In 1991 Timothy Zahn published Heir to the Empire.

Heir galvanized a sluggish and stale Star Wars fandom. Though I was just three years old at the time—ten years later I devoured these books (Heir began a trilogy).

Zahn had already won a Hugo award in 1984¹, and however much stock you put into the fickle nature of awards ²—writing and winning a sci-fi award in the 1980’s with contemporaries like Gene Wolfe, Isaac Asimov, and William Gibson is a feat in itself. 

Heir to the Empire was unprecedented fan-fiction. Not only colossally successful, but critically acclaimed. 

I loved them, and in my head these books told of what did happen after Return of the Jedi, rather than what may have happened, i.e., that they weren’t authored by George Lucas did not bother me. 

But were these books good? Or were they read through the rose colored glasses of my youth, as I suspect. 

I’m afraid to reread them. The adage to never meet your heroes needs an addendum—never reread the classics of your youth.

I grew up loving and poring over Stephen King, and Dan Brown. Both are mostly³ unreadable now.

I’ve tried.

The result left me questioning everything. I’d love to reread Michael Crichton, Anne Rice, Christopher Paolini, etc., but i’ve learned nostalgia reading is a path best left untrod. 

For a long time my fear of revisiting these old Zahn books was underwritten by a bit of modern pop psychology. 

A brief word on canonicity

The concept of canon is a wonderful example of a socially shared construct. 

It’s not enough for us to think about something, we need the thing (in this case the continuation of Star Wars) formally stamped and approved. We crave legitimacy. 

Until Heir to The Empire, fans had largely moved on from Star Wars. Nothing connected the isolated pockets of still-rabid fandom. 

What you had was a headcanon.

What happened to Luke? Did Han and Leia make it? Well, If you imagined so, it was so.

Then Zahn put his headcanon on paper. Over 15 million people read his idea of what happened after Return of the Jedi, and just like that⁴—the Expanded Universe was born. 

Millions of incompatible headcanons became obsolete, in favor of shared continuity.

It’s only when you explain to someone what canon is that it becomes so painfully silly. 

It supposes that any addition to a pre-existing piece of art is less enjoyable if the thing isn’t acknowledged and/or endorsed by its original creator, be that a person or conglomerate. 

This shouldn’t be true, but it is. 

back to the matter at hand

Endorsement never came for Zahn. Approval and licensing, sure, but still essentially glorified fan-fic. 

The best Zahn got was the official Expanded Universe. But with nothing else to go on, and the prequels still years away, fans latched on to these books. 

Zahn’s pseudo-canon remained unaffected by the prequels⁵. But more and more authors waded into the arena. The catalog rapidly grew, including a series of 19 novels that comprised The New Jedi Order. 

The first of these, Vector Prime, was damn good. And wildly popular. I worked at a movie theater when this series began, and I spent most of my breaks and lunches at Barnes and Noble reading them. 

Vector Prime was written by R.A. Salvatore, a better author than Zahn. 

This caused a schism in the fandom. Lucasfilm hadn’t yet made anything set after Return of the Jedi, thus leaving the extended universe ready and willing. 

But now there were competing visions, and with that came the return of headcanon.

The New Jedi Order was wholly incompatible with Zahn’s vision. Fans had to choose. 

For me the decision was easy. Compare it to the console wars of old. You could argue PlayStation games vs. XBOX games, graphics, gameplay, etc. But the foundation of my XBOX loyalty was simple, a superior controller. 

Thrawn made my decision simple.

Then Disney bought Lucasfilm. Star Wars canon became solidified, and the expanded universe was sent into chaos. 

The newly pixied Lucasfilm lowered the corporate boom on these stories, banishing them to the realm of legends. 

But then something happened that the fandom did not expect. 

from the desert comes a Filoni

Dave Filoni is arguably the most important contributor to the Star Wars universe in the last twenty years. To use a sports metaphor—If George Lucas is Michael Jordan, Dave Filoni is LeBron James. 

Filoni is the face of Disney era Star Wars. And in his infinite wisdom he decided to rescue Thrawn from the obscurity of non-canonicity. 

Thrawn—canonically speaking— debuted in Rebels, Filoni’s true triumph. Two of the three finest things Star Wars has ever done are Filoni driven.⁶ Rebels probably isn’t number one, but because unexpected pleasures often resonate doubly, it occupies that special place of cherished and beloved.

Filoni’s resurrection of Thrawn activated parts of my brain that had long lain dormant.
Thrawn’s Rebels debut coincided with the announcement of a new trilogy–this time firmly within the almighty canon.

Timothy Zahn was back. 

My gorgeous first edition of Heir to the Empire can remain safely shelved away from my revisionist reading eyes. 

I recently finished book two. Review to come.

1. The less prestigious of the two major sci fi awards, the other being the Nebula.
2.  William Goldman loved to note the subjective and often meaningless nature of awards. He once denigrated Pearl Buck by writing that she won a Pulitzer but Graham Greene never did. Buck won the Pulitzer for The Good Earth, a no brainer selection for my inaugural class of all-decade books. I love Goldman, but he was wrong about Pearl Buck, but also incredibly right about Graham Greene.
3. I read The Stand six years ago and I remember not hating it. And I still have a fool’s hope to reread and enjoy The Dark Tower. Dan Brown is lost.
4. *Carrie Bradshaw voice*
5. Zahn coined Coruscant in Heir to the Empire.
6. The Clone Wars series, Rebels, and Rogue One are the three.