The Essential Novels

by James Luceno

  —TZ

  Chapter 22

  1 And now, with all the other books being written in the Expanded Universe, there are even more such incidents for Karrde to be thinking of.

  —TZ

  2 I used both watch and chrono to designate timekeepers in Heir. The former I envisioned as small, personal timepieces, while the latter would be located aboard ships or the equivalent of wall or desk clocks.

  I don’t think anything like watches ever showed up in the movies. But surely people there still needed easily portable ways to tell time.

  —TZ

  3 More art imitating life. In those days, whenever I found myself on my own (usually when I was off on one of my three-day, writing-intensive retreats), I would follow this same schedule: early breakfast, early dinner, no lunch.

  —TZ

  4 Tuckerism: Wade Warren, another Tampa fan.

  —TZ

  5 For someone who was never intended to be anything but a minor character, Ghent has picked up a surprising following among the readers over the years.

  No doubt it’s a combination of his computer skills, his open-faced honesty, and his complete oblivioun to all the political machinations swirling around him.

  If he’s not the king of the Star Wars nerds, he’s certainly one of the royal family.

  —TZ

  6 An odd echo (pre-echo?) of the “Jaynestown” episode of the TV series Firefly, where an action that was seen by some as heroic was really nothing more than pure pragmatism on the part of the person involved.

  In this case, Ghent saw Han’s donation of the slaver ship and cargo to the victims as an act of charity, whereas Han’s motivations had been less altruistic than practical.

  I adopted this particular incident from the Star Wars Sourcebook, where it was described briefly by one of the slavers’ victims. I thought it would be interesting to show Han’s side of it, especially since back then he wasn’t the noble yet lovable rogue we all know from the movies.

  —TZ

  7 Again, a bit of foreshadowing for something that won’t become important until the next book.

  —TZ

  8 Droid rhino boot! This concept made me laugh. But it’s so believable!

  —BM

  9 Like the use of borg earlier, the term corvette got me another letter chastising me for using such a non–Star Wars term—and this one the name of a modern car, to boot.

  I had to write back and explain that a corvette was originally a seventeenth-century warship, that its use was already well established in the Star Wars universe, and that there was nothing we could do about General Motors having borrowed the name before we got to it.

  —TZ

  10 On the surface, this looks like another comment that’s since been overthrown by other stories, including a bunch of my own.

  But it’s clear from the rest of Heir and the other books of the trilogy that she’s actually quite skilled with a lightsaber. I don’t remember what exactly I was thinking at the time I wrote this line, but my guess is that she’s merely being sarcastic.

  Either that or it’s a flat-out typo, and I meant to say that she hadn’t picked up a lightsaber very often in the past few years.

  One of those questions where the answer is now unfortunately lost in the mists of time.

  —TZ

  Chapter 23

  1 In the real world, this maneuver (minus the throttle cutback) is called an Immelmann turn. It’s not much used by modern-day fighters, but shows up frequently in air shows.

  —TZ

  2 The preferred generic term for these things is now electrobinoculars, with the older macrobinoculars referring to a somewhat lower-quality version of the devices.

  —TZ

  3 Writing dialogue that mirrors the human characters’ voices is one thing, but Tim also manages to reproduce a distinctive range of machine-made noises. I had no trouble throughout this book hearing the correct R2-D2 utterance, whether it was a warbling question, a surprised squeal, a shriek of warning, or here, the “squeamish-sounding awe.”

  —BM

  4 Tuckerism: Ken and Denise Hillyard of Tampa.

  —TZ

  5 In my original outline, this scene had the same ultimate result—Mara grudgingly agreeing to work with Luke to get out of the forest alive—but I didn’t yet have any of the details worked out. Betsy spotted that, and pointed out that I needed a good reason for Mara putting aside her desire to just kill Luke then and there.

  I agreed, and just to be on the safe side I gave her two reasons: R2’s sensors, and the counterpart encryption system that would let her find out what Karrde had told the Imperials and, therefore, what she would need to say to make their stories match up.

