It's not a name that would ring a bell with the average Star Wars fan, but for my money Michael Allen Horne is one of the best writers of the SW Expanded Universe.

Horne wrote for West End Games -- holders of the original license for the Star Wars roleplaying game -- during the early 1990s, and is responsible for two masterful RPG resources: Han Solo and the Corporate Sector Sourcebook
and The Dark Empire Sourcebook.

Both books were commissioned to convert existing Star Wars properties (in this case, Brian Daley's Han Solo novel trilogy and Tom Veitch and Cam Kennedy's Dark Empire comics series) into gaming environments. At a bare minimum, this process means providing dice stats and other "crunchy bits" so that gamemasters can bring new ships, weapons, aliens, and NPCs into their campaigns. But when gaming sourcebooks are done well (and I think these two are the blue-ribbon standards), they can be much more.

Han Solo and the Corporate Sector Sourcebook provides information on the Corporate Sector, the setting of the Daley novels Han Solo at Star's End and Han Solo's Revenge. It's a given that a good sourcebook will provide local color so that the GM help sell the illusion that his campaign is taking place in a real, living world. But Horne didn't just provide color -- he emptied the paint box.

The book starts out with the history of the Corporate Sector region, gives a look at the Star's End prison, profiles denizens of the fringe ... Okay, that all sounds like standard stuff. But Horne really went the extra mile, exemplifying the kind of effort that Pixar staffers refer to as "sanding the underside of the drawer." Here's a scan of a fairly typical excerpt -- it's a section listing the various corporations that make up the ruling Corporate Sector Authority.

Now here's what kills me. I've written these kinds of books before. I know what goes into the brief, and absolutely no one was mandating that Horne provide a list of the signing corporations of the CSA. It's all bonus. There are forty companies on this list, almost all of them created by Horne (but with familiar names like Cybot Galactica and Kuat Drive Yards for just the right flavor). The names sound like SW names, and the companies cut across a wide swath of utterly believable industries from biomedicine to banking. (As an ad man, I've recycled the Twi'lek advertising agency SchaumAssoc multiple times in my own writings.) Horne didn't have to do any of this, but the fact that he did helps reinforce the illusion that the Star Wars galaxy is a vast place and that at any given moment we're only seeing the tiniest corner.

And the framing device! Han Solo and the Corporate Sector Sourcebook is written as if it's a deposition given by an aging Han Solo to a member of the New Republic Historical Council. Horne nails Han's voice in these segments, delivering dialog that's the best Han Solo since Brian Daley (which is, of course, fitting given the subject matter).

Special note should be given to the accompanying artwork of Mike Vilardi, a workhorse of early West End Games books whose material was constantly a joy. Great Vilardi pieces in Han Solo and the Corporate Sector Sourcebook: our first look at d inkos, Tynnans, and Sabodor's pet store.

If anything, the Dark Empire Sourcebook is even better. Horne worked closely with Dark Empire writer Tom Veitch on this book (Veitch told me that Horne was such an enthusiastic telephone talker that he still had a ringing in his ears), and therefore it's difficult to tell which ideas are Horne's and which are unused background material from Veitch's notes. But the book is a tour de force. If you've ever read and enjoyed Dark Empire, The Dark Empire Sourcebook will immerse you in a world so deep it will be days before you come back up.

An amazing amount of detail is given on the political situation that led from a happy New Republic (at the end of Tim Zahn's Thrawn trilogy) to a devastated Coruscant ruled by feuding Imperials and scavengers (in issue #1 of Dark Empire). Again, Horne excels at answering one question while simultaneously raising three others. For example, The Dark Empire Sourcebook contains a bio of a minor character named Kane Griggs. A less devoted writer would simply state that Griggs was born on Alderaan and move on to something else. Horne explains that Griggs hails from Kerensik in "the Botor Enclave," which is later linked to something called the "Dawferm Selfhood States." What the hell are the Botor Enclave and the Dawferm Selfhood States? We still don't know, though Jason Fry and I plan to give them a mention in the Star Wars Atlas.

The book is packed with little gems like that. Mon Mothma's daughter. An outrageous (pre-prequel) story of C-3PO meeting Darth Vader at a party and mistaking him for "a new model of GuardDroid." Emperor Palpatine's remote grandniece Ederlathh Pallopides. Lord Shadowspawn. (That last one is worthy of a blog post in itself.)

The Dark Empire Sourcebook contains no original artwork (other than schematics), since Cam Kennedy already provided the visual candy in the series itself. But Kennedy's art is reprinted throughout and is spotlighted in a sixteeen-page color insert that also features Dave Dorman's series covers.

The fiction vignettes in The Dark Empire Sourcebook really shine, from the tale of how Boba Fett escaped the Sarlacc to the expulsion proceedings of Han's delinquent classmate Mako Spince (presided over by the Academy's "Dean Wyrmyr" in an Animal House in-joke). Some of the fiction vignettes have been reprinted on starwars.com for those with premium Hyperspace memberships; click here for "The Ordeal of Boba Fett" and "The Hearing."

Han Solo and the Corporate Sector Sourcebook and The Dark Empire Sourcebook are both long out of print. West End Games went through a bankruptcy in 1998 (while still owing me money! ::shakes fist at heavens::) So your best bet is eBay. There the books seem to go for $15-25, but rest assured you'll be getting one of the most information-dense books ever published about the SW Expanded Universe.

Dan
(writing projects and current releases)