The Road to Revan

Super exciting news today, guys. The cat is out of the bag, I'm going to be a contributing writer on Star Wars: Revan: Rogue Jedi!

You may ask "What is that, and why should I be excited?"

Allow me to explain:

Back in 2003, Bioware developed a Star Wars video game called Knights of the Old Republic. It's set some four thousand years before a simple farm boy from Tatooine blew up the Death Star. The game was a role-playing action adventure designed to put you in the center of the story. You're able to customize your character's appearance, give them a name of your choosing, and it also allowed you to dictate how you responded to any number of situations. YOU are the star of the game and your fate is in your own hands. It was a massive hit spawning sequels, comics, novels, and introduced the much-beloved character of Revan to the Star Wars canon (well, before Disney obliterated all that...but that's a topic best saved for another time...).

Over the years, intrepid fans of the original Knights of the Old Republic game (abbreviated to KOTOR) figured out how to crack into the game's programming and further customize it, crafting new characters and new landscapes--all still using the game's engine.

That's where Kevin Smets comes in. Kevin's a professional video editor and filmmaker--and also a huge fan of KOTOR. A number of years ago, he began "filming" a series of movies based on the game. Meaning, he recorded his playthrough, dubbed in his own voice as the main character's--that he named Logan Starr--added new music, and customized it to the point that it tells the story Kevin was interested in telling, sometimes veering away from the game's storyline. I saw his movies and I was totally smitten by the creativity and ingenuity that he utilized in putting together this "fan film".

But then! Then I heard that he had partnered with some phenomenally talented computer whiz kids to create BRAND NEW movies based on Logan Starr's backstory. Things never seen in the original game--or any game. This is all new content, built from scratch, using the original game's engine. It looks like KOTOR, it "feels" like KOTOR, but this is no game. It's pretty incredible that they were able to do this. And this movie? It is called Star Wars: Revan: Rogue Jedi.

This is the first part of a trilogy of new films, chronicling the backstory of Kevin's character Logan Starr. It will have all-new storylines, characters, locations, voice actors, new sound design, effects, etc. I  have no doubt it will be a sight to see when it is finished. I have been in talks with Kevin for a while now, and he knows of my love for Star Wars and his particular take on KOTOR (as well as my writing background), and he has graciously invited me to come on board his team and help bring the Revan Trilogy to your computer screen. Kevin is handling the lion's share of the writing chores, as this is his baby, but he's also a busy guy and has recognized he can't do it all on his own. I'm more than happy to help shoulder the burden, because I believe in the project that much.

While this is totally unofficial, it's still an opportunity to write Star Wars, a dream of mine for so long now. I am grateful for the chance and can't wait for you guys to see the final product. In the meantime, you've got plenty of time to get caught up on the other Logan Starr movies. There are a total of seven so far. The first trilogy centers on Logan Starr, while the second quartet focuses on Logan's friend and apprentice, Meetra Surik. Her journey is chronicled in the movies of YouTube user Darth Ycey.

Hit this link to check out the first Logan Starr adventure, and tune in here for future updates as they come in!

A Dusty Duck Sighting!

Anyone who talks to me for any length of time will discover quite quickly that, not only do I love monsters, but I am a huge Star Wars fan. Like any kid growing up in the '80s, there was never a time where Star Wars wasn't a part of my life. Even before I'd ever seen the movies, I knew all about Luke Skywalker and Han Solo, Vader, and the droids. I appreciated Star Wars from afar until, around high school, I learned that everything related to Star Wars--comics, cartoons, movies, games, books--were all connected into a large, decade-spanning tapestry of mythology. It was called the Expanded Universe, and when I learned of its existence, I truly fell in love with Star Wars, as I believed that the whole was greater than its parts. To know that all these stories mattered--that they all existed in some way and reflected each other, that authors who had never met built upon the creative labors of those who came before to create this living, breathing epic canon.

I still get chills, just thinking about it.

Once I learned that, I devoted my efforts to "get in". To tell my own little story within this megamyth, to carve my own niche that other authors could play with and elaborate on and explore. Thanks to God (and the fine folks at Lucasfilm), I got that chance with an online writing contest called "What's the Story", where fans were given the incredible, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create a backstory for some minor element glimpsed in the background of one of the (then) six Star Wars movies. After years of effort, I won two rounds. I was a co-contributor for Senator Silya Shessaun, and I was the sole developer of the backstory for a ship seen in a deleted scene for The Phantom Menace that I dubbed the Dusty Duck.

I was in. I had touched that monument and left my mark. I was totally fulfilled, knowing my contribution would stand.

Then Disney came along and acquired the Star Wars brand and their first order of business was to dump the entire Expanded Universe--decades of myth-making--in favor of their own in-house stories.

In a single boardroom decision, everything was gone, including my own humble contributions.

I was devastated. As a fan, and as a writer. I know I'm supposed to be cool and say "Hey, babe, it's all part of the gig". But it wasn't to me.

Well, I have long lamented this Disney buyout (though I enjoyed The Force Awakens), but then something special started to happen. I began to see some of the old Expanded Universe elements creeping back into the official--"no we mean it this time"--Disney canon. Thrawn shows up in the animated series Rebels, and the visual guide to Rogue One was a veritable smorgasbord of references to the old West End Games roleplaying modules. Maybe my Expanded Universe wasn't entirely gone after all. Oh, yes, now it's been re-branded as "Legends"--but the new material has shown time and again that some legends are "real".

Slowly, I began to hope that maybe my own mark on Star Wars might exist in some form. Maybe not as a I originally envisioned them, but maybe they would live on after all. Earlier this year, with the release of Star Wars The Visual Encyclopedia, I learned that Silya Shessaun is still "alive" in this new canon. True, nothing else has been revealed of her origins, and I don't know how much of what we built in What's the Story is "factual" any more, but she's still in there.