  And of course, both reasons also require her to keep R2 intact, which she also didn’t want to do. Given subsequent events, it’s just as well she gave in on that point, too.

  —TZ

  Chapter 24

  1 In the original outline, it was Han and Leia, not Han and Lando, who went to see Karrde. In that version, Chewie and Lando did little after Nkllon except fly around the New Republic, pretending Leia was aboard their ship, in the hope of drawing away all the unwelcome Noghri attention she’d been receiving.

  The final version is much better. While Star Wars can be seen as being the story of Luke Skywalker, it really is an ensemble cast. The final version of Heir gives each person in that ensemble more of a role, and more of a chance to shine.

  —TZ

  2 In the real world, the repercussions of Jabba’s death would ripple a long way outward.

  Little details like that were what helped make the Star Wars movies feel genuine and realistic, and I tried to put some of those same touches into Heir.

  —TZ

  Chapter 25

  1 Though I tried to give each of the three main movie characters a fair share of the action in Heir, it was in the nature of this part of the story that Leia got a bit shortchanged.

  Still, she has a few memorable moments, this being one of them. And of course, she’ll have a much larger and more pivotal role later in Dark Force Rising.

  —TZ

  2 I was pleased, during this reread, to find very few things I would have edited differently now from the way I did twenty years ago. One exception appears here. It’s been a while since we’ve seen Leia, and obviously some time has passed. Yet there’s no mention of her advancing pregnancy. It’s odd that I didn’t request a sentence or two, especially as I was going through my own first pregnancy at the time and discovering that there is not a moment when that developing child escapes a mother’s awareness. Yet Leia doesn’t give a thought to her baby bump in this very exciting chapter.…

  —BM

  3 I had a small problem with the Ewoks of Return of the Jedi. Not that they weren’t effective as aliens, but they were just so darned cute—as they were of course meant to be—that it was hard for me to visualize them as real fighters.

  The Noghri were sort of my answer to that. They were roughly the same size as Ewoks, with a similar family and village life and a sense of honor and commitment to those they’ve accepted as friends and allies.

  Only they’re true warriors, and extremely deadly. And they’re not at all cute.

  —TZ

  4 It would, in fact, be another ten years before the war with the Empire would end (in the Hand of Thrawn Duology).

  And that brief period of peace would be quickly followed by the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, which would be followed by more trouble, and yet more trouble. Some galaxies never seem to catch a break …

  —TZ

  Chapter 26

  1 Killing off a character, or even just lopping off one of his or her major body parts, can be highly traumatic, not only for the character but for the audience. Just ask Luke.

  That’s one of the handy things about droids. You can rip off any component you need to, and after a quick visit to the body shop everything will be fine.

  Gilbert Gottfried, who voiced t
he parrot Iago in Disney’s Aladdin, once commented that the screenwriters’ philosophy seemed to be, “When in doubt, hurt the bird.”

  Not that I would ever deliberately think that way about R2. Of course not.

  —TZ

  2 Mara Jade’s creation began with a simple idea and plan: to tie the opening section of Return of the Jedi more closely to the main story presented by the Star Wars movies.

  To elaborate a bit: Han’s rescue was, of course, a vital part of Jedi. But to me, it always felt a little disconnected from the main Rebellion plot line. (Which it was, of course. Rescuing Han was strictly personal, on everyone’s part.)

  As I mulled it over, it occurred to me that, after Vader’s attempt to persuade Luke to join him in The Empire Strikes Back, the Emperor might very well have decided that Luke was more liability than potential asset and sent someone to take him out when he turned up at Jabba’s palace.

  What kind of person might Palpatine send? It would have to be someone competent, naturally. It would also have to be someone who could meet Luke’s Jedi power head-on. Finally, it would have to be someone who was out of the normal chain of command, lest Vader get wind of the plan.

  From all that came the idea of the Emperor’s Hand, a shadowy agent under Palpatine’s sole command. And from that, ultimately, came Mara Jade.

