5 little known facts about Star Wars novelist Timothy Zahn
By Joel Leonard
When it comes to the expanded universe, many people feel like it started with Timothy Zahn. Although several comics and a handful of novels were already published when he wrote his first Star Wars book, Zahn’s Thrawn trilogy that started with Heir to the Empire (1991-1993) is often seen as the true launching point for the expanded universe of Star Wars.
Here are five things you may not know about Timothy Zahn.
1. Has Written 16 Star Wars novels (so far)
Timothy Zahn is, without a doubt, one of the most prolific Star Wars authors ever. With his first Star Wars book released in 1991, Zahn would continue to write Star Wars novels over the next three decades. Most of Zahn's books would feature his most famous creation, Grand Admiral Thrawn. In fact, he has written four different series featuring the character including The Thrawn Trilogy (1991-1993), The Hand of Thrawn Duology (1997-1998), the Thrawn series (2017-2019), and Thrawn Ascendancy (2020-2021). In addition to these series, multiple of Zahn's standalone Star Wars books have also featured the character. In addition to his sixteen novels, he has written two Star Wars comic stories and multiple short stories.
2. He has also written Terminator novels
In addition to his work on Star Wars, Timothy Zahn has written several other sci-fi and fantasy original series. These include the Blackcollar trilogy, the three Cobra trilogies that make up the Cobra series, the Icarus series, and the Dragonback series, among others. However, he has, on occasion, written for other franchises that aren't Star Wars. In 2009 and 2010, he wrote two novels that were set in the world of Terminator Salvation, the fourth Terminator movie. The two novels are two-thirds of a prequel trilogy that set up the events in the movie, with the third book written by Greg Cox.
3. Won a Hugo Award
The Hugo Award is one of the most famous awards given out annually to the best science fiction and fantasy literary works every year. Zahn won the award in 1984 for Best Novella, which is considered to be a story between 17,500 and 40,000 words. The novella is called Cascade Point, and it tells the story of a faster-than-light jump gone wrong. The story was originally published in Analog, a science fiction magazine that published many of Zahn's works when he was first starting out and helped to establish his career.
4. Was able to portray one of the Star Wars characters he created
In addition to his most famous character, Thrawn, Timothy Zahn introduced many other characters to the Star Wars universe in the novel Heir to the Empire. One of these characters was Talon Karrde, a smuggler who dealt in information trading in the criminal underworld. Zahn envisioned the character as the kind of character Han Solo would have ended up as if he had never joined the Rebellion. When the character was added to the Star Wars Customizable Card Game from the 1990s, Zahn got the opportunity to portray the character for the picture on the card. However, Zahn did have to wear hair extensions to portray Talon Karrde as the character had much longer hair than the creator.
5. Was an official creative consultant on Ahsoka
After the character of Thrawn was removed from Star Wars canon with the purchase of Lucasfilm by Disney in 2012, he was eventually brought back, showing up in the third season of Star Wars Rebels. While Timothy Zahn had no real involvement in the decision to bring back his famous character, he seemed more than happy with the decision and returned to write two separate trilogies, adding more information about the new version of this character. When it was decided to bring Thrawn into live action at last in the series Ahsoka, Zahn was brought on board as a creative consultant to make sure that the character was represented as accurately as possible in the series.