I am wondering if anyone has background, stories, or references to the events that led up to the release of the novel Heir to the Empire in 1991? Looking back, it seems that Star Wars, in print and otherwise, was fairly dormant between 1984 and 1991. What prompted Lucasfilm to expore a new novel (and trilogy) at the time? Who was involved? What was their goal/intention/expectation of releasing a new Star Wars novel at the time? Why was Bantan chosen as the publisher? Why was Zahn chosen as the author. How did the story within Heir to the Empire evolve from concept to final edit? When did the other printed works such as the Jedi Prince series, Truce at Bukura, or the Jedi Academy trilogy start to take shape? What Star Wars material was released in print between 1984 and 1990, just sourcebooks? Heir to the Empire led to 152 other Star Wars Legends 'adult' novels, and the new canon is continuing to release them. Not to mention the general resurgence of the brand since 1991. How much of that track record relates directly back to the success of the Thrawn trilogy - and when did people start to realize the resurgence was happening? Was Star Wars fandom at the time so starved for new material that almost any new release would have blown the door wide open again? Final question: can anyone foresee Star Wars entering another similarly dormant period - specifically in print?
@JABoomer I don't think will ever enter a "Dormant" period....I don't think will have a pride were the print side of things is ever as dominant now that we have Streaming and Films back on the agenda, but I don't think it will be as dormant. I think will always have a few books and comics running...so as long as there is profit to be made.
One of the most fascinating and lesser-known stories of SW publishing is that Brian Daley was originally tapped to kick off the new EU. Here's a copy-paste from something I wrote on Wookieepedia once: Source [63] is this mp3, between the 49 minute and 52 minute mark. Source [22] is "Remembering Brian Daley" from SW Insider 55. Source [2] is this old interview from our own Valin Kenobi. And source [64] is Zahn's foreword to West End Games's The Thrawn Trilogy Sourcebook. Here's the entire text of that foreword: This Howard Roffman TED talk is also really interesting; he talks about how his attempts to market a new SW toy line in the eighties failed because it was considered a dead franchise, but after the releases of Heir and Dark Empire that all changed. So to answer your question --- yes! People were absolutely starved for new material. And yes, the impact of Heir and DE can't be overestimated. They kicked off a resurgence that allowed for the releases of video games, toy lines, and tons more novels and comics. They brought SW back into the mainstream public consciousness, which did wonders for introducing a new generation to the franchise and getting them pumped for the prequels. Some revisionist history solely gives that credit to the Special Editions, but, nah. Pablo says this in the Reader's Companion entry for Hand of Thrawn:
Ironically, George started to give the Force a more religious flavor in the PT, even more in TCW, and now it's pretty much explicitly treated as such. I now really want Luceno's The Tao of the Force manuscript. Sent from my SM-G973U using Tapatalk
Well SW always has and will have dormant periods. Especially under Disney. Lets not mix Disneys masspublishing and being dormant or not. Dormancy has nothing to do with the number of publications but their reception as well. SW always had publications, be it newspaperstrips, books, comics, rpg, games, etc. but most back then were not reaching all fans or even known by all fans. Marketing was in pre-internet age rather a new thing limited in reach. So while Disney massproduces SW, it still feels like we are waiting for proper new content in between the filler and uninteresting publications that Disney seems to have aplenty. SW is more dormant than it was under the Legends Expanded Universe now. Despite the mass of content, we lack likeable original characters to follow through several adventures. Just oneshots here and there and Aphra as the only interesting character that is ongoing but even between her comics we are weeks to a month always at minimum. Even the well written books of the High Republic lack interesting characters. They excell at worldbuilding, culture, background information, but truly iconic sticky characters? Not a single one if you ask me! Hence I await SW and the Force truly awakening from its current slumber and giving me characters to truly like and folow again, to grow up further with along their path. Legends had hundreds of such characters for me, Disney canon has very few and most of them discontinued or in very few sources only with Aphra the sole ongoing exception. Were they in ongoing material I'd add the Graf kids as well as few others but those are rather rare appearances these days.
Do we know what Zahn had written/intended already for the trilogy that only ended up in the Thrawn Trilogy Sourcebooks, like cut material from the books, shorts, and what of those snippets and backstory he only added fresh for the sourcebook and rpg respectively?
Ewoks and Droids. But, more important for Heir to the Empire, West End Games' Star Wars RPG, which fleshed out the Star Wars universe moreso than anything else.
From my readings, I learned that West End games was pivotal in the "dark times" '84-90 of SW. It gave a wealth of knowledge and insight in the GFFA and Kickstarted the beginning of a revival after the '84-85 Droids/ Ewoks tv shows. Then HTTE was released as a NY times bestseller with many prints in the works from Zahn and other writers.