  And although her early history still remains mysterious, I’ve now had a chance to tell a few of the stories of her life as the Emperor’s Hand, in Star Wars: Allegiance and the upcoming Star Wars: Choices of One.

  —TZ

  Chapter 27

  1 In Greek myth, the Chimaera was a fantastical fire-breathing beast that combined lion, goat, and snake. It was also held to be unconquerable, though it was eventually killed by Bellerophon.

  Nowadays, the word refers to something made up of disparate parts (usually as a result of grafting or genetic manipulation), or something wildly and grotesquely imaginary.

  All of those elements went into my decision to name Thrawn’s flagship the Chimaera. Disparate elements (human plus Chiss), considered imaginary (and hence not taken seriously by others until Thrawn was ready to move), and unconquerable.

  —TZ

  2 Cloaking shields are one of those SF gadgets that almost beg to be abused by the writer. A cloak of invisibility that lets you sneak up right beside your enemies and deliver lethal blows can make life way too easy for you, and way too easy for your characters.

  I would probably not have used cloaking shields at all if it hadn’t been for that comment in The Empire Strikes Back. Given that the Empire did have such a device, I couldn’t very well ignore it, any more than I could ignore the existence of clones and cloning.

  Fortunately, by the time I began writing Heir, West End Games had already come up with the kind of limiting factor that cloaking technology needs. Along with its expense, they also postulated that it was a two-way shield, with no light or signal getting out that your enemy could see, but also no sensor data getting in that you could see. A doubleblind shield is automatically more difficult to use safely and effectively than the one-way type that often shows up in science fiction.

  Fortunately, coming up with inventive ways to use limited and otherwise questionable technology is one of Thrawn’s specialties.

  —TZ

  Chapter 28

  1 From the very beginning it was clear that Luke and Mara worked well together.

  At least, when Mara was willing to cooperate.

  —TZ

  2 One of the unexpected complications with the Heir manuscript was that the copy editor evidently had never dealt with Star Wars before. When I got the manuscript, I discovered that this kind and thoughtful person had painstakingly changed all the stormtroopers to the more correct (at least for Earth usage) storm troopers.

  I just as painstakingly changed all of them back again.

  —TZ

  Chapter 29

  1 In the original outline, which had Han and Leia coming to Myrkr instead of Han and Lando, this confrontation took place with the Chimaera still orbiting overhead. In that scenario, Chewie and Lando were scheduled to swoop in after the Imperials’ defeat and pull Luke and the others off the planet before Thrawn could intervene.

  As a matter of pure logic, not to mention reasonable storytelling, it’s just as well that I came up with this version instead of having to use that one.

  —TZ

  Chapter 30

  1 This, plus the last bit of chapter 32, was where I’d originally planned to end this book. But after reading the outline, Betsy told me I needed something even more slam-bang exciting to close off this first part of the trilogy. Hence, Sluis Van.

  —TZ

  2 For comparison, this is about 4.3 times the distance from our sun to Pluto. A nice, quiet neighborhood, perfect for this kind of gathering.

  —TZ

  3 The fifth quality of a good commander: he keeps his priorities straight.

  —TZ

  Chapter 31

  1 Final Tuckerization of this book: Mark Callen, Florida fan.

  —TZ

  2 Pellaeon, by the way, was named after Pelleas, an idealistic young knight in the King Arthur mythos.

  —TZ

  3 Tim reminds me that his original outline had the book end with Luke’s escape but that I requested something bigger, saying his proposed finish wasn’t exciting enough to close out a Star Wars adventure. The climactic clash at Sluis Van was the result. As well as being a space battle worthy of the giant screen, it also ties together a number of seemingly minor plot elements Tim had been setting in place throughout the book: the shortage of freighters that sent Han to the smugglers, the theft of the mole miners, Lando’s presence on the scene, and more.

  —BM

  4 Spacetroopers were another cool invention from West End Games.

  —TZ

  5 The sixth quality of a good leader: he doesn’t waste his troops, but does what he can to get them to safety once their mission is complete or has been rendered impossible by the circumstances of the battle.

