Survey of EU Readers

1. Jedi Search
2. When it came out
3. 15
4. 82
5. Conquest or The Paradise Snare

 

Jedi Search
1994
13
5
Hand of Thrawn

 

1)The Crystal Star
2) 1996
3) 11
4) 14
5) wraith squadron, whether it was a duology or trilogy, can't remember.

 

1) I believe it was Galaxy of Fear #1. Sad, I know.
2) 1999
3) Almost 13.
4) Too many to count.
5) Edge of Victory

 

1) Dark Empire #4 Reprint
2) June 1997
3) 12 standard years old
4) Hmmm, toughie. A lot?( 46 novels, 3 YAs, 14 Comic TPBs, 22.5 comic arcs in separate issues, 7 comic one-shots, 2 Gamer mags, and many, many reference books)
5) Starfighters of Adumar by Allston

 

1) Jedi Apprentice
2) 1999
3) 11
4) 4
5) Jedi Apprentice #1, The Hand of Thrawn duology

 

1. I read the 3 movie books in one (the pb with the black cover) in 8/94 and just after Christmas I got TTT in paperback.

2. 1994

3. 11

4. 200+ roughly

5. Solo Command

 

1. Heir To the Empire
2. 1994
3. 10
4. 8 novels
5. I Jedi, by MAS

 

1. X-Wing: Rogue Squadron
2. 1998?
3. 14
4. 19
5. Wraith squadron

 

1. Comic - Marvel SW #1 (1977)
Book - Splinter of the Mind's Eye (1978?)

2,3. Well, I was 7 years old in May of 1977.

4. Considering that I've been buying all the SW comics and books I could since 1977 I'd have to say...quite a lot! I never took a count though. It's easier to count the ones that I don't have.

5. I think it's a toss up between the Wraith Sq. books and Star by Star, but I predict that the Dark Journey will replace SbS and then traitor will replace that and so on...

 

1. Comic: One of the early Marvel Comic series.
Book: Either ANH novel or Splinter of the Mind's Eye.
Probably the very first literature I read was either the Star Wars Storybook or The Mystery of The Rebellious Robot or something about a moon involving Han & Chewie. (both are kids books).

2. Sometime between 1977-1980.

3. 4-7

4. All of the novels except for GODV, a few of the journals and the KJA Young Jedi series. Eighty percent of the Marvel comics and all but 3 or 4 of the Dark Horse comics.

5. Favorite Trilogy: Crispin's HST.
Favorite Book: Star By Star by Denning

 

1) What was the first book/comic from the EU that you read?

Splinter of the Minds Eye

2) When did you read it? (What year?)

About 1990 if I remember correctly.

3) What was your age at that time?

8

4) How many Star Wars books do you currently own?

150ish. I can't remember the full count.

5) What single book or trilogy would you consider your favorite? (Please confine your answer to one book or one trilogy, not vauge responses like hte entire NJO.)

Solo Command

 

Now that I think of it, the very first piece of EU I read was Marvel's ROTJ adaptation, in about 92-93... So I was younger, and it did not start my love for the EU... It really started with TTT in 98... But I thought it was worth mentionning... Better have acurate stats, after all...

 

1) HTTE
2) 1991/1992- whenever it came out.
3) 9
4) All of them. Literally.
5) Hand of Thrawn

 

) What was the first book/comic from the EU that you read?
Heir to the Empire, Timothy Zahn

2) When did you read it? (What year?)
1992

3) What was your age at that time?
17

4) How many Star Wars books do you currently own?
Twenty eight EU novels, the SW Journal series, TPM cookbook (given to me as a joke -Darth Maul cookies, anyone?), my movie guides (in tatters) from when each of the movies came out. Thirty-two comics complete my growing collection. Five SW gamer magazines.

5) What single book or trilogy would you consider your favorite? (Please confine your answer to one book or one trilogy, not vauge responses like the entire NJO.)
It's so hard to pick one!!!
Uh... Michael Stackpole's Dark Tide Series.
One book... Troy Denning's Star by Star

 

I now have enough data to analyze. I hope to have my results done in a little bit.

Thank you to everyone who's taken part in this survey!

Kimball Kinnison

 

1) Marvel Star Wars #52 ("To Take the Tarkin")
2) 1981-1982
3) 5-6
4) All adult SW novels starting with HTTE, plus two YJK novels and th Han Solo Trilogy.
5) The Courtship of Princess Leia (favorite to reread), Star by Star (best written), Wraith Squadron (funniest).

 

OK, the preliminary results are in!!!

Before I start giving the results, I want to explain how I did my analysis of the data, so that no one can claim that I was unfair.

For each answer, I entered the information into a spreadsheet (copies available on request). These were the rules I followed:

1. If a person gave two or more answers, I only accepted the first (unless they corrected themselves in a later message or PM). I did the same for years/ages.
2. When people gave the option of the year that a book was published, I looked up that date and used that.
3. If a person was unsure how many books/comics they owned, I used their lowest estimate. If a person did not list a number, I PMed them for the information. I am still waiting for 6 more clarifications like that.
4. If a person listed a Trilogy as the first book that they read, I wrote down the first book from that trilogy.
5. If a person listed a book that was part of a trilogy/series/duology as their favorite, I used the series name. I did this because I am focusing on the favorite authors (by way of the favorite books).

