A&A The Official Jason Fry Discussion Thread

Jason pointed out that he doesn't have an A&A thread -- but now he does! If you want to discuss Jason Fry's work and interact with him, here's the place to do it.

Now all I need to do is to actually get some of Jason's books.

So how are we gonna reconcile this Ahsoka founding the rebellion thing?

Jason, I can't say enough how awesome retconning the Order of the Terrible Glare into a sect of Jedi Pius Dea adherents was.

Ha, this is awesome. I'm honored.

Or I will be until it's shuttered for lack of material in three weeks. And then I'll be sheepish.

Wait! New material! I wrote this reminiscence of loving Brian Daley's Han Solo at Stars' End for starwars.com. It's in honor of Star Wars Reads Day....

Hey Jason, just wanted to stop by and say that I (and I think I can also use the we here) immensely appreciate your work on the Atlas, Essential Guide to Warfare, those myriad Clone Wars guides, and every piece of fiction you've written. It's these kinds of things that provide this fictional universe with a real kind of historicity, the glue that hold everything together, and to be perfectly honest, keeps me invested in the story.

Cheers, Mr. Fry. This one's to you. And thanks.

PS: Also, thanks for, y'know, talking to us. That's fantastic as well.

This thread is a great idea!

Now lets talk Switching Gears

I'm curious about a few aspects of this book. First the title, was it a homage on the old G1 cartoon episode Changing Gears?

Who came up with the cast ideas(beyond the main cast like Prime, Bee, and crew)?

And lastly Jason, what exactly was your involvement with the novel?

"Essential Atlas" has pride of place on my bookshelf (but it's usually in use!). Hope you don't mind, but I've put a reference to it in the Walkthrough I'm working on for Jedi Academy (the game).

Thanks, and please keep up the fantastic work!

Thanks for the kind words about the Atlas. Apologies if you've heard the story before, but it's a book I dreamed of. Literally -- I was 11 or 12, and I dreamed I'd gone to the bookstore (the same one actually visited in my Daley piece) and found 'THE ATLAS OF THE STAR WARS GALAXY' and bought it. I woke up and thought happily that after school and homework and all that I'd get to read my new Star Wars book ... and then realized I'd been dreaming and it didn't exist.

Well it did exist ... I just didn't know I'd have to grow up, become a writer and meet Dan Wallace to make it true.

A Switching Gears question, wow. Ryder Windham approached me about helping him write a four-book Transformers series. The title and main characters came from Hasbro, IIRC. The way Ryder and I've worked on the series, he writes a detailed outline, I write the book (changing the outline as I need to), then he does some rewriting. So it's a true collaboration. The second book in that series is just out, or about to be -- it's called Battle Mountain. And I just wrote the third one, Satellite of Doom. They've been fun to do.

Ryder and Penguin editor Rob Valois were very helpful teaching me about writing for kids -- I'm grateful to both of them. I used their lessons in crafting and writing my own series, the Jupiter Pirates. First one comes out in early 2014 from HarperCollins.

But I'm hoping there will be a bunch more Star Wars projects before then!

One quick question to Jason or anyone else: I've been meaning to pick up the Atlas for ages. However, awhile back I decided I'd wait until I read the NJO before buying it, since I imagine that will contain a great deal of information about that time period. Without getting into details, I won't really be able to devote much time at all to reading Star Wars over the next few months. Does the Atlas (and the Essential Guide to Warfare, but I'm planning on getting that soon anyway) have lots of spoilers for the NJO in it? I only ask because I'm actually pretty miraculously unspoiled on the NJO so far, except for the big stuff (the deaths). I know it's main purpose is cool maps, but I think the main draw of it for me will be in the text (I'm the type who really just glances at the map at the beginning of fantasy novels, rather than study to them to the point where I know the world better than the characters )

Ha, that's happened to me before... dreaming something and thinking it actually happened for most of the day. Mostly it's a bummer when I realized I didn't get that new toy, but I actually remember one instance where I dreamed my brother died, and for most of the day I thought he had, until I just sort of remembered that it was a dream.

@instantdeath
There's a bunch of spoiler material in both books, NJO-wise.

@jasonfry
Any inkling of what the next Essential book is gonna be? I guess we need a new one on creatures, droids, tech...

A new Essential Guide to Characters is apparently in the works.
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Untitled_updated_Essential_Guide_to_Characters

Could I echo also about the great work Jason has done for the Star Wars universe? The Atlas is amazing, Warfare is excellent and TCW Character Encyclopedia/Incredible Vehicles are just gems (hoping for some new ones like TCW Droid Manual covering all the droids we saw on the show). That and the History of Xim has given me a new found appreciation of the Hutts. Things like having Tridents linked to Gree are just amazing connections to make. So, thank you so much for making the Star Wars universe even more wonderful and hope we see plenty more stuff from yourself.

Any chance Hasbro will guide you to do some of that Fry magic on Transformers? Love to see a Map of Cybertron or an Atlas of the Transformers Universe.

Thanks Cronal -- really appreciate the kind words.

I've mostly been working on Jupiter Pirates recently, but I've got Darth Maul: Shadow Conspiracy coming out in January, which was fun because it was a (young-adult) novelization where I had some space to delve into backstory, the characters' thoughts and motivations, and other things you can't see onscreen. Fiction is my real love, and where I'd ultimately like to go.

On the non-fiction side, I'm part of a very cool multi-author SW project that hasn't been announced yet, am doing some work for the official site, and there are a couple of other things that haven't been locked down but I'm hoping will work out. I don't know what's ahead for the Essential Guides -- hoping, like everyone on these boards, to learn more at New York Comic-Con.

Re Transformers, the lure of that series was getting to write fiction and collaborate with Ryder. A Transformers Atlas, whoa -- I'd be way out of my depth. Pablo, on the other hand, would be an awesome choice!

Whoa, man. That must have been a bad day. Glad it was just a dream....

Whoa. Is the SW.com work Atlas-related or various other things?

A variety of things. Atlas updates still happening, though -- in fact, going back and forth with Leland on some star-system placements right now....

Bib Fortuna: Rise of the Dark Falls: Atlas Edition by Jason Fry

Raxus, finally?

I'll save HO/Indy for when/if we can find a home for the Warfare outtakes. Leland's a busy man; I try to avoid pestering him with questions not anchored to a project.

Re Raxus, the Atlas is primarily concerned with things at the star-system level. I don't see any reason Raxus and Raxus Prime can't be in the same system.

A reminder, since my note abt it sparked the creation of this thread: I'll be at WORD in Brooklyn NY tomorrow, Sat. 10/6, for Star Wars Reads Day. If you're local, details here; if you're not, here is more about Star Wars Reads Day -- there's probably an event that's local to you.

Oh, and I'll be at NYCC in two weeks, signing for DK and Del Rey and sitting on a panel with Pablo and Tim Zahn. Woo-hoo!

Me neither! My OCD is pleased we finally have a core Tion Cluster world in the show. Felucia doesn't really count.