This article first appeared in Star Wars Galaxy Collector Magazine
There are few Star Wars fans out there who have not read the X-Wing novels, written by authors Michael A. Stackpole and Aaron Allston, which chronicle the adventures of Wedge Antilles. As the real leaders of Rogue and Wraith squadrons, both Mike and Aaron have taken time from their busy schedules to sit and answer some questions about the past, present and future of our favorite pilots, as well as the X-Wing series in general.
Star Wars Galaxy Collector (SWGC): Let's start with the obvious and ask each of you to please introduce yourself to our readers.
Mike Stackpole (MS): I live in Arizona, have been writing full time since 1987, and have just finished X-Wing #8: Isard's Revenge. As of the end of 1998, I will have had 27 novels published, with the four X-Wing novels and I, Jedi being the best known. The majority of my other novels have been in the BattleTech line, but I also have five fantasy novels in print.
Aaron Allston (AA): Well, I'm a native Texan, and a longtime role-playing game writer who has wanted to be a novelist since childhood. My first novel, a role-playing game tie-in, was published in 1988; don't look it up. My first original novel, Galatea in 2-D, an urban fantasy, came out in 1993 and Doc Sidhe, a Celtic myth-inspired urban fantasy, and my favorite of my original novels, came out in '95.
SWGC: How did you each become involved with the Star Wars publishing program?
MS: I had a contract with Bantam for a pair of fantasy novels (Once a Hero and Eyes of Silver). Bantam picked up the Star Wars license and started to look for someone who could write military science fiction, work in someone else's universe, work fast and well, who knew games and computer games. When they started down their list of authors, I was pretty much the only one who could be checked off on all those counts. My agent and I had been lobbying for a shot at a Star Wars novel -- and I got offered four.
AA: Mike is the first of three conspirators to blame for me being involved with the program. When he couldn't, because of time constraints, do the next four X-Wing novels, he recommended me to do three of them while he finished out the quartet. Tom Dupree, then the Star Wars line editor at Bantam, obtained some of my novels and decided I was right for the series, and his successor, Pat LoBrutto, was the one who brought me on board.
SWGC: With the X-Wing series among the most popular Star Wars novels, what types of feedback have you received regarding your respective efforts?
MS: The feedback has been voluminous and overwhelmingly positive. I think the only real negative comment I've gotten on them came in an anonymous e-mail that ran something like this: "My brother is reading your books. You're obviously a Rebel sympathizer. You stink." I'm pretty sure, of course, that such erudite and biting literary criticism means I'll never get a Nobel Prize for the X-Wing novels, but I'll live.
AA: Almost all the feedback about the characters I've introduced and those I've inherited has been very positive. The most common piece of feedback I receive reads like this: "When I saw that someone other than Michael Stackpole was continuing the X-Wing series, I was very suspicious, but I really enjoy the novels you've done, and I especially appreciate the humor."
SWGC: What type of initial guidelines did Lucasfilm give for working on the X-Wing novels, such as limits on the characters you could use? Was there any hesitation in starting a book series not based on the main characters?
MS: Sue Rostoni, Production Editor for Lucas Licensing, suggested that I use Wedge as a character. Other than that, and a prohibition against using main characters without specific permission, I was pretty much given free rein. There didn't seem to be any hesitation or concern about having a new cast of characters.
AA: Some things were obvious, such as not killing major characters. Others, such as the extent to which you could portray a character's love life, weren't, and I had to learn by running into them at high speed-that is, having Lucasfilm tell me that I'd inadvertently wandered across the border and needed to wander back again.
SWGC: To what do you attribute the success of the X-Wing series?
AA: Also, a certain percentage of the readership has interest in novels about characters other than Luke, Han and Leia. Many of these readers like the big three, but want a change of pace now and then. They are more interested in the Star Wars universe than any specific characters, and so they're pleased to see portions of the universe that the more mainstream novels don't show them.
SWGC: Mike, it seems that your involvement in the Star Wars publishing program is growing, and that you have taken on something of a "godfather" role, helping to keep the universe together and running smoothly. How has this affected your writing, and do you see this continuing?
MS: I think the question really overstates what I've been doing. I just like linking what I do with the work of other authors, which means I talk to them-we kick ideas around and come up with cooler stuff than we might have had on our own. I do occasionally spackle and fill little continuity errors, but that's a fun part of the game. As for the future, that will be up to Lucasfilm and Del Rey, but I'd be happy to help in any way I can.
SWGC: Aaron, as one of the new kids on the Star Wars block, what was it like being asked to step in and take over an established and popular series?
AA: I had a pretty good idea about what I was stepping into. And I felt I was up to the task-though I had no idea whether I'd be able to please Mike's fans specifically. The process was exhilarating rather than frightening, but I'd probably look at it the other way around if the fan response hadn't been so positive.
SWGC: Your styles seem so similar. If there wasn't a by-line on the cover, readers might not know there were two different authors. How closely do you work with one other?
MS: Aaron and I have known each other for a long time, and I love his other fiction. We didn't so much talk about trying to make our styles mesh, as much as my passing on things to watch out for. It was like Aaron coming up to bat and me saying, "Hey, the pitcher's got a nasty curve. Watch it." But Aaron is more than capable of handling stuff himself.
AA: We didn't work as closely as we might have wanted to, but enough to contain most of the continuity glitches. The similarity in our styles emerges not from working closely together, but from having similar inspirations and sensibilities about the ways the universe works-and the ways other universes should work.
SWGC: There's a sense of reality when any of the pilots in your books are flying. Do you have actual piloting experience? If not, what's your inspiration?
MS: No flight experience here, save boarding when my row number is called. I read a lot, talk to pilots and watch World War II footage and PBS shows about flying. And I've logged a lot of hours on the X-Wing and TIE Fighter games.
AA: I have no military experience whatsoever. I've done research, listened to some pilots and tried to maintain a realistic sensibility when wandering around in my characters' heads. There are no mindless, bigger-and-braver-than-life yahoos among the pilots of Wraith Squadron, for instance.
SWGC: Wedge is often called the "working man's hero," in that he does not have a Jedi's abilities or other benefits given to Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie, Artoo, Threepio and Lando. What are the challenges in not having those characters to rely upon?
MS: I don't know that not having them was a challenge, really. I was telling the sort of story that involved normal folks. When those characters did get involved, it was because their position in the universe and what my characters were doing would naturally bring them together.
AA: I wouldn't say that there are any challenges-just freedoms. If I were writing about them, I'd have to be careful not to reinvent the wheel.
