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

Knight Joined: 30 Apr 2011 Posts: 222

My grandmother had a copy of Splinter of the Mind's Eye when I was little (I was 6, so that'd be about 1989-1990), but I just use to look at the cover.

Anyway, I got into the EU because I saw Darth Bane: Path of Destruction on the store shelf when it first came out. I picked it up and inhaled it. I had a copy of Heir to the Empire that I found while in middle school, but had never bothered reading it. I didn't buy another novel until Rule of Two came out, and again, nothing until Dynasty of Evil. After that I decided to read other SW books. I picked up the rest of the Thrawn trilogy and found it absolutely mind-numbing and boring. It took me six months to get through HTTE, where I normally go through a book in a week or less. I promptly disposed of the trilogy (only books I ever did that to). I borrowed many other SW books since then, and own less than twenty currently.

Master Joined: 09 Jun 2009 Posts: 1410

If you don't count the movie novels when they originally came out, my intro was Splinter of the Mind's Eye.
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The Thrawn trilogy grew on me, but originally I didn't care for it either. Zahn's style was hard to get used to. He's really good at making the world feel authentic but sometimes the characters seem a little cardboard. He's gotten better at that though.
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I'll take that as a personal opinion, because IMO there's nothing wrong with the characterisation anywhere in the Thrawn Trilogy.
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Master Joined: 22 Dec 2010 Posts: 1799 Location: Carcosa

Agreed, I think Heir to the Empire really is the best collective characterization of the Big 3 outside of the films, and definitely a good evolution of them from where we left them at the end of Return of the Jedi. The only other novel I think that really nailed them collectively is Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor.

Yeah, it's my opinion. They just seemed a little distant to me.
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Doubt not, Reepicheep,
To find all you seek,
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Master Joined: 22 Dec 2010 Posts: 1799 Location: Carcosa

That's an interesting discussion in and of itself, which books provide the best characterization for each character, as well as which books provide the best collective characterization for the Big 3. I definitely think Luke is Zahn's weak link in writing the Big 3, and that Stover did a better job with him in LSatSoM. My favorite depictions for each is Daley's Han Solo in his trilogy, Stover's Luke, and Veitch's Leia in Dark Empire. Collectively I think I'd go with a tie between HttE and LSatSoM.

Stover's characterizations are by far my favorites.
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Knight Joined: 25 Jun 2011 Posts: 121

I was in maybe the summer before 2nd Grade (~2002) and we were taking a trip to a amusement park about 2.5-3 hours from home and my Nana, who came with us, (knowing I LOVED the Star Wars movies) checked out Jedi Search on tape. I listened to it, the rest of the JAT, the Thrawn Trilogy, and Darksaber. Not long after that I checked out the hardback of the collected Corellian Trilogy and have been reading Star Wars novles ever since.
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My aunt worked at a bookstore, and she saw a Star Wars book and thought I might like it (this was when I was about 8 years old). I read it and was hooked. The book was Balance Point which conveniently had a summary of what had happened so far at the beginning. I stuck with JA, JQ, and YJK at first, but returned to NJO before the end. Over the course of the past 10 years, I've managed to collect most of the novels.
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Padawan Joined: 29 Sep 2011 Posts: 62

I know one day my Dad picked up Heir to the Empire for me from a thrift store/used book store, something like that. Don't remember when I decided to sit down and read it, but really loved the book. Met Timothy Zahn when he came to my city on his Allegiance tour and picked up Dark Force Rising and borrowed Allegiance from the library, and it just kind of ballooned from there. Since then I've been picking up novels here and there from used book stores, though recently I've picked up quite a few to read, and am still thirsting for more SW literature!

I read The Truce at Bakura and some of the Junior Jedi Knights books when I was a kid (call it 1997-1998 roughly), and I owned and read a lot of the first-generation Essential Guides. But then I fell away from it. In 2005-2006 I was looking at getting back into fandom, and was soooo confused by what Wookieepedia was saying about the "Yuuzhan Vong" that I'd never heard about. So I started buying books again, starting with Vector Prime. In mid-2006 I picked up my first comics, with KOTOR, Legacy, and Dark Times (we had an comic book shop on campus). Since then the collection has slowly built up to the mammoth it is now.
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Padawan Joined: 17 Oct 2011 Posts: 6 Location: New Mexico

I was initially intro'd to the EU by my then-WoD storyteller, Mapes. He suggested we play an old school version of Star Wars, made by West End Games. I had a phenomenal time, as the game play was very open, and classes weren't defined so much as a general direction.

After that, I was pretty much out of the SW Galaxy until I got on a K.W. Jeter binge. He was an author, and apparent understudy of Philip K. Dick, and he also wrote a few books about Boba Fett for Star Wars. They were just as riveting as his Blade Runner sequels, and leave the reader wondering if Boba Fett actually triumphed in the end. You end up hoping Boba Fett didn't actually get screwed over.

Since then I have been pretty much living in another sci-fi universe totally, and I need to learn some new stuff.
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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.

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