Not really, no. Dormant means "there is nothing new", it has very little to do with reception. You however seem to imply that your lack of interest or appreciation of something somehow has any bearing on whether Star Wars is currently dormant or not, and that's just absurd. You are basically using your opinion as objective truth, when it is little more than one of million different subjective opinions on the released material. The same can be said about your statements about characters and stories, none of which are based on actual reception, just on your personal opinion, which is utterly meaningless when looking at this particular matter. Public interest is what defines that status, not one person's opinion on the quality of recent releases. There simply is no objective argument to be made that Star Wars lies dormant right now, or that it is somehow "more dormand than it was under Legends Expanded Universe". The Mandalorian has been a highly acclaimed and beloved tv-show with plenty of popular new characters. Andor might just be the most well-written and acted part of Star Wars as a whole, and there are further tv-shows by highly accomplished creative leads in the work right now. Jedi:Fallen Order had the best reception of a Star Wars game in ages. The book series are well-received and doing well. There have been quite a few new movies, and as a whole they have been well received. There are also further movies in development, something that cannot be said about the era you were talking about. Star Wars was on the backburner between ROTS and the sale to Disney. You had The Clone Wars on tv, a niche show with a great reception. That was it. There were no movies or other tv-shows. There was a bunch of games up to 2006, afterwards there were only a few and even less ones with a big impact. The most obvious ones being The Old Republic and Force Unleashed, both doing well but hardly being considered as classics. Books under Disney started off as mostly support material, before new stories started to pop up recently, so maybe that is one area where the period between 2006 and the sale to Disney had a slight advantage, but it's not like they were setting the world on fire at that point either. Comics can probably be considered the same, though at that level you have reached such a niche part of the franchise that it has little bearing on whether the franchise could be considered dormant or not. Simply put, by all measurable points, Star Wars is currently in one of its more active periods of the saga. It is worlds beyond the lull of the late 80s or the not quite as empty but still rather quiet period between ROTS and the sale to Disney.
Well said. There's really no comparison as since May 25th 1977, there has really only been this one "dark time" for SW. Sure there was something in the weeds so to speak, like comics, EU books and WEG, but as far as movies and TV shows and even video games, it was nil. There have been some other slow periods but the time before HTTE was truly when the SW heart really was barely beating and was given an pulse after HTTE was released.
This post could have been written today! SW as a publishing concept is as dormant as it has ever been, with the narrative/characters/direction of content as stagnant and uninvolved as it has almost ever been. The fact that the above post was written in 2021 and if anything the situation has gotten worse not better says a lot.
There is still some ambition with the novel side of things with Reign of the Empire. I could use another book like Red Blade that's meant to flesh out a minor character or something like the Living Force. Like I commented on the Sanctuary thread, I'd be game for them to revive Jahan Cross from Agent of the Empire and do a few books with him in the vain of how Fleming wrote Bond. Just a solid thriller with a memorable villain and action. Though I personally think the bigger issues are on the Marvel side of things and not the novel side.
SW as a publishing concept is currently wrapping up a several years long MMP ala the High Republic, which consistently sells well. If you compare the NJO and the High Republic you get NJO (2001-2003) 19 novels 4 short stories 4 issue "Chewbacca" comic series 16 issue "invasion" comic series High Republic(2021- 2025) 16 novels (Adult and YA) 8 junior novels 35 High Republic Comic issues (15 issues phase 1, 10 issues phase 2, 10 issues phase 3) 41 High Republic Adventure Comic issues (13/8/20) multiple miniseries and oneshots at least 6 short stories If you aren't interested or following the High Republic, SW publications certainly would be rather dormant, with only filler stories like Victory's Price or Brotherhood or The Thrawn Ascendancy Trilogy to read. Things tend to feel dormant if you aren't paying attention to them, but frankly there are plenty of fans still reading and enjoying SW and its rather rude to project your own apathy on the fandom and then declare Star Wars dead, i mean "dormant". Really even the term "filler" betrays that this whole rant was solely the projecting one's own apathy onto everyone else and making "objective" judgements about "dormancy".
I also disagree with the idea that the High Republic doesn't have characters that stand out and stick with you. There are a number that I would like many more stories. Not least of which is pre-Phase One stories about Stellan , Avar and Elzar. I'm very interested in seeing more from Reath Silas. I want more of Porter Engle pre-Phase Two and in the 100 years between Phases Two and One.
I completely agree I would love to see separate stories about those characters, and am very much holding out hope that once THR is finished that a lot more tangential stories can pop up and flesh out those characters as the story will be 'set' and there'll be a lot more freedom for authors to play with the characters.
What sales data do we have to support that though? I've never really heard of a Star Wars novel underpreforming sales wise anyways
Admittedly it's not the easiest to track data these days, but the local bookstores have some high Republic books prominently displayed on the bookshelves towards the front.
Is that because it's SW though? I have often wondered if there was new Legends material published what would necessarily sell better, but I doubt we'll ever know.
Also, dormancy doesn't have anything to do with quality to begin with. I was entirely checked out of the EU during the post-NJO era as I found the mainline books to be atrocious, but they still existed and were coming out.
Who needs sales data? Just look at the release schedule. What are we at now, 45 or 46 canon Del Rey / RHW hardcovers since 2014? They've been pretty consistently releasing around four new hardcovers each year, with no sign of slowdown. And that's not even counting the twenty or so YA novels from Disney / Lucasfilm Press. I doubt that schedule would be so consistent if the majority of the novel-buying fandom was giving that output a disinterested "meh" and refusing to purchase. And just to add my anecdotal data to the pile, my local Buffalo-area Barnes and Noble locations have an entire section in the sci-fi department devoted exclusively to Star Wars, and new releases are generally displayed prominently. Gather from that what you will but my takeaway is that the franchise seems to be pretty healthy as far as the lit side of things goes.
And my anecdotal evidence is that the devoted Sci-Fi bookstore in the middle of Sydney that used to have an entire section devoted to SW has now combined it with Doctor Who and is about 80% Legends material and seemingly hasn't bothered stocking the newer releases (Still can't find Glass Abyss anywhere).
