Tim
Zahn Interview
Continued
ES: In Mara Jade, did you create a character that is, in effect, the "anti-Leia"? How would you compare the two as female role models?
TZ: Actually, I don’t think Leia and Mara are very far apart in either personality or character. Though Mara served the Emperor and Leia the Rebellion, both were in fact serving causes they considered giving their lives for. Mara has a sharper and more sarcastic manner, and of course she had to go through the painful realization that her service had been to an evil cause. But they’re both women whoa re string without sacrificing their femininity, a balance which I think some authors have trouble writing. Bear in mind too, that Leia was one of the first people in the New Republic who decided Mara could be trusted, which perhaps says something about their understanding of each other. Actually, in many ways Talon Karrde is also like a slightly wayward Han. But that’s another topic…
ES: How did the opportunity to close out the Bantam Star Wars saga with the "Hand Of Thrawn" novels come about for you?
 |
 |
TZ: A year or so after I finished the Thrawn Trilogy Bantam came to me and asked if I would like to do one more book to end the current Bantam novel line, making my stories sort of "bookends" to this era of Star Wars history. Worked up an outline for a book we eventually called "The Hand of Thrawn" and got to work. The book was scheduled for a late 1997 release. Which meant I had to have it finished by late 1996. My mid-1996, as I hit the 70,000-word mark and was only about a quarter of the way through my outline, realized I was in bog trouble. Fortunately (for me, anyway) about hat same time Lucas postponed the first prequel to 1999, and Bantam went back to LFL to negotiate an extra year into their contract. I saw my opportunity, and suggested that we split HoT onto two parts, which would be published in late 1997 and 1998. Bantam agreed, and thus I had a badly-needed extra year to finish up HoT. Interestingly enough, by the time "Vision of the Future" was finished it clocked in at 213,000 words, making the whole HoT duology about 3331,000 words long. Effectively, HoT is a trilogy’s worth of material in two volumes. Apparently, all sagas end up as trilogies, one way or another.
ES: How did Lucasfilm react to your plans to establish a final treaty of peace between the Republic and the Empire, effectively ending the conflict forever? Did they have any initial objections to this?
TZ: I had certain amounts of resistance from LFL to both the Luke/Mara and Imperial/Rebellion resolutions. (Particularly the first, as I recall) But I felt strongly that both plot threads needed to have closure, and made it clear that unless I could do both I wasn’t interested in doing any more Star Wars novels. That wasn’t a grandstand play, incidentally; if they’d turned my down we would have gone our separate way with no hard feelings. I simply wasn’t interested in doing another Star Wars book just for the sake of doing another Star Wars book. Fortunately,---because I really DID enjoy doing the books---they decided to trust me and gave me the go-ahead.
ES: Well, finally, you put poor Luke out of his misery and matched him in a long-awaited romance with Mara. Are you proud to be the author that finally listened to the hordes of ravenous Luke fans and mercifully ended his bad luck in matters of love?
TZ: I’m of course pleased that LFL allowed me to give Luke a permanent relationship, especially since I’d always envisioned him and Mara growing into such a relationship in the first place. Do bear in mind, though, that I proposed this resolution in October 1993, well before most of the Luke fans really got going. So in this case it was not so much a matter of listening to the fans (or being influenced by them) as it was we were all on the same wavelength in the first place.
ES: How do you feel now that you’ve ended, as far as Bantam publishing goes, a sweeping Star Wars saga that began over seven years ago? Are you glad to be finished with Star Wars?
TZ: Feelings now that I’ve finished off the Bantam chapter of the Star Wars sage: exhaustion. Between the novels, short fiction, and Mara Jade comics I’ve written over 800,000 words in the Star Wars universe, and I think I’m ready to pass the torch over to Del Rey and they writers they choose to continue the saga. On the other hand, it’s been both a rare privilege and an extreme pleasure to be allowed to play in the universe George Lucas created in 1977, and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.
ES: George Lucas recently announced the title for the new Star Wars prequel as "The Phantom Menace". How long have you known about it and speaking purely as a fan, how do you feel about the title?
TZ: I have to admit the title " The Phantom Menace" doesn’t do anything for me. On the other hand, neither did "The Empire Strikes Back" when I first heard it, and that’s now my favorite Star Wars movie. So for now I’m withholding judgment. Frankly, if the movie is as great as we all hope, the pluses or minuses of the title won’t matter a bit to me. And I heard about it about the same time everyone else did, or maybe a little later. Not only am I not in any official LFL loop on prequel info, but I’ve also tried to avoid any spoilers so that I can go into the theater fresh as possible.
ES: What’s coming up for you in the future Tim?
TZ: My next book is a stand-alone, non Star Wars novel called "The Icarus Hunt" due out from Bantam (in hardcover) in August 1999. I suppose a one-sentence description of the book is Star Wars meets Alistair MacLean: sort of a thriller/mystery set in a starfaring universe. I hope readers will like it. After that, I’m not sure what I’ll be doing. I’ve got a couple possibilities in mind, but haven’t decided on anything yet.
ES: Finally, I understand you are a pretty big Battlestar Galactica fan. So who are the cooler bad guys…Cylons or Stormtroopers, and where did you get that spiffy colonial warrior jacket? <g>
TZ: I generally saw Battlestar Galactica as having a lot of potential that they weren’t able to live up to. The jacket in my photos is really just an ordinary black jacket that the warrior pins just looked good on. Alas, the jacket has worn out and has been retired.
And of course
stormtroopers were neater than Cylons. Now if both groups would only learn how to shoot
straight… 
You wanna come down here and say that,
pal?
(Jeff Carter is a 23 year old aspiring comic book and short story writer from a small town in Massachusetts. A Star Wars lunatic since the age of 3, (where he sat in his jammies and watched Star Wars in his parents car at a local drive in), Jeff specializes in tracking down hard to reach people for exclusive ECHO STATION interviews, including artiste’ extraordinaire Drew Struzan in Volume 2, Issue 2. "I’m a bounty hunter/gun for hire who goes out and tracks my prey until they submit to an interview!" Jeff says. Jeff is also really, really bitter that none of his interviews have been picked up for publication, and has threatened magazine editors all over the country with his Kenner lightsaber. If you've ever had anything to do with STAR WARS in any official capacity whatsoever, you can expect a note from him shortly. The sooner you give in and do the interview, the sooner he stops bothering you. There is no "OFF" switch.)
Fetching Results...
