CooperTFN alerted me to a thread at TheForce.Net that thanks various Star Wars creators for their addenda to the Expanded Universe. I acknowledged the thanks I got, and also gave some shoutouts of my own to some of the authors of the Star Wars mythos to whom I wanted to express gratitude for their contributions. I thought this deserved to be elaborated upon (Spoilers below):

Thank you Tim Zahn for flipping the on switch.

I don't think I was reading much of anything other than magazines when I happened on Timothy Zahn's Heir to the Empire (and I considered myself a writer!), but I was reading everything afterward. The series that needs no introduction, the Thrawn Trilogy is still one of the best Star Wars stories ever told.

Thank you Tom Veitch and Cam Kennedy for blowing my mind.

For me, the first Dark Empire graphic novel is the bar against which all other Star Wars stories are measured. While it's an inevitability (I'm about to do it right now), I think the story has been maligned significantly because of expectations conceived, before the book is even read, upon hearing that this is the story of Luke falling to the Dark Side and the resurrection of Emperor Palpatine. R.A. Salvatore's Vector Prime suffers from a similar curse. The disparaging view of this classic story has been exacerbated by some of the revelations in Revenge of the Sith, but Dark Empire remains a perfect 10.

Thank you Matt Stover for blowing my mind all over again.

His insight and execution is simply unequalled.

Thank you Daniel Keys Moran for writing Boba Fett like none other.

With a complexity that belies Boba Fett's screen time but every bit faithful to the degree of adoration this minor movie character has inspired, Moran's "The Last One Standing: Boba Fett's Tale" in the Tales of the Bounty Hunters anthology was a daring characterization of the cloned Mandalorian that no one has come close to matching. K.W. Jeter, John Wagner and Cam Kennedy, Paul Danner, and especially Andy Mangels and John Nadeau all tell memorable Boba tales, but Moran's short story is still the pinnacle.

Thank you Paul and Hollace Davids for hours of guilty pleasure.

The Glove of Darth Vader series. Silly even when I first read it, the series has provided me with not only hours of amusement with its over-simplifications, but also while forcing me to find ways of massaging the stories back into continuity. Reading the GDV books is like listening to oldies on K-Earth 101: it invokes nostalgia for a simpler time -- which may or may not have been actual -- and its straightforward black and white view encourages an optimistic return to that uncomplicated state, which also may or may not be realistic. But to quote Hemingway, isn't it beautiful to think so?

Thank you Arch Goodwin for showing me the power of probabilities.

A master storyteller, the late Archie Goodwin, author of numerous Classic Star Wars trade paperbacks, knows how to spin a yarn. His style, rich in complex characters, defies simple categorization. Arch plays to readers' expectations, all the while discreetly planting the seeds that will turn the whole scenario on its head. He is an empathic Keyser Söze.

Thank you Michael Allen Horne for the vision of the possibilities.

My ideological inspiration. Author of the Dark Empire Sourcebook and Corporate Sector Authority Sourcebook, no one puts as many layers into their Star Wars writing as Horne. His psychological analysis of characters and motivations is spot-on, and he is the master of taking conflicting continuity and turning it into seamless storytelling that you'd swear was the plan all along--and if it wasn't, it should've been. His THX joke in the CSA Sourcebook is only a glimpse at the richness of his texts. He's kinda like Archie and me rolled into one.

Thank you Dan Wallace and Pablo Hidalgo for showing me the way.

My mentors and the only pros who can regularly go toe to toe and blow for blow with me when it comes to continuity.

Thank you Joe Corroney for being my partner in crime.

'Nuff said. ~ Abel G. Peña

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