Building A Galaxy Far Far Away: The Story Behind The Star Wars Expanded Universe

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splinter So, I've got a major series of articles going up on Barnes and Noble this week: Building A Galaxy Far Far Away: The History of the Star Wars Expanded Universe.

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I'm very excited for this series. It started out as something that I thought would be a fairly short article. As I researched more, there was more to the story, and it grew.

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I want to thank the following individuals for their cooperation, time and interviews:

  • Alan Dean Foster
  • Barbara Hambley
  • Martha Wells
  • Steve Perry
  • Troy Denning
  • Kevin J. Anderson
  • Daniel Abraham
  • Lou Aronica
  • Kristine Kathryn Rusch
  • Matthew Stover
  • Bill Slavicsek
  • Betsy Mitchell
  • Lucy Wilson
  • Kathy Tyers
  • David J. Williams
  • David Wolverton
  • Elaine Cunningham

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I also need to thank two other people: Elizabeth Templeton, who's been diligently proofreading my work before I submit it, and Joel Cunningham, who's been editing the entire thing. Without them, this series wouldn't nearly be as good.

All in all, this comes to about 35 pages of material, or 16,000 words. It's a labor of love, and I have to say, I really want to go back and burn my way through the EU like I used to in High School.

Here's the entire series:

There were a bunch of books that were instrumental in having this come together. Interviews and other sources that I didn't conduct have been linked to in the piece itself:

  • Star Wars: The Essential Readers' Guide, Pablo Hidalgo
  • The Secret History of Star Wars, Michael Kaminski
  • The Making of Star Wars / Empire Strikes Back, J.W. Rinzler
  • How Star Wars Conquered the Universe, by Chris Taylor
  • The Secrets of Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire, Mark Cotta Vaz