Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (novel) [April 21, 1999]

 

I listened to the unabridged audio version of this novel version of the chronologically first Star Wars film. It was over nine hours long! It basically doesn't differ from the film except for a few lines of extra dialogue, and a few tiny scenes (such as in the beginning sequence which shows more of Anakin Skywalker on Tatooine talking to an old pilot about a Z-95 headhunter.)

Here is some behind the scenes info on the novelization:

This novelization, unlike those from the original trilogy, contains much that is not in the movie. It includes three entire chapters of material created by Terry Brooks and unique to the novel. The first two chapters of the book concern Anakin's next-to-last podrace and its aftermath, while a later chapter describes an encounter between Anakin and a wounded Tusken Raider in the desert.
Brooks met with George Lucas before writing the book and received his approval and guidance, including information about developments to come in Episode II and Episode III. This can be seen in such passages as the Tusken Raider scene, which ironically foreshadows the death of Anakin's mother in Episode II, and the passage leading up to Anakin's fight with the Rodian child (Greedo), indicating that Anakin's anger derives from his anguish at Padmé's impending departure (foreshadowing the plot of Episode III).
The novelization is especially well-known for a passage describing the history of the Sith, including Darth Bane. According to Terry Brooks' memoir, Sometimes the Magic Works: Lessons from a Writing Life, Lucas spent an hour on the telephone with him discussing the history of the Jedi and the Sith. Therefore, the information on this subject provided in Brooks' novelization can be presumed to derive from Lucas himself.
Brooks devotes the entire fourteenth chapter of Sometimes the Magic Works to the writing of the Episode I novelization, which was an extremely happy and fulfilling experience for him.