they come. The latter shows Anakin’s first days as Vader and a surviving Jedi’s effort to stop him. Labyrinth of Evil doesn’t account for the recent revelation that Anakin saw Ahsoka Tano just before the end of the war, but that minor fact aside, both books are powerful and significant enough that the story group should consider re-canonizing them.

4. Dark Times (Randy Stradley/Doug Wheatley): Before Star Wars Rebels, there was another series about a band of criminals on a spaceship led by a surviving Jedi. Rather than being anchored in the original trilogy era, Dark Times was firmly rooted in the months after Revenge of the Sith and was considerably grimmer than the lighthearted Rebels. The Empire is everywhere, the Jedi order is dead, and surviving Jedi Das Jennir has to decide if he can still live up to his ethics in the new order. The worst part of this series is that when it ended, it didn’t quite wrap up the fates of its characters. The best part? Doug Wheatley’s art, which was so detailed that the series was notoriously late while he slaved over each issue.

5. Agent of the Empire (John Ostrander/Stephane Roux): If you’re looking for something closer to the Original Trilogy era, however, the two Agent of the Empire (AOTE) stories may be for you. Essentially “James Bond in Star Wars,” AOTE was a spy thriller about Imperial Agent Jahan Cross. Firmly rooted in the years before A New Hope (Han, Chewie, Tarkin, and others appear), AOTE had a lot of fun using Bond conventions like espionage and sexy female companions (mostly in the form of Cross’ fembot partner). The Hard Targets series gave us a glimpse of Count Dooku’s homeworld of Serreno, so unless future stories give this world a different history and appearance, AOTE can still be comfortably read with the canon.

6. Shatterpoint (Matthew Stover): One of the few stories that really focused on Mace Windu, Shatterpoint was a Clone Wars-era novel which broadened our understanding of the beloved character. Shatterpoint exposed us to Windu’s mastery of Jedi fighting skills and introduced his ability to find the weak point in his opponents. It also told the story of the downfall of his apprentice, Depa Billaba. Shatterpoint is explicitly no longer canon, as Billaba’s fall to the dark side has been removed. However, a number of elements of the story remain intact, and the Star Wars: Kanan comic series made some overt nods to it. Besides being a good story, it remains heavily influential even after its deletion.

7. Knights of the Old Republic: KOTOR is beloved as both a video game franchise and a lengthy comic book series which tied into the same. Familiar and yet totally different, KOTOR introduced us to the Jedi and the Sith as they were thousands of years before the films. Characters like Darth Revan continue to be so popular that the Clone Wars cartoon came this close to having him appear on an episode. The Rebels episode “Twilight of the Apprentice” overtly dabbled in some KOTOR references, and Revan is due to get a Black Series action figure soon. KOTOR is worth reviewing for the simple reason that it’s continued to influence the new canon and will probably continue to do so.

8. “Thank the Maker” (Ryder Windham/Kilian Plunkett): If Darth Vader built C-3PO, why didn’t the two of them ever bump into each other again? The short “Thank the Maker” comic shows Vader discovering 3PO in the behind-the-scenes moments of The Empire Strikes Back in the portions where the droid was blown apart. Vader is forced to remember the day he built 3PO and whether he still means anything to him decades later. This one avoids being hokey and turns one of the worst story decisions of The Phantom Menace into an emotional gut-punch.

That’s just a sampling of what’s out there, and just our opinion. Feel free to post in the comments below and tell us what stories you enjoy which could stand to be re-canonized!