The biggest surprise, however, came just a couple weeks ago with the release of the (delightful) children's book, BB-8 On the Run, by Drew Daywalt and Matt Myers. Set in between the early events of The Force Awakens, it chronicles the adventures of BB-8 immediately after he's separated from Poe Dameron and leads up to his rescue by Rey. Over the course of his travels, he helps a stranded droid return to his ship--a scavenger ship piloted by droids, it would seem--and lo, when you turn the page...

It's the Dusty Duck.

She's alive. The old bird's alive. Now: a disclaimer! The ship is not actually named in this book. It is entirely possible that, though I wrote that the Dusty Duck was a one-of-a-kind custom-job, someone could come along and say this was just another ship "like" the Duck. Or maybe it's not "the Duck" at all. Maybe they took the same ship from the deleted scene of Phantom Menace that the Duck was originally intended to be and have given it an entirely new backstory. Which would be, frankly, heartbreaking--a second time.

But maybe--just maybe--it's still her. Maybe it's still the Duck. After all, the story still tracks. In my original entry, the ship's pilot, Aneesa Dym, purchased a handful of droids to repair the ship right before her shocking murder at the hands of Darth Maul. And the story I wrote does say that the droids repaired the bird to perfection. Could it be that, after years of being stranded on Tatooine, the droids finally took the Duck to flight and started their own crew, salvaging parts to keep the ship running and collecting other master-less droids?

I think so. But, that's out of my hands now. But it's a start. And it's enough to hang a hope on.

At any rate, thank you to Drew, Matt, and the Lucasfilm Story Group for dusting off the ole girl and giving her another day in the sun. It's pretty neat to see her in action again (and, hey, she actually flew in this story!) and I can't wait to see what new adventures she'll go on :) Best of all, the day we bought the book, my wife read it to our seven-year-old daughter for her bedtime story, and she could know that our family had a small part in that ship's legacy. That's what it's all about, folks.

A Look Ahead

Happy (belated) New Year!

It's been forever since I've posted on here, mostly because I've been hard at work on a number of upcoming projects. Not only that, but I've been, frankly, trying to live my life a little. It's possible to have too much going on, and I was knee deep in that territory for the latter half of last year. So this year, I'm taking a bit of break. Still working, but these days I'm working more on my personal projects rather than "for hire" work--though there's some of that thrown in there, too.

So what's coming up?

First off, I'm pleased to announce that I have finished the manuscript to my seventh novel. Still have edits to do and then there's the question of what to do with it after. I've published my last three books on my own, without much success, to be honest. But I love the creative control and the freedom. Plus, with publishers becoming even more exclusive because of the increasing financial risk of publishing anyone who is not Stephen King or George RR Martin, I'm not sure where to turn. But that's all upsetting business stuff to worry about later. Right now, I'm focusing on just the simple joy of telling (and completing) a story. I don't want to say too much about it just yet, but what can I tell you about the next book? No title yet, as it keeps changing, but this is a story that I've been trying to tell--in one form or another--since 1998. In many ways, it's a return to my Coming Evil roots--simple people fighting off incomprehensible evil. It involves a City that devours souls, and centers on Quinn, a thuggish "Retriever" who makes sure that, well, let's just say he makes sure that the dinner doesn't scramble off the plate. It's a noir-type story, rife with monsters and a very faith-driven fight of good versus evil. Also, it fits squarely into my larger mythology. In fact, this book is the concluding chapter of my current "concept trilogy" that consists of HITMEN: Four Tales of Magick, Monsters, and Murder, and the Rift Jump duology. Together, they pull back the veil on the world introduced in The Coming Evil Trilogy, showing that the threat presented by the Strange Man has its roots in something much more cosmic. And that tasty morsel leads into my next announcement...

I've officially broken ground on the next Coming Evil novel. Still waaaay too early to say anything about that yet, but I've had this story in mind for many, many years. There are seeds of it sprinkled throughout The Coming Evil, and even more of its foundation is laid in the aforementioned "concept trilogy". I'm super excited about it, but nervous, as well. The Coming Evil has always been very special to me and I want to be extra careful to handle its continuation properly.

In other news, I've also had the opportunity to help develop another Syfy Channel Original. I'm buried way back behind the scenes on this one, but it's always fun to be involved in these creature features. Definitely can't talk about that one yet, but I'll be sure to keep you posted as the premier draws nigh.

Finally, my fellow Star Wars contributor Edward M. Erdelac and I have co-written an essay on that beloved saga to be included in Sequart's upcoming book A Galaxy Far, Far Away: Exploring Star Wars Comics. Very thankful to be included in this alongside other reputable Star Wars fans and authors. I think it's going to be pretty neat. Look for that later this year.

That's what I've been up to. I know I started this blog with saying that I wanted to be less busy, but, believe me--this is less busy for me :)

And, no, this won't be the last you hear from me for another six months. Coming up in the days ahead, I've got an interview with my buddy, paranormal investigator and author Bob Freeman. He's got a new book out!

My First Step Into a Larger World...

In case you missed it, yesterday was a big day for me. I saw the publication of my very first article for the Official Star Wars Blog. It's entitled "The Not-So Magnificent Seven" and shines the spotlight on seven of the Star Wars' galaxy's less successful bounty hunters (like Greedo over there to the left). Featured in the article is my very own creation--the Dusty Duck and her crew, including hapless hunter Rango Tel (you can read the story behind that here).

For this article, I dug deep in the well of obscurity, discovering gems from the old Marvel Star Wars comics published in the late 70s-early 80s, as well as the anthology Tales of the Bounty Hunters. It was an incredible experience dusting off these old characters that have been forgotten by most and giving them a spit-polish and a chance to shine for a little while longer.

Interview with Kathy Tyers!

