How did you first find out or get introduced into the EU?

Ha, that's okay. I also read them out of order! My mom was a major eBay seller back around 2000/2001, and she came home from a garage sale one day with three Star Wars books: Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, and The Last Command. I eagerly wanted to read them (since they were Star Wars, and I didn't know Star Wars came in book form), but she told me she didn't know what was in them, so she'd rather if I didn't.

I was determined, though, to read these books. Sometime later, shortly after I read CoPL, I found Dark Force Rising at the library! Recognizing it from the book my mom had sold on eBay, I rushed home with it and hid it under my pillow, carefully reading it every night. I had no idea what was going on, but I was ridiculously intrigued.

I don't remember when I eventually read them in the right order, but it wasn't too much later. So anyway, that's funny that you read them out of order, too. Smile

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"It's not about the legacy you leave, it's about the life you live." ~Mara Jade Skywalker

I got Dark Force Rising at a library book sale. I knew it was second in a trilogy, but I tried reading it anyway. I gave up three chapters in because I was confused.

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All things die, Anakin Skywalker, even stars burn out.

So this is how liberty dies....with thunderous applause.

Those without swords can still die upon them

The world is a mess and I just need to rule it.

I found the Thrawn Trilogy at a thrift store, although it took years before I actually read them.
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Where sky and water meet,
Where the waves grow sweet,
Doubt not, Reepicheep,
To find all you seek,
There is the utter east.

I got the Thrawn Trilogy at a garage sale and also waited a couple years before I read them. Maybe they should call that the Bargain Trilogy.
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Master Joined: 22 Dec 2010 Posts: 1796 Location: Carcosa

My cousin, who is a bit older than me, had Heir to the Empire back when it came out, and I saw it in his room. This prompted me to read it as well as Dark Empire. Back in the day next to the movie theater there was a store called "Star Force" which carried Star Wars merchandise. It was pretty sweet. I miss the 90s.

With me, it depends on how you look at it. My first two SW books ever were I, Jedi, and an essential guide to characters, bought in the late 90s. While I perused the guide at the time, I didn't even bother reading I, Jedi until years later. I just didn't like books. They held no interest for me. At school, during study time, I would spend more time and energy pretending to read the book than I would have actually reading the book! It was only until after I left school that I got into reading books

As the films came out, I got some visual dictionaries, and starship dictionaries, and I looked at them because I liked the pretty pictures and cut-aways of the ships. When AOTC came out, I received another gift, a tri-package of a graphic novel of the movie, plus SW: Jango Fett and SW: Zam Wessel. These I read at the time, but they didn't hold my interest either. It was perhaps two years ago when I define myself as having read my first SW book. And that was only because I had run out of books to read and wasn't sure what next to buy, so I found my old copy of I, Jedi and sat down to read. I was instantly hooked. Now, two years later and an addiction to ordering SW books off amazon, here I am!

So tell me, for you, reading that above, when would you define the time that I was first introduced to the EU? Because I'd like to know if you yourselves define it by 'when you were hooked', or when you first read it without being hooked, or when you first read a source book?
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I am a Star Wars fan. That doesn't mean that I hate or love Jar Jar. That doesn't mean I hate or love Lucas, or agree or disagree 100% with him. That doesn't mean I prefer the PT over the OT, or vice versa. That doesn't mean I hate the EU, or even love all of it. These are not prerequisites. Being a man is not a prerequisite. Being a geek is not a prerequisite. The only prerequisite is that I love something about Star Wars. I am a Star Wars fan.

I think it's sad that kids don't like reading books. Probably the only reason is the awful stuff they make you read in school. Sad

I think there should be more freedom in picking the books you read for school.
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Where sky and water meet,
Where the waves grow sweet,
Doubt not, Reepicheep,
To find all you seek,
There is the utter east.

Reading the essential guide to characters was your introduction to the EU, Life. There's a difference between your first time and the point you became a junkie. Laughing

There is no drug like Star Wars.
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Master Joined: 22 Dec 2010 Posts: 1796 Location: Carcosa

Also, in 1999, Vector Prime and Rogue Planet completely turned me off from Star Wars until early 2002. Not a fan of RA Salvatore's prose at all in VP, and I just couldn't get into Greg Bear's prose at the time either. For those three years, I had no idea that Chewbacca died because I never even reached that point in Vector Prime. In addition, at that point I kind of figured the Expanded Universe was over since the prequels were being released.

Then when Attack of the Clones was approaching release, I went back and bought all the New Jedi Order novels that had been released. It was nice treating the first half of the New Jedi Order like a TV season on DVD in that I could just read through it without pause up to Rebel Dream. And personally I think around Star by Star and Traitor is when the series really hit its stride to maintain my interest. It's like a rollercoaster and that's the apex, and it's the payoff to the slow uphill climb. I remember buying The Unifying Force on November 5, 2003, the same night I went to see The Matrix Revolutions in the theater.

Ahh, good times. Also had fun leading up to Revenge of the Sith in early 2005 playing through both KOTOR games for the first time on PC, since I didn't own an Xbox. KOTOR II was released on PC in Feb. of 2005 and that was the impetus that led me to purchase both. I can't really say I've enjoyed the EU nearly as much since then. The last memorable experience I have is the time I rented The Force Unleashed when it came out for the Xbox 360, and my cousin and I played through it in one sitting, treating it essentially as a new film, not knowing what was going to happen.

Padawan Joined: 27 May 2011 Posts: 79

What got me started was getting Heir to the Empire in Christmas 92. Then playing the X-wing series and Shadows of the Empire on N64. Never looked back after that lol
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I hunt down Smurfs for sport....

Showdown at Centerpoint was my first EU novel. I was in third grade and myy Dad (He's my Star Wars "drug" dealer) let me take his copy (Which ended up becoming my copy) to school with me. When kids were reading “normal” Elementary school books like ‘Sideways Stories From Wayside School’ Here I am, sitting in the corner, reading a Star Wars book that was probably too high of a reading level for me. But, I didn't care, it was Star Wars and that's all that mattered to me.

My dad found Dark empire in a book shop one day and bought it me. After that anything with star wars on it I had to get it.
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I first saw Star Wars in the summer of 1992 when I was 11. I fell in love with the story and wanted MORE. Thankfully, that was right around the time the EU was starting. My dad had a copy of Heir to the Empire and I "borrowed" it. Then I went out and bought Dark Force Rising. Eleven year old me was so disappointed that I had to wait for The Last Command, but I survived and immediately began shipping Luke and Mara, even though at that time I had no idea that the term "ship" existed and there was no internet for me to talk about these things with other people. From that time I've been reading EU off and on, specifically post-ROTJ era, which will always hold a special place in my heart. Razz

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“You are greater than the Jedi of the former days. Because unlike the Knights of old, Jedi Luke Skywalker…you are not afraid of the dark.”

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