If you cast your mind back to 1992, when The Heir to the Empire came out, you may recall that Return of the Jedi had been released nearly a decade before, but kids my age were still very much into Star Wars. Nevertheless, in a significantly less consumerish environment, there weren't any action figures still available, (I can remember searching old stores for leftovers) and there wasn't the plethora of books, comics, tv shows, legos, audiobooks, and God knows what else from the Star Wars universe available. In 1992, however, Sci-Fi veteran Timothy Zahn was authorized to write a continuation of the Star Wars saga. It was, of course a huge hit, and it would probably still have been a huge hit had it been a poorly written, but actiony story. It wasn't. Zahn created a wonderfully complex story with some terrific characters, some of which were coopted later by significantly inferior writers (although I must say I am pleased no one seriously tried to coopt Thrawn.) The story keeps one guessing, and even though, much like in the Star Wars movies themselves, you knew that the good guys would win, and you knew more certainly in these stories that Zahn probably wouldn't be allowed by LucasArts to kill off the main characters, but the new characters were fair game, and many of them were rich enough that you did care about them. As a kid, I went on to read some of the many many many many other Star Wars books that followed the success of this experiment, but none of them really measured up to Zahn's stories. I went on to read most of everything else Zahn ever released, and am glad that I did so. Most of the other Star Wars books were barely worth reading, but Zahn's trilogy, and the four or five other Star Wars books he's released since, even the one where he had to try to reclaim one of his most popular characters (Mara Jade) was quite enjoyable and still innovative, despite the saturation of the Star Wars market.
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