Okay, I'm totally stoked about today's guest. Today we're sitting down with Kathy Tyers, one of the pioneers of Christian Science Fiction. She's a terrific lady, a legend in the Christian Fiction market--and she's written for Star Wars! Let's get to it!

Greg Mitchell: Kathy, thank you so much for being here today! On to business: I've heard you describe your newest science fiction novel Daystar as an “alternate universe Messiah novel.” A very interesting premise. What's the story behind that?

Kathy Tyers: The Firebird series takes place on an alternate timeline, in which the Virgin Mary said “No” and human history took a different course. People went to space, engaged in genetic engineering, and the messianic line survived simply because God doesn’t break promises. So in Daystar’s far future setting, when the messianic people are ready for the big event, God displays the same character that we saw in Jesus of Nazareth – but since it happens under different circumstances, we see different events.

I made a point of not going through the gospels, creating characters to represent each of the biblical people – with one vital exception – and I was careful not to present miracles that would be too parallel to the ways Jesus proved himself on this world – again, with one vital exception. I wanted to bring back the sense of wonder and mystery, to try and remind people how mind-boggling a God we serve.

GM: Daystar is the fifth book in a series, correct? Can it be read by itself?

KT: Absolutely. Daystar is the only novel that takes place in the third generation of the Firebird series. Major characters from the other novels come together, and some of them play major roles – so series readers will enjoy Daystar on more levels than stand-alone readers, but yes, Daystar is primarily about entirely new young characters.

GM: How did it feel to finish a series you’d been writing for so long? What's the Firebird Saga all about?

KT: It felt slightly sad and a little wistful. But deeply satisfying. I had a sense of “job well done.” And now I’m wondering what in the Whorl to do next!

As for the series: The first book, Firebird, is about a young extra heiress sent out to die in battle, who’s captured instead. She discovers that the cause she was defending – her family’s glory – isn’t worth dying for after all. In Fusion Fire, Lady Firebird goes up against truly evil enemies and realizes that there’s deep darkness in her own soul, too. Crown of Fire takes her back to her home world for a royal occasion that nearly costs her life. Those three books have been combined by Marcher Lord Press in The Annotated Firebird, along with maps, notes, family trees and other information.

I returned to the Firebird universe with Wind and Shadow, which is about Firebird’s twin sons. One is following in her footsteps as a warrior, but the other has grown up to be a priest. He’s kidnapped by a demon-possessed telepath who thinks he might be the predicted Boh-Dabar or messiah of this alternate universe. Daystar finishes the series when an outsider, Meris Cariole, gets caught up in the messianic events. So do two of Lady Firebird’s grandchildren.

GM: Wind and Shadow, your fourth Firebird novel, was apparently part of a Master’s degree?

KT: Regent College in Vancouver, BC specializes in training “lay people” in theology, spirituality, history, biblical languages, and other subjects that we normally think of in terms of training for professional ministry. In Regent College terms, every Christian is a minister of the gospel – and since the stress is on learning about God as creator and redeemer, artists are held in high regard. My degree was in “Christianity and the Arts,” and it was a tough course of study but very much worth it. Vancouver was an amazing place to spend two years, too.

 
GM: The Firebird series is over! This has been a huge part of your life. I know that, for my own series, it'd be hard for me to leave it behind for good. Do you think you'll ever return to the world of Firebird sometime down the road?

 KT:  I certainly won't say "never." I tied off that series pretty conclusively (no spoilers here!), but there's room for prequels. Some of my readers have suggested a spin-off series featuring some characters from the books. I've seen authors do that successfully. It could be worth a try.

GM: Okay. Now it's time to get down to the nitty gritty. My love for Star Wars has been well-documented on this site. I must now live vicariously through you. What was it really like to write for Star Wars?

KT: Fun! The invitation came from my Bantam Books editor, Janna Silverstein, after I had published four science fiction novels with Bantam (including the first two Firebird novels, Firebird and Fusion Fire). Bantam and Lucasfilm selected one of the ideas that I pitched – evil aliens attack an Imperial world right after the Rebel Alliance has destroyed the Imperial fleet, so the Rebels have to help repel the aliens. I had quite a bit of artistic freedom writing that novel, which was published as The Truce at Bakura.

My second Star Wars novel, Balance Point, was part of a series called The New Jedi Order, and the series had already been substantially outlined when I started writing. They wanted an anchor-point book for a particular moment in the series, and they wanted a “character author” to write it. Apparently they felt I’d done a good job portraying the beloved Star Wars characters, and they wanted me to do it again. I was honored!

GM: In relation to Star Wars, have you kept up with the EU lately? The prequel films? Recent novels or the new Clone Wars animated series that's running on Cartoon Network? I was just wondering if you had peeked in on the mythology from time to time and what you thought of it all.

KT: I confess I haven't kept up. The amount of licensed Star Wars literature has become overwhelming--and I've had other things going on, like widowhood and grad school and putting together a new life! My writing has moved in other directions, too. But the Star Wars season of my writing life was something I wouldn't have missed for the world. Whenever I see kids in my neighborhood out playing Jedi with their lightsabers, up and down the street, it makes me smile. Big time.

GM: Well, Kathy, you have certainly impacted a lot of people with your work. Thank you so much for taking the time to hang out. 

That concludes another interview. Be sure to head to Kathy's site at kathytyers.com for free excerpts from her Firebird novels, deleted scenes, and more!

And don't forget, I'm running a Goodreads giveaway for my latest sci-fi/paranormal/romance/action novel Rift Jump. Enter today for your chance to win a free copy--signed by me!

Endnotes: Dusty Duck

Concluding the two-part series of endnotes for my contributions to the Star Wars mythology, today we talk about the Dusty Duck. The following originally appeared on my blog at StarWars.com, but now that the feature has been discontinued, I've edited my endnotes and moved them here. To read Part One of my endnotes about Silya Shessaun, clicky here. 

