This piece has been brought on by several trains of thoughts I‘ve had recently, in part sparked by some continuous misgivings I‘ve been having with the current direction of Star Wars publishing and the announcement of the Rian Johnson trilogy.
The Status Quo
Let‘s have a look at the last twelve months of Star Wars publishing. Basically, all of the novels that came out had a direct connection to current cinematic or television projects. Empire’s End, Join the Resistance and Phasma tied in to the sequel trilogy. Thrawn was a Star Wars Rebels prequel. Inferno Squad even carried the title Battlefront II on the cover. Rebel Rising was a prequel to Rogue One. Even the seemingly standalone Leia, Princess of Alderaan was marketed as part of the Journey to The Last Jedi because it set up Amilyn Holdo and the planet Crait as remnants of the original Rebellion. Even the amazing From a Certain Point of View was “only” a tribute brought on by the 40th anniversary of A New Hope. And while I loved most of those books and would even consider some of them among my all-time favourite Star Wars books, I’m longing for something more.
Visions of the Future?
In the meantime, Lucasfilm Publishing has had some (comic) books that deviated from this pattern. In Doctor Aphra, we are following a cast of all-original characters who only rarely have run-ins with movie greats. In the Adventures in Wild Space middle-grade series, we followed two all-new siblings, Lina and Milo Graf, on their quest to rescue their Wild Space-exploring parents from the Empire. And while characters like Ezra Bridger’s parents or even Grand Moff Tarkin showed up in minor roles that – in the case of Darth Vader – sometimes even were only cameos, those books stood entirely on their own and followed their own character’s arcs in the shadows of the larger events at play in the Dark Times era. The editor to that series, Emil Fortune, later went on to write the Galactic Atlas (or Galactic Maps, for you Americans), which mentioned a Graf Archive in its in-universe framing device. A few months later, IDW Publishing began publishing their Star Wars Adventures anthology series, which includes a bonus segment called Tales from Wild Space in every issue. In those Tales, we are treated to ambiguously canon in-universe legends about characters ranging from Obi-Wan Kenobi and Evaan Verlaine to – yes – porgs, all of which are being told by Milo Graf’s descendant Emil Graf. While some of these references may only have been intended as Easter eggs, what we’re seeing here is the hint of a “saga within a saga”.
Spectres of the Past
Long-time Star Wars Legends readers will remember (and, perhaps, bemoan) some of the larger sagas that have been told in the last two decades – but I think past milestones like The New Jedi Order (with its tie-in material like Rogue Planet and the Invasion comics) and the loathsome Fate of the Jedi series (with its ambitious prequel novella series Lost Tribe of the Sith, which in turn spawned a comic book miniseries) can indeed provide some lessons for the way ahead. Those series were conceived by a who’s who of Star Wars Expanded Universe writers and delivered galaxy-spanning conflict.
Now, that latter point is something that would have to be dialled back. You can’t change the galactic government every five novels. (I’m looking at you, NJO/Legacy era.) But I think there is merit in getting a band of great writers together and having them conceive of a Shadows of the Empire-style multimedia plot line that spans the whole of the Star Wars saga, but focusing on an original set of characters or a “a corner of the galaxy that Star Wars lore has never before explored”, to quote the Johnson trilogy announcement.
Lost Stars with room to breathe
Yes, Star Wars publishing will always need to support the current film and animated products. But it can do so much more at the same time. Basically, what I’m proposing is to tell an epic canon story like Lost Stars told it, but spread out across several novels, comics, short stories and other media. Give Star Wars Publishing the opportunity to build up its own cross-publisher cosmos that they can focus on while there’s no movie to tie in with. Give them the chance to tell meaningful stories that are relevant to the characters they’re focusing on without being reined in all too much by the question marks and limitations imposed on the writers by future films and animated series. Open up a new saga, like Rian Johnson is doing it, but in the written word. Or in other words: play it safe, but be daring!
Guest Blog By Florian Baur
Florian Baur runs Jedi Bibliothek and is known far and wide as one of the most prominent archivists of literature, both released and incoming.