Heir to the Empire Week Day 4: Callbacks, canonization, and ret-cons.

 (Calibre is being a pain in my butt with my notes, so this is probably not going to be quite as in depth as I'd like.)

One of the biggest things that stands out reading HttE after the earlier Lando and Han trilogies is how much it integrates (and eventually is integrated into) the movies. Zahn bravely stakes out new systems and starts arranging them, throws out ship names, pulls technology from the RPG books. This is STAR WARS and he's writing IN the universe, not next to it.

A big part of this are the callbacks to the original trilogy. Sometimes it feels like I'm on book four of a series, and Zahn is helping me catchup. We explains how the battle of Endor devastates the Imperial fleet (particularly the loss of the Executor and its young but rising officers), talks about the loss of Luke's aunt, uncle, and masters, and does little dialogue callbacks ("I am not a committee!") While the other books tried their best not to brush too close to the movies, Zahn is picking up plot and character hooks in both hands and feet.

He takes some bold steps that'll get retconned later. The clone wars are not between the Republic and a bunch of psychotic clones, for example. But he gets just as many things added to the EU canon and even the movies. He invents the name Coruscant, and starts to picture it as an Ecumenopolis. He lays ut the first draft of what would eventually become "battle meditation" explaining that the Emperor used the force to coordinate his forces in battle, and having C'Baoth do the same. Books and paper play a larger than average role (something that will slowly phase out over the course of the EU). Luke tricks a tractor beam by firing proton torpedoes into the beam, something that was a popular speculation in the OT days. Zahn firmly puts himself on team small cloaking shield, making the tech a centerpiece of several of Thrawns plans.

A few of the earlier books were good books. A few were good Star Wars-ish books. Heir to the Empire is the first good STAR WARS book.

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