DUSTY DUCK

Following many setbacks and a seemingly exceptionally long waiting period, the What's the Story feature returned to StarWars.com with the winners of Round 6. Having been very frustrated with the waiting process (and griping quite a bit about it, I'm a bit embarrassed to say :p) I was just happy and relieved to see that an update had been posted at all. When I saw that the first entry was dubbed "Dusty Duck", I looked to my wife and said, "Oh, they used my name for the ship". Imagine my shock when I realized that the judges had, in fact, used my entire entry!

I was really excited to see that 99% of my entry was used, word for word. There was only one "story change", but we'll get to that later.

Here's the breakdown--excerpts are taken from the original Dusty Duck databank entry:

Aneesa Dym was a Pa'lowick born and raised by her smuggler father on Nar Shaddaa.

Although I wasn't the most well-versed guy when it came to the Expanded Universe that encompassed all the games, novels, movies, cartoons, trading cards, comics, etc--I hadn't really heard of a lot of Pa'lowick characters. Pa'lowicks, as you may or may not recall, first appeared in Return of the Jedi in the form of Sy Snootles, a space-y lounge singer for Jabba the Hutt. I can count the number of Pa'lowick characters that exist in Star Wars on one hand--and most of those followed in Sy's footsteps of being singers. I hadn't discovered any Pa'lowicks who were smugglers, so I thought it would be a nice change and break the species stereotype.

Nar Shaddaa originated in the pages of the Dark Empire comics and is a rough place for a kid to grow up--a far cry from the small agricultural community of Lowick (where most of the other Pa'lowicks in the galaxy are born and raised).

She helped him pilot a ship of his own design that he had dubbed the Dusty Duck, named partly for the waterfowl of Naboo and for the ship's penchant for coughing to a halt in space and coming in for a rough landing on many barren worlds. "Duck's not meant for flying," he'd often say. "At least, not for too long."

The idea of naming a ship "Dusty Duck" was hilarious to me. I guess that's just a throwback to pirates having ridiculous names for their ships in movies or something. I wanted a name that was personal and warm and not a typical ship name like "the 85LZ-Whatever". Also, I noticed a trend. There was the Millenium Falcon. The Moldy Crow. The Ebon Hawk. So, I wanted something that had the same structure as these names, just...well, silly. And, since ducks are kind of a running gag throughout anything George Lucas touches, I thought "Eh, why not?" The only problem was coming up with a reason to name a ship after a duck. I came up with this little quote to, not only (hopefully) deliver a laugh, but show that the father loved this ship, despite its flaws, which is a recurring theme in this story...

When Aneesa's father was stabbed in the back by an angry customer, Aneesa became the sole crewer for her late father's gigantic jalopy and scoured the galaxy for the scum that left her an orphan. Her search led her to many backwater planets but time and again her hunt would come up empty.

So the father dies and Aneesa is left with the family business. It's a scary position to be in, but she tries her best. Though...she could use a little help.

Then bounty hunter Rango Tel entered the picture. Tel heroically cornered the murderer of Aneesa's father in a cantina and bested the villain in combat, collecting the bounty. With this act of bravery, Tel stole the heart of Aneesa Dym. She offered him her piloting skills and the Dusty Duck and, together, the duo set off across the galaxy in search of Tel's next bounty, Kam Nale.

When I decided on the silly name for this ship, I knew I had to have something equally silly to go along with it. Enter: Rango Tel. Many Whatsthestoryists try to tie into each other's creations, building a mythos within a mythos, as it were, and I'm certainly no different. Rango Tel was actually one of the earliest entries picked for What's the Story and was instantly likeable. The tale of the bounty hunter wannabe was personable, funny, but ultimately tragic and I remember his creator Aaron Sinner upset that he had created this great character but killed him off his first time out, thereby ending any hope he had of any further EU adventures.

Well, this one was for you, Aaron.

I talked about the theme of this entry before and here's where it really kicks in:

Everybody needs somebody. No matter how much of a dork you really are, you need a friend who will love you in spite of that. Luckily, I have an amazing wife, two beautiful daughters, and great, loyal friends who all love and support me, despite my craziness. Rango Tel was a bumbling kid who got a lucky shot and had ill-fated delusions of grandeur because of it. However, to Aneesa, he was brave. To her, he was a hero. As you can guess, the "villain he bested in combat" in this entry is the same guy he "inadvertently score[d] a bounty on" in Aaron's original entry. I saw Aaron's entry as the true version of the facts, but wanted to write my entry through Aneesa's rose-colored view of this man who avenged her father (however accidentally), which accounts for Rango sounding a lot tougher in this entry than he really, probably, was.

Rango and Aneesa are kind of in the same boat. They're both young and lost, looking for something to do with their lives. Now, they've found each other and have decided to take that journey together. So, Rango's got a faithful friend who adores him and a rickety ship, ready to begin his life as a "daring" bounty hunter.

Their search led them to Tatooine. Aneesa drop-landed the Duck just outside Mos Espa and waited onboard for her valiant defender to collect the head of Nale, as her newly purchased DUM pit droids tended to much-needed repairs on the ship.

However, while Tel was away, an image of the Dusty Duck was captured in the dying camera eye of a Sith probe droid destroyed by a fleeing Qui-Gon Jinn and Anakin Skywalker. Darth Maul, the probe's owner, followed the trail to the Dusty Duck and boarded, demanding a very startled Aneesa to tell him where the Jedi was. A confused Aneesa had no answer for the fierce Sith Lord.

This is where we get to the Dusty Duck's appearance in The Phantom Menace deleted scene. Rango Tel heads out for his big job (from which he'll never return) and Aneesa stays behind to watch the ship.

I love Darth Maul. I think he's one of the most underused baddies in all of Star Wars, so racking up one more kill for him was a great thrill for me. In the deleted scene, Qui-Gon strikes down the probe droid following he and Anakin back to the Queen's ship. Darth Maul only sees them fleeing and thinks they are headed for the Dusty Duck, which accounts for why he's a bit behind the duo and almost misses his opportunity to make a good first impression when we see him in the movie.

