Knowing my love and adoration for a certain space saga set a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, a lot of people ask me why I simply don't write a Star Wars novel of my own?
Firstly, one cannot simply write a Star Wars novel (Or any other franchise for that matter. Star Trek, Supernatural, etc) and just offer it up to publishers for consideration, Lucasfilm decides on the type of story they want and then select an author (or authors) that they want to do the writing.
In addition, in talking to X-Wing Rogue Squadron author Michael Stackpole, I learned that even though you are the author, you have little to no control as to the future fate of your novel. Bestseller though it may be, if the greater powers-that-be decide it's time to pull your book from shelves (or, in certain cases are no longer canon, but Legends) the author has little to say about it. Having a best-selling Star Wars novel is not a guarantee of fame and fortune. Granted, just being known as a best-selling Star Wars author certainly doesn't hurt your prospects of lucrative contracts with big publishers for some of your other works.
I was blissfully unaware of all this at the time (To be honest, I was unaware of it until meeting Mike Stackpole at the Milwaukee Comic-con this past summer) but I digress.
So with all this in mind, let's set the WABAC machine and travel back to a simpler time. Before the internet. Before toxic fanbases. Before midichlorians and Jar Jar Binks.
The time is early
1990. Star Wars is nowhere to be found. Aside from West End
Games' role-playing game and Disney's Star Tours attraction, there was nothing to sate our hunger. No
movies. No comic books. No novels. Nada! Fanboys like myself are
hurting big time. Much as we love Episodes IV, V, and VI, we want more. George
Lucas had promised more movies, otherwise why would he have numbered them the
way he had? Something needed to be done. Soon!
Then, one day it hit me.
I love to write. I love Star Wars. Why not write the next
chapter in the saga myself? I could both kickstart my career as a writer into hyperdrive and revive
the franchise, earning the praise and adulation of millions of fans worldwide.
I set about my task with
a fervor second only to religious zealotry. I re-watched the films, read the
novelizations, the spin-off novels, all 107 issues of the Marvel Comics series. I even bought a copy of The Star Wars Holiday Special at
a convention. As I researched, my tale began to take shape. I invented
characters or incorporated some from the (at that time) Expanded Universe.
I worked out scenes and action sequences, even going so far as to storyboard
some as though I were planning this as a cinematic feature. This was going to
be EPIC! With all the elements in place, I began writing the first chapter.
Jump to spring 1990. I
find this on the shelf of a bookstore I frequent:
Curses! Foiled again! Not only did
Timothy Zahn beat me to the punch, but he did it brilliantly, setting the bar
so high that only a few of the many novels to follow would even come remotely
close.
Resurrection of Evil not only failed to
get near that bar, it missed it entirely. I wasn't even in the same solar
system. In a deep funk, I decided it was best not to try
playing in the big kids' yard. I went on to other things.
But now, here for the
first time, is the plot for my vision of Episode VII. I no longer have any of
the notes that I made, so this is all coming from memory.
Episode VII begins with
it's own title crawl, the first line of which borrowed from the blurb on the
back of the Return of the Jedi
video cassette, stating that The Galactic Empire has been brought to its
knees. As with the original trilogy, and Zahn's novels, we start with a
Star Destroyer on the run from a Rebel hunter-killer task force that stumbles
across an abandoned space station, on which a lost apprentice of Darth Vader's
lurks. Commandeering the Star Destroyer, the apprentice sets out to avenge his
master's death.
On Endor, Luke is
continuing to hone his mastery of the Force. He receives a vision of Obi Wan
that warns him that a new dark force is rising. He learns that his friend
Halla, keeper of the Kaiburr (Khyber? Kyber?) Crystal, which enhances one's
mastery of the Force, has gone missing. (Both Halla and the Khyber crystal
first appeared in Alan Dean Foster's novel Splinter of the Mind's Eye.)
At the same time, Han and
Leia are sent on a mission somewhere (Sorry for the vagueness. Remember,
working from memory.) to bring in an operative from the rebel base there. They
find the base under attack by a group of Imperial AT-ST walkers, remotely
controlled by a master AT-AT. Using a commandeered landspeeder and Leia's newly
acquired lightsaber, they manage to thwart the attack by cutting the lead
walker's front legs off, effectively killing the drone AT-ST's in the process.
Boba Fett returns as
well, having escaped from the Sarlacc and journeying on foot across the
Tatooine wastes, fighting a band of Tusken Raiders along the way, to Jabba's
palace, where his ship is docked. He then sets off on a vengeance quest for our
heroes.
Numerous incidents occur
within the middle of the text, none of which, I confess, really stand out in my
memory.
The story ends with a
climax on two fronts. Han, Chewie and Leia in the Falcon square off
against Fett’s Slave I. Fett is
kicking the snot out of the Falcon and taunting Han for his decision
to run. Enraged, Han turns the Falcon around and charges Fett, both
ships firing wildly as they play a space-based game of chicken. Wanna guess who
wins?
As for Luke, he has
tracked Halla back to Mimban (Again from Splinter
of the Minds Eye, and not the one
that appears in the early battle scene in Solo),
where the Kaiburr Crystal was first discovered. She had been trying to return
the crystal back to where it belongs, dying in the process at the hands of
Vader's apprentice. Luke and the apprentice duel, during the course of which
the crystal is smashed upon the ground. A huge vortex erupts from the shards,
destroying the apprentice. Luke barely gets clear in his X-wing as the vortex
grows larger, eventually reaching to space and destroying the orbiting Star
Destroyer as well.
Heroes reunite, all is
well, and as John Williams' music swells in our heads, we fade to end credits.
Not exactly as epic-sounding
now as it was in my head some twenty-plus years ago, but there are still a lot
of elements in it that I still like, and through the wonder of recycling, will
be reused in future tales.
And who knows? Maybe now
that this is out there for the general public to read, maybe I'll get a call
from Disney/Lucasfilm about writing and directing a trilogy of my own?
Yeah. Not gonna lie awake
at night waiting for that call.
#starwars #heirtotheempire #scifiwriter #scifiblog #lucasfilm #disney #georgelucas
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