  —TZ

  6 The final quality of a good commander: a willingness to retreat when the circumstances of battle make the objective no longer attainable.

  Note that at the same time, he’s maintaining the “glass half full” attitude vital to keeping up his troops’ morale.

  —TZ

  7 So here at last we have all the pieces that went into the creation of Grand Admiral Thrawn.

  He’s competent and capable, enough so that his troops can be assured that they have the best possible chance of winning whatever battle they’re being sent into.

  He cares about his troops, and they know he won’t sacrifice them for nothing.

  And he’s driven by logic and reason, not anger or ego or wounded pride.

  Throw in the semi-mystical art thing (through which he can anticipate his enemies’ moves), and make him an alien (because the Emperor disliked aliens, and would never give such a rank to one unless he was really, really good) … and when you’ve done all that, Grand Admiral Thrawn simply falls out of the equation.

  I think the greatest compliment Thrawn has ever received came from a U.S. serviceman. (I can’t remember if he was a soldier or marine.) He told me he and his buddies had read the Thrawn Trilogy, and had agreed that they would unreservedly follow a commander like Thrawn.

  Oh, and what would have happened if Thrawn had been in command at Endor? The Rebels, in my humble opinion, would almost certainly have lost.

  —TZ

  Chapter 32

  1 Just as Tim is masterful at creating cliffhangers at the end of chapters, he brought this book to a close with so many compelling cliffhangers that readers came in droves to the next book. Ackbar’s arrest is only one of them.

  —BM

  2 I always liked the way the Back to the Future movies did this: with a “To Be Continued” after the first movie (the later version of it, anyway), and a “To Be Concluded” at the end of the second, thus
assuring the viewer that the saga would indeed be ending with part 3.

  Little did we know at the time that the Star Wars Expanded Universe wasn’t about to be concluded. In fact, it was just getting started.

  —TZ

  Introduction to the NEW JEDI ORDER Era

  (25–40 YEARS AFTER STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE)

  A quarter century after A New Hope and the destruction of the Death Star, the galaxy is free of wide-scale conflicts—but the New Republic must contend with many regional brushfires. And Luke Skywalker’s Jedi Order faces its own growing pains: Some New Republic officials want to rein in the Jedi, leading Luke to wonder if the Jedi Council should be restored.

  On the planet Rhommamool, Leia Organa Solo, Mara Jade Skywalker, and Jaina Solo meet with a mysterious rabble-rouser named Nom Anor. Anor rejects Leia’s diplomatic entreaties, but she’s more disturbed by what she finds when she reaches out to him in the Force: nothing. It’s as if he isn’t there.

  Anor is a secret agent of the Yuuzhan Vong, powerful warriors from another galaxy who regard technology as blasphemous, relying on biological constructs to serve as their starships, weapons, and communicators. Long ago, a devastating war destroyed much of the Yuuzhan Vong’s galaxy and cut them off from the Force, sending their clans across the intergalactic void in search of a new home. Now they are at the edge of the Star Wars galaxy, ready to invade.

  As head of the New Jedi Order, Luke is central to the galaxy’s defense; Leia’s skills as a former Chief of State and respected political adviser are also called on. The five-year war shakes the galaxy to its foundations. Technologically advanced worlds within the Yuuzhan Vong invasion corridor are subjected to the newcomers’ biotechnology and altered into strange hybrids combining what they had been with the new Yuuzhan Vong ecosystem. Entire species are enslaved—or eradicated. The New Republic is ill prepared to meet the extragalactic threat, with regional rivalries, political dissension, and concern over the Imperial Remnant limiting the effectiveness of its military response. Wrangling in the Senate snarls the war plans, as do disagreements between planetary fleets and armies, while assassination and war thin the ranks of the New Republic’s leaders. Officers and pilots who battled for so long against the Empire, such as Admiral Ackbar and Wedge Antilles, work feverishly to figure out how to outmaneuver their new enemies.