This is also the only part of my story that was actually changed. Originally, Maul enters the ship and demands to know where "the boy" is, meaning Anakin. Aneesa thinks he's referring to her friend - the brave and dangerous bounty hunter - and refuses to give up that information in order to protect Rango. Maul cuts her down for her insolence. The changes were made and, yeah, Aneesa might not have gotten her heroic death but I can see that my claiming Maul was really on Tatooine looking for Anakin was overstepping my boundaries so I can live with the decision to change it to Maul just looking for "the Jedi" (though, now that I think of it, I think I nicked that idea from the New Essential Guide to Chronology written by Dan Wallace to begin with).

Darth Maul cut her down. The Duck remained abandoned and became the talk of local ghost stories. The pit droids remained, operating on their last command and rebuilding the ship to perfection. However, sadly, it never flew again.

It's a sad ending. But Rango got a sad ending, too, so it's sort of poetic, if not grim. I actually thought it might be harder for Aneesa to have lived without Rango, so, in the end, their friendship was not broken. They entered death together.

Having the Duck being a local ghost story is a real treat for me, as a horror writer and fan. I love a good urban legend and being able to add one to the Star Wars galaxy was pretty cool. I can almost hear all the little Tatooine kids daring each other to sneak up and touch the underside of the Dusty Duck.

Most recently, the Duck popped up in Ryder Windham's outstanding The Wrath of Darth Maul book. Will we see the old bird again one day? I hope so. For now, I did write up a completely UN-official short story for the Star Wars Outsider fanzine :)

 

UPDATE: The Dusty Duck and her crew are featured in "The Not-So Magnificent Seven"--my first published article for the Official Star Wars Blog!

Endnotes: Silya Shessaun

The following was originally published on the blog I kept at StarWars.com. Now that the blog feature has been discontinued, I've re-edited these endnotes and moved them to this blog for posterity. These are the endnotes for my two contributions to the Star Wars mythology: a pair of databank entries written as part of the amazing and still-missed What's the Story feature.

SILYA SHESSAUN

Silya Shessaun was a Senator, originally appearing in Star Wars Chronicles: The Prequels and later in a deleted scene from Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. Had the scene remained, you would have met her in the funeral scene for Anakin Skywalker's star-crossed counterpart Padmé Amidala. Her name is a tuckerization of Lisa Shaunessy, the Lucasfilm publicity assistant who cameoed as her in the film.

I was at my in-laws' house, eating supper with my wife, and had somehow convinced them all to play Star Wars Trivial Pursuit Saga Edition with me (oh yeah, I smoked them). I took a break from the festivites to check to see if the latest round of What's the Story winners had been selected. My wife was looking over my shoulder as I checked...and then I saw my name at the bottom of Silya's entry. I sat there for long moments, elated and relieved.

"Though she was extended an invitation to the Delegation of 2,000, she declined. She felt that undermining the Supreme Chancellor during such trying times was tantamount to a Separatist act." (taken from the original Silya Shessaun databank entry, 2006)

With those words, I became a Star Wars "author" and Silya Shessaun's life took a dramatic turn.

My contribution to this character is comparatively small. To the best of my knowledge, Hyperspace member Twi'LekEntertainer did the bulk of the work, laying the groundwork and creating the heart and soul of Silya while fellow members ShadowCultist, Master Starkeiller, and I (writing as "HedecGa") got to add moments in the senator's life that shaped her fate.

Nevertheless, discovering that I had a hand in creating this character was a defining moment for me.

For my part of the entry, I wanted to show a Senator who, in her heart was prime Rebel Alliance material and who, in fact, had many good friends who had already joined, yet she was unable to for very real, ethical reasons. Was she right in standing by the Republic during hard times? Could she have made a difference from within, or was rebellion utterly necessary? One of my favorite exchanges in Episode III is when Padmé is confiding in Anakin that she wonders if they're fighting on the wrong side of the Clone Wars, and Anakin tells her that she's "starting to sound like a Separatist". I thought that was a really intriguing paradox and wanted to explore that in my small portion of Silya's story. Silya was faced with a tough ethical question with no easy answer.

Also, it always struck me as a bit unfair to assume that all good, noble, just senators joined the Delegation and formed the Rebellion and all who sided with Palpatine were crooked, conniving evil senators. The focus of my original submission for Silya was that she was good and noble but sided with Palpatine. Not because she liked the guy, but because she felt the Delegation wasn't the right way to end the war. I'm very happy that that aspect was selected for the final entry.

"Winning" Silya is a moment that still gives me chills. I am very thankful to God and the WTS judges for allowing me to be a small part in her life. At the time, I was fully willing to kick back and rest on my laurels, and had all but given up on ever contributing to that galaxy far, far away again. But little did I know that, in a few short months, I would see my dreams further realized.

Stay tuned for Part 2...

The Dusty Duck Flies Again!

Now this is a great way to start off the new year.



In stores now (finally) is Ryder Windham's latest Star Wars book--The Wrath of Darth Maul! Maul has long been one of my favorite characters in the series and this book takes you through his life: from the very beginning, through the events of The Phantom Menace where he met his supposed end, and beyond! With Darth Maul making a dramatic and most unexpected return to Star Wars later this year in The Clone Wars, this is a must-read for young fans of the cartoon who want to get the skinny on who this red-skinned devil is.

As excited as I am to see Darth Maul's story told in full, the reason behind this exuberant blog post resides on Page 174. You see, it is on this page that my very own contribution to the Star Wars saga--the Dusty Duck--gets a mention!! Why? Darth Maul plays an integral role in my Dusty Duck story, which you can read by accessing the Wayback Machine and clicking here.

