‘STAR WARS’ AUTHOR INSPIRED BY FILMS, AND VICE VERSA
CHICAGO — Timothy Zahn, who is 65 and bald and carries an ever-so-slight air of social anxiety, is nobody’s image of a superstar. And yet as he sat behind table No. 26 and waited for fans, he did not wait long. The doors to the convention hall at McCormick Place opened at 10 a.m., and by 10:10 a.m. the line of people to meet Zahn was the secondlongest at C2E2, the massive Chicago comic book convention held each spring. Only Stan Lee, creator of Spider-Man and the Hulk, could boast longer lines. This was a few weeks ago, just as “Thrawn,” Zahn’s latest “Star Wars” novel, was debuting at No. 2 on the New York Times’ best-seller list.
Zahn looked gratified, not surprised.
He splayed his hands before him and held the expression of a man who knew what to expect: He would sit for several hours and sign autographs and accept heartfelt compliments and his line would not slack — not for a moment would he wait awkwardly, like so many authors, feeling a rising panic as a well of fans runs dry. Melissa Dalton of Valparaiso approached. She held a paperback of “Heir to the Empire,” the 1991 novel that established Zahn as a giant in the “Star Wars” galaxy. The spine of the book was so broken from bending that the title was unreadable.
“I’ve read it a few times,” she said.
Zahn nodded and thanked her — not effusively, not even warmly, but sincerely. Behind her stood a few hours of waiting fans, carrying towering stacks of books to sign. Some brought action figures of characters that Zahn — not George Lucas — had introduced to “Star Wars.” A teenage girl stood off to the side and took Zahn’s picture. She said to a friend: “So there’s this huge pantheon of ‘Star Wars’ books that have never been made into movies or TV. Which is stupid, but this dude, he’s the best at those stories.”
Zahn grew up in Lombard and studied physics at the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign, but almost no one mentioned it or seemed aware this was a homecoming. They seemed, instead, to think of him as the man who saved “Star Wars.” Eric Van Tassell of Chicago thanked Zahn as if he were a returning vet, then stepped away from the table, buoyant: “Look, if that guy hadn’t written three good ‘Star Wars’ novels 25 years ago, nobody would care about ‘Star Wars’ in 2017! And that’s the truth — that’s no exaggeration.”
As “Star Wars” celebrates the 40th anniversary of its release, it would be a shame to overlook Zahn’s quiet significance. In 1991, the year “Heir to the Empire” was released, “Return of the Jedi,” the last of the original “Star Wars” movies, was already eight years old. Lucas was considered semiretired, and the franchise itself appeared to be in suspended animation.
“I was working at Bantam (Books) around this time, and we came up with the idea of starting ‘Star Wars’ again via novels,” said Betsy Mitchell, who was Zahn’s editor for years (as well as editor to many science fiction greats, from Isaac Asimov to Octavia Butler). “It was quite serendipitous, because Lucasfilm wanted books, too. And I liked Tim. He was great at characters, he knew how to pull off a big-scale space adventure. What happens? ‘Heir to the Empire’ goes No. 1 on the Times’ best-seller list, in hardcover. Which takes everybody by surprise, so the feeling becomes: ‘Maybe there are more stories here.’”
What followed was a “Star Wars” tidal wave.
First, new books, games (which became known as the Expanded Universe). Then new movies. That wave has not receded. Jimmy Mac, co-host of the popular Chicago-based podcast Rebel Force Radio, said Zahn has come to represent, in “Star Wars” lore, “the end of the socalled Dark Times.”
Indeed, at C2E2, Zahn signed autographs for almost five hours, without a break in the line. At Star Wars Celebration in Orlando last month, the semi-annual Lucasfilmorganized gathering of the “Star Wars” community, Zahn’s publisher, Del Rey (a division of Penguin Random House), sold 1,700 copies of “Thrawn,” and the lines to attend Zahn’s talks grew so large, fans were turned away an hour before the events began. When they met him, Zahn’s readers told him that his novels were the first books they ever read for fun, and they told him his books made their military deployments easier.
He said later: “There were more people who wanted to talk to me than me’s.”
Zahn — who has written more than 40 science fiction novels (not including the dozen “Star Wars” novels he’s done in the past 25 years alone) — is a curious guy. He is watchful, patient; he studies you. He does not go out of his way to endear himself. He dresses in black (“it’s easier that way”). With his goatee and austerity, he’s a doppelganger for “Star Wars” composer John Williams. He makes “Doctor Who” references. He wears a white Casio watch.
He is that rarest of contemporary nerds, the non-hipster old-school nerd.
