Search

Heir to the Empire was not inevitable because back in 1988 when publisher Bantam-Spectra first pitched their idea of a new Star Wars three-book saga to LucasFilm Licensing, Star Wars had almost comatose amongst its fan base. Return of the Jedi was a five year old memory, as were the Lando Calrissian books by L. Neil Smith, Marvel had wrapped up their comic book series in 1986; in fact the only on-going continuation of the expanded universe was the role-playing games from West End Games and their sourcebooks. Thus it was surprising that Lou Aronica of Bantam-Spectra tried to sell LucasFilm Licensing the concept of, at least, a new three book series. Even though Lou “solidly believed in the project”^[1], it still took LucasFilm a year to agree to Lou’s proposals. The search for an author was on.
Timothy Zahn had only signed with Bantam-Spectra about six weeks before Lucy Wilson, Director of Publishing at LucasFilm Licensing, had given the go ahead and was surprised to learn that she had selected him because his “writing felt most like Star Wars”^[2]. Zahn later recalled that upon hearing the news of his selection he “wandered around [his] house in a state of mild panic”^[2]. Fortunately by the following day he “had enough of a story [that could] get a three-book saga out of it”^[2].
LucasFilm had some rules and guidelines that Zahn had to follow: his story had to be set at least three years after Return of the Jedi; he could not use anybody who had been killed in the movies; nor could he discuss either the Clone Wars or Anakin Skywalker’s fall to the Dark Side; and he had to be true to the characters and maintain the Star Wars sensibilities. Zahn had an outline draft of his three book series by November 1990 in which the Noghri were known as ‘Siths’, in reference to Dark Vader’s alluded title of Dark Lord of the Sith in A New Hope’s novelization, and that the insane clone Joruus C’Baoth was to have been an insane clone of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Both of these ideas were rejected by LucasFilm, especially the idea of an insane clone of Obi-Wan Kenobi which was “a little to far from what they wanted”^[2].
So in the summer of 1991 Heir to the Empire was released to both critical acclaim and fan’s joy. It became a best seller, topping the New York Times Best Sellers List on 30th June^[3]. Heir to the Empire truly captured the aspirations of a Star Wars story: “if you can’t capture that feeling […] it’s going to feel flat”^[2]. And one thing Heir to the Empire was definitely not, was flat.
Just as Star Wars had its ‘lived-in universe’ feel and minimal exposition, so Zahn followed. Right from the opening chapter (what else than a Star Destroyer streaking through space) Zahn establishes new characters that belonged nowhere else than in that galaxy far, far away and who were obviously a part of it even if they had never appeared in any of the films. We accepted, without question, that Han and Leia were married, we accepted that Leia was heavily pregnant and expecting twins, and we accepted that the Empire had not been defeated after the Battle of Endor. Moreover we accepted Zahn’s characters as being those that belonged in the Star Wars universe.
In Heir to the Empire, Zahn creates no fewer than 34 new characters including some who will go on to influence future novels and authors: Gilad Pallaeon, Borsk Fey’lya, Talon Karrde, Winter, Grand Admiral Thrawn and Mara Jade. His story visits twenty planets, including naming the Galactic capital, Coruscant (previously only referred to as Imperial Center). The only discouraging point in Heir to the Empire was the ‘To be continued’ line at the book's end, for fans would have to wait a whole year for the sequel, Dark Force Rising, and another year for the conclusion in The Last Command. This is because although it took Zahn just five months to pen Heir to the Empire, it would take him a year apiece for Dark Force Rising and The Last Command.
Of his creations, Zahn is especially fond of Thrawn and Mara Jade, describing them both as having “a core of honor and nobility, [a core that] readers can feel comfortable with”^[1]. However he acknowledges that it was Mara that most fan’s came to love and relate to: “women fans like her being a strong female, and the male fans like the idea of her at their side when they’re in trouble”^[4]. So when asked to return to the Star Wars universe in 1997 for Specter of the Past (and Vision of the Future in 1998), Zahn agreed with two stipulations. First, he could end the war between The New Republic and the Empire; and secondly, he could set up Luke and Mara as a couple.
Of course creating characters within the Star Wars universe meant that other writers could use them (just as Marvel comics and L. Neil Smith had done so previously) and Zahn acknowledges that “it is a little bit unnerving”^[4]. So when Mara was killed off in Karen Traviss’s Sacrifice in 2007, Zahn comment was “I don’t think that killing off major characters really fits the style and overall ‘feel’ of the Star Wars universe […] it’s an old-fashioned good-versus-evil saga where the heroes fight against impossible odds and eventually triumph”^[1].
Heir to the Empire’s legacy is more than one book, one author or even one character: it is the whole of the modern Expanded Universe. For without Heir to the Empire we would not have had the plethora of stories published since 1991 that have taken fans on new and fantastic journeys travelling as far back as 5,000 years before or 137 years after Luke’s destruction of the Death Star. We have not only witnessed countless battles between the remnants of the Empire and the New Republic, but also of struggles between ancient Jedi and Sith, of an invasion of extra-galactic beings, of the rise and fall of Luke’s Jedi Academy. Even the death of Chewbacca.
What Heir to the Empire achieved in 1991 was no less than the rebirth of a what was a dormant Expanded Universe, in the words of Timothy Zahn himself, he was the one who “got to bring it all out into the light again”^[1].

© 2009 SWBooks.co.uk.

• [1] Timothy Zahn, as quoted in First In: Timothy Zahn and Star Wars, FractalMatter.com, 5th Nov. 2007 (accessed 8th June 2009)
• [2] Timothy Zahn, as quoted in The Hand of Zahn, Star Wars Magazine (UK), issue14 June/July 1998
• [3] New York Times
• [4] Timothy Zahn, as quoted in When Zahn met Mara Jade, Star Wars Magazine (UK), issue 25 April/May 2000.

• Chernoff, S. When Zahn met Mara Jade, Star Wars Magazine (UK), issue 25 April/May 2000, pp.28-30
• Edwards, T. The Unauthorized Star Wars Compendium, Boxtree, 1999, pp.169-171
• Farrell, S. Shaun Farrell interviews Timothy Zahn, Shaun's Quadrant, Farsector.com, March 2006 (accessed 8th June 2009)
• First In: Timothy Zahn and Star Wars, FractalMatter.com, 5th November 2007 (accessed 8th June 2009)
• Fry, J. Survivor off on another quest, Star Wars Magazine (UK), issue 51 June/July 2004, pp.37-39
• Fry, J. Questions of Allegiance, Star Wars Magazine (UK), issue 68 March/April 2007, pp.74-75
• Handley, R. Novel Approach, Star Wars Magazine (UK), issue 46 Sept/Oct 2003, pp.40-45
• Heir to the Empire entry on Wookieepedia.com (accessed 8th June 2009)
• Perenson, M. The Hand of Zahn, Star Wars Magazine (UK), issue14 June/July 1998, pp.42-45

advertisement