Seeing "my creation" get a mention in a major Star Wars release is really fulfilling. Like any kid from the '80s, I grew up with Star Wars. When I was in high school, I first discovered the Expanded Universe (or EU for short).


It was two things that did it: I glimpsed a hardcover edition of the much-maligned The Crystal Star on the new releases display at Hastings, and then I found the first issue of Dark Horse Comics' Crimson Empire. Crystal Star enlightened me that the adventures of Luke, Leia, and Han extended past the movies (and they had kids!). Crimson Empire showed me that there was a whole galaxy of potential stories--that every minor background character could be the star of his, her, or its own epic space opera. I was spellbound--even more so when I discovered that all of these books, games, comics, cartoons, etc worked together into a single (mostly) cohesive continuity.

Ever since that moment, I was fascinated by this rich lore written over these decades by many talented storytellers. And, perhaps, most importantly--I wanted to write my own story.


Many years later, in 2006, I got that chance, thanks to a limited running contest on the official site. The feature was called "What's the Story?" and gave fanboy writers like me the opportunity to take a minor background character, ship, or creature and develop a backstory that, if selected, would be officially adopted into Star Wars canon forevermore. I worked hard, wanting desperately to leave some small mark on this series that had captivated me. I know it sounds silly, but it was a rigorous time and taught me a lot about perseverance and rejection in the writing biz.

At last, after several rounds and multiple tries, the heavens parted and I won an entry of my very own: The Dusty Duck. My tale of a doomed spacecraft and the star-crossed lovers who flew it was an entry I, initially, hadn't thought long and hard about. It was just one of many submissions, but, looking at it again, I realized how proud I was of the concept. My excitement was renewed when, a couple years later, it received a place in The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia. After that, I feared my little ship that could would settle in the dusts of obscurity, never to be mentioned again.

But today, that's changed thanks to author Ryder Windham and The Wrath of Darth Maul. Folks, the Duck is in there. Yes, it's only a passing mention--not enough to warrant such a long and gushing blog post, but it's there. My contribution to the Star Wars saga lives on in other writers and there are few things, creatively speaking, that are cooler than that.

I am forever grateful to you, Mr. Windham, for resurrecting my baby :) My hope is that it'll help inspire some other kid to take notice that the stories of Star Wars extend further and deeper than what they've seen in the movies. Maybe one day, they'll make their own contribution to that galaxy far, far away.

Finally here's the deleted scene that started it all, featuring the Dusty Duck....

Interviewing Edward M. Erdelac: The Coolest Man On Earth?

There are many injustices in the publishing world, one of them being that "Edward M. Erdelac" is not a name as widely known as it should be. Today I do my part to rectify this situation by introducing you to him. Ed is a horror writer on the rise, crafting tightly-plotted, character-rich, horror stories.

I first met Ed a few years ago when we were both submitting entries to the "What's the Story" contest over at the official Star Wars website. We, along with many of our fellow Star Wars nerds...erm...enthusiasts, were tasked with creating interesting and original backstories for any number of characters, planets, or starships that Lucasfilm threw our way. I hit paydirt with my Dusty Duck entry, and Ed won the contest a total of three times! Beyond that, he was hired by Lucasfilm on an official basis to write an original short story for their site (I'm still waiting for my chance. Take your time, Lucasfilm. I'll still be here.). The result was Fists of Ion, an awesome tale of a down-on-his-luck shockboxer who makes good and scores a victory for the New Republic. It was the "Rocky" of the Star Wars mythology and I realized then how gifted Ed is at telling a deftly worded tale and pulling you right into his world. As fellow Whatsthestoryists, Ed and I cheered each other on in the competition back in those days, and stayed in touch long after the "What's the Story" feature was discontinued (another injustice!), in large part due to the fact that we were both struggling writers in the horror genre with an eye towards breaking into comics and film. Today, we still cheer each other on, trading war stories from the trenches of the publishing industry.

As fate would have it, the both of us had stories published in the 3rd Edition of Coach's Midnight Diner where his story "The Blood Bay"--the dark "coming of age" tale of a boy and his blood-drinking horse--was selected as one of three Editor's Choices! "The Blood Bay" is a an Old West revenge tale with its roots in Greek mythology, of all things. Ed's story conveys so much thought, character-driven tragedy, and bloodcurdling nastiness with a light, airy prose that's addictive to read. It's this smooth style and his carefully measured but very rich imagery that earns him my respect and only mild bitterness :p Most recently I finished his novella "Red Sails". A pirate story about a vampire pirate captain and his werewolf crew, it is fun, imaginative, and surprisingly "literary" considering the premise sounds like a late night monster movie (not a bad thing). Ed's liberal use of spooky description is perfectly balanced by his knowledge of history--so much so that I wonder if he's got a time machine stored in his garage. Whether he's writing Star Wars or in our world's haunted past, he takes you there. Puts you right in the middle of the environment and makes you think he's been there himself.

Among Ed's stories are "Night of the Jikininki"--a zombie story set in Feudal Japan; "The Crawlin' Chaos Blues"--when a young blues player heads to the crossroads to make a deal with the devil, he's surprised to find something Lovecraftian instead; and his Merkabah Rider series starting with "Tales of a High Planes Drifter"--about a gunslinger mystic on the trail of monsters in the Weird West. Seriously, why are you still reading? You should be rushing to Amazon and buying all of these. Right now!

Well, for those who need more convincing, we're here to sit down with Edward M. Erdelac: The Coolest Man On Earth.



Greg Mitchell: For the poor folks at home who have yet to stumble upon your greatness, who are you and what are you about?

