Heir to the Empire

F O R E W O R D

At a time when Star Wars is so firmly entrenched in our culture and so seemingly ubiquitous, it’s hard to imagine a moment when it had all but disappeared from sight.

But that was exactly the time we faced back in the late eighties.

Star Wars had a phenomenal run during the release of the original trilogy. The films broke all box-office records. The toys sold like hot-cakes. Younger incarnations of us boogied to Star Wars disco music. And then it all stopped. George stopped making the films. The boys who bought the toys moved on to sports and girls, and the disco ducks hunkered down to begin their careers. The world moved on.

By 1986, acting on the sage advice of our sole shareholder and resident Yoda, Lucas Licensing decided it was time to give Star Wars a rest. A few years later, with no new films on the horizon, we timidly started to think about what products might now be of interest to Star Wars fans. The first thing we realized was that our fan base had grown a bit older. The kids who bought the toys were now in college. Fans who had been teens or adults when the films first came out were probably starting careers or families. Where could we take Star Wars that would be relevant to their lives?

It was clear to us that simply revisiting the past would be of marginal interest. It was too early for a nostalgia play and, frankly, not very stimulating. We needed to give fans something new, something that appealed to a more mature sensibility. And, we reasoned, because Star Wars is all about story, the natural ground to explore was books—books that could expand the story, starting with the characters and situations so vividly established in the films and taking them to places never before imagined.

I was the head of Licensing, and back then I had a tiny staff. My finance director, Lucy Autrey Wilson, had been one of the company’s first employees. Back in 1974, Lucy actually worked in George’s house and helped type the scripts for Star Wars: A New Hope. She was a good finance person, but she was a restless soul and had a passion for publishing. She had implored me for years to give her the chance to make new publishing deals for Star Wars. And for years I had responded to her not unlike the way that Han responds to Luke when he says, “And who’s gonna fly it, kid? You?”

Fortunately for Lucy—and for all of us—by 1989 there was a convergence in the Force. I was persuaded that it was time to restart our adult fiction publishing program and seriously explore new stories in the Star Wars universe. And I was willing to give Lucy the chance to find a publisher who shared our vision. But before we could do that, there was one last hurdle. If we were to play in this particular sandbox, we needed to consult the owner of the sandbox. So I went to George Lucas and humbly requested permission to expand his universe. He was appropriately skeptical (I seem to recall a response along the lines of, “No one is going to buy this”) but supportive enough to give me the opportunity to fail. We established some very basic guidelines: The stories would have to take place after Return of the Jedi; events prior to A New Hope were off limits because if George were ever to make more Star Wars films, that was where he would go; and no major characters could be killed. Other than that, George made it clear that he would be hands-off. It seemed so simple and straightforward. I don’t think George or I had any idea what we were getting ourselves into.

Lucy went out and pitched the concept of a new series of Star Wars spin-off books. She approached a number of publishers who felt that Star Wars was a dead issue and passed on the opportunity. But to our great relief, one publisher—Bantam Books—understood the vision: new Star Wars stories written by great writers could really mobilize the fans. Lucy made the deal and Bantam brought us a great writer—Tim Zahn. And Tim delivered.

I’ll never forget the day that Lucy came into my office in 1991 to tell me the news that Tim’s Heir to the Empire had premiered at number one on the New York Times hardcover bestseller list. It was an emotional moment. In a single stroke we knew that our instinct had been right. And even better, we knew that the flame of passion among our fans hadn’t died after all. It needed only the right spark at the right time for it to burn anew—and more strongly than ever!

—HOWARD ROFFMAN

President, Lucas Licensing