“Absolutely Tim is geeky, but in the best, endearing way,” Mitchell said.
In a makeshift tent on the Orlando convention floor, behind curtains to counter the frequent interruption of fans, Zahn called his Lombard boyhood “not overly social.” He said: “I would rather curl up with a book than play. A lot of Alistair MacLean (adventure novels), but also Asimov — science
fiction wise, someone like Bradbury was a little soft for me. I liked heavily plotted writers. I devoured Sherlock Holmes and mythologies. I was good at school. I went to Glenbard East High School, and Michigan State, and I worked toward a doctorate in physics at UI UrbanaChampaign. I liked physics and how the universe worked — the order of it.
“But I had also been writing as a hobby, and I had sold stories. My wife and I talked it over and decided I would give writing full time a shot for one year. I set a goal of making $1,000 (on writing alone). My first story was called ‘Ernie.’ It was about a boy who could teleport an inch at a time. He becomes a boxer because he thinks that extra inch will give him an advantage. But he didn’t have the weight. That first year I wound up with $2,000 in sales.”
By the late 1980s, Zahn had a respectable career as a science fiction author. Then, in 1989, as he was working on a new book, Mitchell called him and told him to stop — Lucasfilm wanted “Star Wars” books. He would be the first outsider to tinker around in George Lucas’ universe.
What he came up with, in some ways, set a tone for the next 25 years of “Star Wars.”
Starting with “Heir to the Empire,” he wrote a trilogy set in the years after the death of Darth Vader. Han Solo and Princess Leia have kids. Luke Skywalker questions the Jedi order and gets married. Zahn also established the galactic capital Coruscant. But his most enduring creation was Grand Admiral Thrawn, a blue-skinned military strategist who cobbles together a fractured Empire. “I wanted to make another kind of villain,” Zahn said. “If Vader controlled by fear, what about a villain who leads through loyalty? And who respects opponents?”
At the time, “there was no other ‘Star Wars’ licensing going on, and nothing else on the horizon,” said Lucy Autrey Wilson, who developed Lucasfilm’s publishing department. “No one thought Tim’s book would do much. It was not seen as the restart to anything.”
Because of that uncertainty, 70,000 books were published — 30,000 fewer than had been initially planned. The hardcover list price was set at $15, about $7 cheaper than a hardcover in 1991.
Yet within a month, the first printing sold out and the book was outpacing “The Firm” on the New York Times’ best-seller list. Zahn and his wife, tired of the soybean fields and Illinois winters, bought a new house in Oregon. And the future of “Star Wars” grew brighter.
Today, the franchise is the most successful movie series in history; it earns roughly $1.5 billion a year through movies and TV and merchandise.
But here’s the thing about being a successful “Star Wars” author: “Everything you write that’s ‘Star Wars’ is owned by Lucasfilm,” Zahn explained. “They can cherry pick your material and don’t have to tell you — and certainly don’t have to pay you. But you get bragging rights, the opportunity to be a part of this world.” And it is their world. After the prequel film trilogy began in 1999, Zahn discovered his planet Coruscant was a major location. And the doublebladed lightsaber he helped introduce — it played a significant role.
Several of his characters — including fan-favorite Mara Jade, wife of Luke Skywalker — later became Hasbro action figures. Zahn received no money from those sales. He said he didn’t know Hasbro was making a Thrawn figure until he went to Celebration last month. In fact, a couple of years ago, after the decision was made to bring Thrawn into official “Star Wars” canon, Zahn was invited to the company’s San Francisco headquarters and not told why: “Timothy sat down with Dave Filoni (creator of the popular ‘Star Wars Rebels’ TV series) and Kiri Hart (of the Lucasfilm Story Group), who loved (Thrawn) and were looking for a good villain,” said Jennifer Heddle, executive editor of Lucasfilm Publishing. “They explained they were putting Thrawn into ‘Rebels,’ and (Zahn) was blown away.
Then to make it better, they took him into a screening room and showed him early footage of Thrawn in the show.”
Zahn has written other successful sci-fi series, including the “Conqueror’s Trilogy” and Dragonback series. He is likely “not wanting for much,” Mitchell said.
And so, asked about not being part of the afterlife of his own creations, he is quick to note he is just happy to “bring my toys to their sandbox.” He knows he will never be as popular as the other brand name on his book covers: “Star Wars.” He sounds at peace with this.
“Arthur Conan Doyle wrote more than Sherlock Holmes, but that’s not what everyone remembers. My obituary will call me a ‘Star Wars writer.’ I have to be OK with it. As Yoda might put it, ‘Start down the “Star Wars” path, and dominate your destiny it will.’”