Edward Erdelac: I’m Edward M. Erdelac (only because my father is Edward G. Erdelac and our mail gets mixed up – "Ed" is fine). I was born in Indiana, educated in Chicago, and live in the Los Angeles area with my family. I’ve written stuff for Star Wars (on their website), I’ve produced, written and directed an indie feature film (Meaner Than Hell), and I’ve written about a dozen screenplays, two of which have won awards. Most recently in that arena I did some work on a horror movie that’s being produced called "Underground Lizard People". I’m currently the man behind the Merkabah Rider series from Damnation Books, a weird western about a gunslinging Hasidic mystic tracking his renegade teacher across the southwest of 1880, contending with demons and Lovecraftian entities along the way.

GM: So, why be an author? Dealing with my own struggles on this particular path, I periodically ask myself “Why in the world did I decide on this for my life? Am I a masochist? A glutton for misery?” What set you on the road to being a writer? What keeps you going?

EE: I ask myself the same questions, Greg. It’s a really hard road, especially when everybody around you has solid, respectable careers. At 35 I sometimes feel a bit like a man-child still punching out spooky stories when most of my friends are laying plans for their retirement. It can be quite a discouraging business, especially if you hate the word ‘business’ like I do. But, when you hold a bound copy of your work, and feel the weight of it, when you put it on your shelf, it’s a kind of notch on your gun that even the most rabid bibliophile with a Clue-sized library can’t match. It’s an extra pip on the collar or a gilded chevron on the sleeve that very few people I think have the tenacity to earn. The only thing that tops that is somebody expressing admiration for something you’ve written. That’s a whole ‘nother sensation. Like having somebody praise your kid for his or her upbringing (but secretly, I think, just a little bit better). You throw your heart against the wall a whole lot, but that last bit is worth every toss.

I’ve wanted to do this for a living since I read my first pocket book sans-pictures in about seventh grade (believe it or not, it was the novelization of Friday The 13th Part 6: Jason Lives).

GM: Hey, I've got that book sitting on my shelf, too! And it's still a shame the movie didn't include the epilogue with the return of Jason Voorhees' father :(

EE: I realized how vivid and transporting a book could be. Moreso than a film even (case in point). I’m still not quite there yet, but just three years ago, with nothing at all out there, I was ready to give up for good. Then a UK magazine called Murky Depths published a story I did called "Killer of the Dead" about a Blackfoot boy and his grandfather chasing down a gang of murderous vampires, and about the same time I got the call to do the Star Wars story. Making that first breakthrough took years and came when I was literally about to give up. Funny enough, this is the same way I met my wife, when I had resolved to stop looking for love. And my Star Wars story was published on our anniversary.

GM: I hear ya. The best stuff in life always seems to come around when we're about to throw in the towel. I am always surprised and impressed when I hear of a new story you’ve got coming out. You have the greatest “hooks” and each and every story sounds like a blast to me—which is why they’re all on my ever-expanding “to-read” list. What immediately stands out to me when I think of an “Edward M. Erdelac” story is “genre bending”. I mean, you took a Deep South blues/deal-with-the-devil story and mixed it with Lovecraft, man. That’s awesome! You have these great “mash-up” stories without going the over-mined Classic Literary Book With a Horror Twist route. Your stories are original and interesting. You have very classy “old Hollywood” sensibilities, mixed with B-movie concepts. Do you sit down and say “What two odd things can I put together today?” or is this just reflective of the way your mind works naturally?

EE: Thanks, Greg! I think I read a lot of history, and I read a lot of folklore, and my mind has sort of been conditioned to make these connections. I like reading about culture clashes and am continually amazed by the different ways humans have intermixed with and adapted to each other, from African centurions in the Roman Army to British Wild West Shows in Victorian England.

I love how freely the old pulp writers mixed genres, and I read a lot of that stuff. I watch mainly classic movies as well, so that’s probably where the old Hollywood sensibilities come from. There’s a line in Carol Reed’s The Third Man that always cracks me up where Calloway tells the Holly Martins character, “Paine lent me one of your books...I didn’t know they had snake charmers in Texas.” For better or worse, that’s the kind of writer I am, I think.

GM: As much fun as the monsters are, I’m intrigued by how you pay just as much attention to creating an authentic historical environment. A lot of your stories take place in the past. Are you a natural fan of history? How much research do you put into your stories, capturing the language and “world” of the past?

EE: Yeah I think the most modern story I’ve written is a screenplay set in 1985. I always loved learning new things, but my idea of new things has always been, funny enough, old things. History was my favorite subject. I guess I don’t relate very well to the modern world, where I think much of our lives have been made abstract. The experience of living isn’t really very concrete anymore to most people. It’s all tied up in work and paper and compound interests and 401K. A lot of stuff that at the end of the day just makes a body want to slump down on the couch and veg. People, I think, don’t experience life the same way as they used to. Look at how much time people spend watching television or reading as opposed to going out and doing the kinds of things the characters in their entertainment do.

There’s a dignity to the human experience that’s gradually being eroded by modern disconnectedness. Our virtual lives are generally more interesting than our real lives. I enjoy visiting historical places and just laying hands on old things, imagining the people who first set these things in place. My son took his senior trip to Europe and brought me back a little chip of Hadrian’s wall. I believe there’s a kind of hum to things like that. I don’t know if its psychometry or just wishful thinking. Maybe one requires the other.

I guess I’m always doing research when I’m reading history. I put a crease at the bottom of a page where some little bit of information jumps out at me. Then later (sometimes years later) when I’m writing something that deals with that subject, I can go to the shelf and thumb through my books, finding all these little memory triggers. Sometimes they’re so minute a detail it’s like “I’ll probably never use this.” But I almost always do. I think it’s the details that bring the past to life. First person accounts are the most fun to read in this regard, because you get these little nuances of speech and contemporary references that make the characters more real. Like how people in the Southwest tend to say ‘brang’ or ‘brung’ instead of ‘brought.’

When I’m creating characters in the past I also like to look at timelines of what was going on in the world during their lifetimes and consider their reactions to them. People are the sum total of their experiences after all. The best characters I think, you can imagine having had a life before you picked up their story, and sometimes even after.

