Star Wars Expanded Universe Spotlight #1: Why Heir to the Empire Changed the Trajectory of Star Wars Forever

The Ældern Scribe

Star Wars Expanded Universe Spotlight #1: Why Heir to the Empire Changed the Trajectory of Star Wars Forever

Heir to the Empire isn't just a Star Wars book—it's the Star Wars book. The one that proved the galaxy didn't need the big screen to survive. The one that launched an entire universe of interconnected stories. The one that kicked off a trilogy a large number of fans still consider the official episodes 7, 8 and 9.

The Book That Saved Star Wars

By 1991, Star Wars had been quiet since Return of the Jedi in 1983. Sure, you had the Ewok movies, the cartoon, and some printed but disconnected media. Near the end of the 1980s, the West End Games' RPG sourcebooks would play a completely disproportionate role in shaping Star Wars to this day, but did more heavy lifting to the history of Star Wars behind the scenes (we’ll talk about that sometime), The momentum of the original trilogy was waning. No meaningful new films, comics, or storylines in almost a decade. There was no guarantee Star Wars would ever be a cultural force again, and people indeed thought that the zeitgeist was in its fizzle-out phase.

Then Lucasfilm and Timothy Zahn dropped Heir to the Empire, (along with Tom Veitch’s Dark Empire comic run) and everything changed. There were further adventures taking place after the Return of the Jedi’s timeline ended… and they even had some overlap in continuity. The Expanded Universe was born that year, and everything before it was retconned into the fold of its all encompassing embrace.

It was a risk. If Heir flopped, the EU might never have existed. But it didn't flop… it exploded like a Death Star come in contact with a farmboy. Suddenly, there was a market for Star Wars novels. A hungry market. Heir proved that fans didn't just want more Star Wars. It proved they'd pay for it, collect it, and build entire communities around it. In book form. It instantly made the New York Times bestseller list.

The Birth of the Interconnected EU

Heir wasn't the first Star Wars book. You had the original Marvel comics. You had Splinter of the Mind's Eye, the Han Solo Adventures, the Lando trilogy—but those were standalone. Disconnected. They existed, but they didn't build on or speak to each other. Heir to the Empire changed that. Along with Dark Empire, this was a shared universe years before Marvel made that concept a household gimmick.

Thrawn and Mara Jade: Icons Born in Print

And in turn, some of the most loved and important characters were introduced in this book. Talon Karrde and Captain Pellaeon, Borsk Fey’lya and Winter. But two became so iconic that even casual fans who never read the books knew their names. Grand Admiral Thrawn—tactician, art collector, one of the most legitimately menacing villains Star Wars has ever produced—and has even been adapted for Disney’s… um, attempt. And Mara Jade, the Emperor's Hand turned smuggler turned… domestic, went on to be one of the most popular and important EU characters of all time. As to why Disney didn’t utilize her popularity will forever be a mystery, but we can all breathe a sigh of relief she remains, as of now, safe from their meddling.

And to hammer in the importance of these stories to the continuity, no greater example can be found than the world of Coruscant. The galactic capital, the planet-wide city we all know from the prequels first appeared in Heir to the Empire—almost a decade before The Phantom Menace put it on screen in 1999. Think about that. Lucas took a name for one of the most important planets in the new trilogy he was making and honored the name established in the novels in 1991.

This is One to Own

This book was read. Hard. Copies weren't collector's items sitting pristine on shelves—they were dog-eared, spine-cracked, loved to death. Finding a first printing in decent condition is not always easy.

But, it's the version that hit shelves when no one knew if this gamble would pay off. It’s an artifact from 1991, the year Star Wars not only came back to us but was reborn into a cohesive story that would continue until 2014, just before Disney took it out back with the shotgun and told it to “look at the flowers”. It’s a piece of Star Wars history that had dramatic implications for Star Wars as a whole that continue to this day. And that makes it one worth collecting whether you're a longtime fan looking for a slice of the good ole’ days or a newcomer looking for something more real than the Disney fanfiction, curious about the true story of Star Wars. The EU offers something the films just couldn’t: time. Time to explore, to develop characters and arcs, to build relationships and watch them evolve across decades of storytelling. And it all started here.

What's your favorite EU book? Are there any particular editions you're hunting for? Send me a line—I'd love to hear your stories and maybe help you find that one book that's been eluding you. — Michael

Grab it now: Heir to the Empire