If any of you would like a copy of the results to analyze for yourself, please feel free to PM me.

On to the results!!!

The average year that we found the Star Wars EU was: 1993 Answers ranged from 1977 to 2001, but surprisingly no one gae a date in the 1980s.

Our average age at that time was: 12 Answers ranged from 4 to 21.

On average, we own 63(.31) books and/or comics. I did not knowingly include magazines in this tally because that can skew the results heavily. I just wanted books or comics.

Finally, the two most important questions:

1) What was the first book/comic from the EU that you read?

Title (Votes)
Heir to the Empire (16)
Jedi Search (5)
Marvel Comics (4)
Courtship of Princess Leia (2)
Rogue Squadron (2)
Splinter of the Mind's Eye (2)
The Crystal Star (2)
Dark Empire (1)
Galaxy of Fear (1)
Heirs to the Force (1)
Jedi Apprentice (1)
Star Wars (1)

As you can see, Timothy Zahn's Heir to the Empire won this category by a clear plurality (42.11%), beating the next closest (Jedi Search, 13.16%) by over 3 to 1.

2) What single book or trilogy would you consider your favorite?

Title (Votes)
Wraith Squadron Series (8)
Hand of Thrawn (7)
Star by Star (4)
Starfighters of Adumar (4)
Edge of Victory (3)
Han Solo Trilogy (3)
Courtship of Princess Leia (2)
I, Jedi (2)
Thrawn Trilogy (2)
Dark Tide Duology (1)
Jedi Apprentice (1)
Shadows of the Empire (1)

As you can see, Aaron Allston's Wraith Squadron series (21.05%) barely beat out Timothy Zahn's Hand of Thrawn duology (18.42%) for the number one spot. However, for the favorite author title, the award clearly goes to Aaron Allston who, between Wraith Squadron and Starfighters of Adumar won 12 votes. He was followed by Timothy Zahn with 9 votes. Here are the rest of the Author results:

Author (Votes)
Aaron Allston (12)
Timothy Zahn (9)
Troy Denning (4)
Greg Keyes (3)
A.C. Crispin (3)
Dave Wolverton (2)
Michael A. Stackpole (3)
Steve Perry (1)
Jude Watson (1)

Notably absent from this list is Kevin J. Anderson. Based on some comments, he comes in as several people's second favorite author, but he is not mentioned as the favorite (former favorite, yes, but we are looking at the current status). Also absent are Vonda McIntyre, Allen Dean Foster and others whose books appear on the "first read" list.

Those are the preliminary results. You may infer from them what you like. I would have prefered a larger sample, but this is as accurate as I could get with the data at hand. Let me know what you think of these results.

Kimball Kinnison

Edit: These results were tallied as of my last post. I apologize to a

 

1) What was the first book/comic from the EU that you read?
2) When did you read it? (What year?)
3) What was your age at that time?
4) How many Star Wars books do you currently own?
5) What single book or trilogy would you consider your favorite? (Please confine your answer to one book or one trilogy, not vauge responses like the entire NJO.)

And my responses.

1) Shadows of the Empire
2) 1996
3) 19
4) 15 (I think)
5) The Thrawn Trilogy

 

1) Heir to the Empire
2) Summer, 1993
3) 11 years old I was
4) Currently? See, this might sound blasphemus to some of you but I think I've actually thrown away certain SW EU books that I didn't care about, but let me go count...27 books (13 Hard covers), 2 comics Dark Empire 1 & 2, one technical journal and 2 encyclopedias.... so 23 pieces of SW literature in total.
5) Trilogy= easily my favorite trilogy would have to be the original Zahn trilogy. Favorite stand alone book, I'm not so sure about. One things for sure though, my two most hated series were the Correlian Trilogy and the BFC.

 

Interesting results so far, Kimball, but maybe you should wait to get more answers (at least 100, up it if necessary). It would be a good thing to get good stats, for once, and I think 100 would be quite a good number.

 

1)JAT
2)95, I think
3)10ish
4)every novel and 5 comics: DE 1&2, CE 1&2 and Chewbacca
5)favorite comic is DE and favorite novel is probably SbS

 

Like I said, they were preliminary results. I had gotten some PMs from people who wanted to know the status, so I put it together. I'll add updates in the future.

 

1) What was the first book/comic from the EU that you read?

The first EU thing I ever owned or read was Marvel # 18, but I don't think that really counts, since my hardcore Star Wars fandom didn't grow until later. So, my first novel was the Star Wars Trilogy 3 in 1 paperback.

2) When did you read it? (What year?)

1994.

3) What was your age at that time?

14.

4) How many Star Wars books do you currently own?

About 200 single-issue comics, 37 trade paperbacks, 12 strategy guides, 127 RPG books, 11 technical and character guides, approximately 123 novels of various type, plus about 20 other miscellaneous books.

In total = Aprox. 530 Star Wars books.

I didn't count magazines, but I have every issue of Bantha Tracks aside from the first 3, every Star Wars Insider since # 23, every Star Wars Galaxy Magazine / Collector except 2 later issues, every Adventure Journal except # 13, and every issue of Gamer so far made.

5) What single book or trilogy would you consider your favorite? (Please confine your answer to one book or one trilogy, not vauge responses like hte entire NJO.)

The Thrawn Trilogy.

 

Hey Sturm, if you have a list of books already on your PC, could you PM me the RPG list?