Lit Timothy Zahn Reddit AMA

I think it's just the attitude with any author that has some sense of tenure.

 

Wow.

Except when it's not, like with Jim Luceno, Troy Denning and Mike Stackpole.

There's no figuring this stuff out.

 

Well, Zahn doesn't get everything that he wants. His intent when he wrote Allegiance was that Mara Jade was either going to be using Mace Windu's lightsaber, or the purple color crystal from it, but this was rejected so there's some mention of her growing the crystal instead or something. Like sugar crystals I guess? I dunno

There's also the Emperor's Hand quote where he says there was pushback from LucasFilm over the telepathic communication between Mara and the Emperor; it sounds like LucasFilm didn't like the idea of there being telepathy through the Force and so Zahn had to make it a unique thing strictly between those two characters, which is his rationale for saying that Mara Jade is the only Emperor's Hand.

I also recall him saying that in Specter of the Past he wanted to have Artoo fly the X-Wing without Luke in it when he rescues Luke from the pirate asteroid base, and LucasFilm didn't want Artoo flying the X-Wing by himself. I don't remember what happens in the novel so I don't remember who won that fight.

I think LucasFilm just has some mysterious priorities when it comes to rejecting stuff. What did you have in mind specifically when mentioning Stackpole and Luceno? I assume for Denning you mean Anakin's resurrection in Invincible. That one at least makes sense.

Edit: Anyway, the stuff Zahn gets rejected, I get the impression this is a Roffman/Lucas level rejection, whereas the EU stuff like Chak Fel, they don't care about that, and neither did Sue apparently. Like blackmyron said, they're just concerned with keeping it consistent with the films, not the other EU.

For Anakin's resurrection, it could very well have been something Sue and Shelly signed off on and then Roffman is like "nope!"

 

It seems like that's pretty much how it's always been, going back to Zahn's plans for the original TTT like the Noghri being Sith and C'Baoth being a clone of Obi-Wan.

 

Except when it's not, like with Jim Luceno, Troy Denning and Mike Stackpole.

There's no figuring this stuff out.[/quote]

Maybe not Luceno, but the other two? Stackpole, with I Jedi basically being "here's why everything KJA did was dumb and why Corran was the real hero of JAT even though it was all offscreen"? And Denning, with... well, I could choose from a laundry list, but the one that most sticks out is his claim that the Legacy comics were "only one possible future" which was why he felt free to ignore them, or why he had to force everyone else in FOTJ to negotiate with him over whether Jaina should be allowed to marry Jag, particularly after he earlier did his best to split them up and kill him. The entire 2005-13 post-ROTJ book EU is essentially Denning imposing his vision onto the other franchise authors, either by directly writing pivotal novels/series or by being a major voice in planning the other series.

I recall him also mentioning he wanted to resurrect a character who was killed in ROTJ but wasn't allowed to, but not idea who the character in question was.

 

Curious.

Still not as fun as Denning structuring LOTF with the purpose of resurrecting Anakin even though the idea was rejected with the intent of trying to get TPTB to relent only failing and then having no idea how to end the series because it only existed to eliminate the hero he didn't want to write about and resurrect the one that he did.

 

He did? Oh, the Legacy comics aren't even my favorite...well, anything...but still.

I hate that he had to fight over Jaina marrying Jag. Hate it. "He's not in the Jedi Temple." Really? Oh, come on. I will never understand why Denning can apparently only write Jedi and Han Solo (and even one of those he only does moderately well, and the other he fails completely), and everyone else does not count. I guess it shows how narrow-minded he is.

You know, Denning really reminds me of "that kid." You know the one, when you were little where you were playing with your action figures and if you didn't do exactly what he wanted he said "Well, your guy is dead now" and took him away, or whatever. That's basically what he did...several times.

 

Sounds like we just need the editors to do their jobs.

 

They don't want to step on anyone's toes!

 

The problem is that at least one editor agreed with Denning.

 

See, I used to think that, but recently Stackpole and KJA were at a convention talking about the SW books and they're apparently buddies - and Stackpole consulted with KJA about the book. Go figure!

 

Besides which we are in 2014, to hold a grudge for something that happened in 1996 would seem a bit petty.

 

That doesn't stop a lot of people from doing it (the continued rage over the Special Edition changes spring to mind). Though that's 1997 rather than 1996.

 

You are correct. Here's a blog from Stackpole on the subject: I, Jedi Rivalry?

 

I also recall KJA saying somewhere he and Zahn talked while planning Darksaber. Presumably about the use of Pellaeon, but maybe also to share his views on Mara and Luke so that Callista could get shuffled off.

Also on the subject of Stackpole, for how close he and Zahn are, Stackpole's definitive version of the capture of Coruscant from the X-wing novels ignores a lot of the stuff that Zahn set up in HTTE, and his depiction of the political crisis in the Empire after Endor in the X-wing comics ignores a lot of the stuff set up from the DESB (which is where the Pestage clone confusion originates from).

 

Certainly the informal courtesy coordination was easier when there were only a handful of writers at a time. Even before Disney, the EU was being produced under way too many roofs for that. It's not like, say, Filoni had time to get on a conference call with Brian Wood and the guys from TOR before plotting an episode.

Such as? I don't mean that as a challenge; it's been some time since I've read any of those and I'm fuzzy on the details.

 

Zahn certainly has a low opinion of the Sith. Aside from the excellent portrayal of Darth Sidious in Outbound Flight, Zahn doesn't portray Vader or Palpatine very well. Vader is done pretty poorly in Allegiance and Choices of One, he seems to give Thrawn quite a bit of leeway, not at all like the Sith who choked Needa and Ozzel to death for failing him. Palpatine is even worse, letting Thrawn question him and basically defy him-I can't imagine the Emperor letting anyone give him lip like that.

 

Given what happens in his infamous Star Wars series, Brian Wood seems to disagree. -_-

 

It's been a while since I've read those works also, but from memory:

On Coruscant: In HTTE the New Republic's capture of Coruscant is established as taking place not too long beforehand. Also, it's explicitly stated that even after it was captured, it wasn't made the New Republic capitol until just before the novel, because Luke and others thought that it would be a bad idea to move in to the old capitol rather than for the NR to try and forge its own path.

On Pestage: In the DESB, Pestage is only ruler for a few weeks before the Imperial Advisors remove him from power, when he left for Byss, where he remained until the time of DE. And so some source said the Pestage who went to Byss was the clone, and other sources said the one who was on Coruscant in X-wing was the clone.

I think. The whole Pestage clone issue is so muddled and has so many variants I honestly don't know what is the "real" story.

 

I believe Abel said that Stackpole simply never read the DESB and so didn't know what it said.

 

Mr. Zahn, LFL has NEVER been bound by the EU.

 

That just makes it more confusing, because obviously he had to be aware in some form of what it said, since he did follow its general concept (Pestage takes over after Endor, but is soon removed by political intrigue). Did he just get sent a summary or something from someone at Lucasfilm? And I guess to bring it around to an earlier topic, shouldn't an editor have stepped in at some point to point out the existing continuity?

 

I don't think you need to point this out to a guy who wrote a few things about the Clone Wars before the PT came out.