GM: From "The Blood Bay", to the Merkabah Rider series, to even your film Meaner Than Hell, I see you returning time and again to the Wild (and sometimes Weird) West, as well as your fictional town of Delirium Tremens. What is it about horses and cowboys that keeps you coming back?

EE: I guess the comparative simplicity of life. As I said, modern concerns give me a headache. I admire the self-inventiveness of old westerners. There are so many stories of real people who tried all these crazy careers, and when they failed (some of them spectacularly – I mean, the kind of financial failure that would induce somebody today to take a pavement dive) in one they just pushed a little further out west and started over doing something else, maybe with a nickname or something. With the frontier you could do that, because your creditors weren’t hearty enough to pursue you to what was then the ends of the earth. Could the Lone Ranger and Tonto, if they were real, ride around doing their thing today? Nah, the Ranger would have lawyers dogging him to pay property taxes on his silver mine and Tonto would probably be getting grief from his tribe for perpetuating a Native American stereotype.

I never really cared for westerns or the old west overly until I visited Deadwood with my family on a cross country vacation in fifth or sixth grade. I had watched The Lone Ranger and the Cisco Kid reruns when I was little, but that’s about it. Then in eighth grade I got on a Dirty Harry kick that led me to The Good The Bad And The Ugly and I never quite recovered.

Delirium Tremens, AZ is my Castle Rock. I picked the name from a book on ghost towns somewhere, but it wasn’t located in Arizona. "The Blood Libel" in Merkabah Rider: Tales of a High Planes Drifter and "The Blood Bay" both take place there. The town actually started as a detailed map I drew for an RPG game I ran for a scant few months about ten or eleven years ago. Since I abandoned the game, I still had all these little plotted stories, one of which became "The Blood Bay".


GM: Let’s talk about the Rider, while we’re on the subject of the western. What a great creation—a Jewish gunslinger mystic, battling the occult in the Old West. I’m gobsmacked by the originality of that premise and am dying to read these books. First off, where did you come up with this guy?

EE: Well first off, I like the word gobsmacked, and I’m going to strive to use it more.

GM: You should! You really should!

EE: I’m a tremendous fan of Kung Fu, the 70’s show with the Shaolin master traveling across the West. I loved the alienness of that character in such a familiar setting, and watching the reaction of stock western characters to him, and the fascinating stories that came from merging peaceful eastern philosophy with the often violent mores of the old west. I think the Rider has his origins in that, as well as a comedy-western with Gene Wilder and Harrison Ford called The Frisco Kid, about a Polish rabbi trying to deliver a Torah to San Francisco with the help of this bank robber.

He also comes directly from a series of weird westerns I tried to write in my senior year of high school about a wraith-like character called The Ghost Dancer who was this murdered cavalryman brought back to life by a Native American shaman to avenge the Sand Creek Massacre. I wasn’t particularly happy with the way it turned out, so it was shelved for a lot of years. "The Dust Devils" and "Hell’s Hired Gun" are the only two Ghost Dancer stories that became Merkabah Rider installments. I was reading a book on angelology (I think it was Angels A To Z) that my wife had picked up somewhere when I came across the entry for Merkabah Rider. I couldn’t get the term out of my head, and gradually began to imagine a gunslinger character riding a fiery ethereal horse, sort of like the way Ezekial’s chariot was pictured in my old copy of The Picture Bible I had as a kid. Research into Jewish mysticism began in earnest after that, and my admiration for the Hasidic Jews in my neighborhood who walk around in all black with these cool broad brimmed hats no matter what time of the year brought the Rider into being visually as a Hasid.

GM: What’s the plan for the Rider? Three books, right? And that’s it? What about Delirium Tremens? Will we be seeing more from this town past the Rider’s tale?

EE: "Have Glyphs Will Travel", which I hope to have out in the latter half of this year will be the last collection of Rider stories which I’ll be doing in the pulp fiction novella style. Then I plan to wrap up the overall story with a full length novel, sort of like how Robert E. Howard put an amen on the Conan stories (albeit unintentionally) with "The Hour of The Dragon". I’ve written two other stories set in Delirium Tremens that haven’t found homes yet, and have an idea for another called "The Chili-Bean Joss", about a character in Delirium Tremens’ Celestial Quarter.

GM: What’s next for you? You’ve done a few short stories and novellas—are you working your way up to a novel?

EE: I’m pretty much tied up with the Rider right now, but my first full length novel is tentatively due out this March from a press in Texas. It’s called Buff Tea and it’s a straight historical western about a would-be writer from Chicago who joins the great 1870’s buffalo hunt in Texas. This is actually the first novel I ever wrote (almost ten years ago!), so I’m excited that that’s finally seeing print. I’ve written two other novels I’m shopping around. They’re both westerns as well, one weird the other straight up. I sort of abandoned a World War II era horror novel about halfway through (there’s a movie coming out next year which is exasperatingly similar) which I’ll probably get back to once the Rider goes into the sunset. I also had a novel about Billy The Kid going strong for some time which I hope to finish one of these days. Maybe I’ll do something futuristic after that.

GM: Futuristic. Now that would be weird :p Where can people find you, man!

EE: I’m the only Edward M. Erdelac on Amazon, so if you do a search for me there most everything I have out will pop up, except for The Midnight Diner #3, which has "The Blood Bay", and Murky Depths #5, which has my debut story. I ramble on about all sorts of stuff at my blog at http://emerdelac.wordpress.com/

GM: Thanks for taking the time to tolerate my fawning. If you have any powerful parting words, here’s your chance!

EE: Thanks for the invite, Greg and good luck with your own series. As for powerful parting words, write what you know you love. And be sure to drink your Ovaltine.

GM: There you go, folks. The Coolest Man on Earth endorses Ovaltine. Now go buy his stuff, already! You won't be disappointed.