The Disregard for Thrawn Creator Timothy Zahn
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Writer Cole Haddon considers why the creator of Grand Admiral Thrawn doesn’t get more credit than he is. He looks into Zahn’s history with the character and features quotes from Jimmy Mac and Kyle Newman. Portions of this conversation can be heard on RFR: AHSOKA and The World Between Worlds.
Check out this excerpt from Lucasfilm’s Disregard for the O.G. Heir to the STAR WARS Empire Is Part of a Larger Entertainment Industry Problem:
Jimmy "Mac" McInerney, host of Rebel Force Radio, recalls reading the HEIR TO THE EMPIRE trilogy this way: “I read a blurb at the time that I thought perfectly summed up the experience – ‘when you read Timothy Zahn’s words, you hear John Williams’ soundtrack.’ And I thought, that is so true.”
From his home recording studio, he tells me about his excitement at the news HEIR TO THE TRILOGY was coming out in 1991, which he discovered in the pages of the Chicago Tribune. As a student at Columbia College at the time, he was, in his words, still a closeted STAR WARS fan. “I rolled into a bookstore, and I was, like, ‘Hey’” — here his voice changes to try to sound as cool as an under-cover spy — “‘Hey, do you have HEIR TO THE EMPIRE?’ ‘What’s HEIR TO THE EMPIRE?’” The bookshop clerk had to look it up. “‘Oh, it’s the STAR WARS. Why didn’t you just say so?’”
Jimmy read the STAR WARS sequel in a week in between pizza runs as a delivery boy, often sitting on the hood of his 1978 Monte Carlo, which he says he left an ass-dent in as a result. “The Expanded Universe really does start with HEIR TO THE EMPIRE,” he says. “I mean, that’s the first legitimate, authentic push to take STAR WARS outside of the films and be real about the stories.”
