Timothy Zahn

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Timothy Zahn (born September 1, 1951) is a science fiction novelist. He is best known for the Thrawn Trilogy, a Star Wars Expanded Universe series that takes place five years after the end of Return of the Jedi. Zahn's work is not limited to Star Wars; he also wrote the Dragonback series and the popular Conquerors' Trilogy, about a war between humans and a race of aliens that have seemingly indestructible spaceships and can remain in spirit form after death. He has also written short fiction; he won a Hugo award in 1984 for his novella Cascade Point.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Timothy Zahn was born in Chicago, Illinois. He attended Michigan State University, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in physics in 1973. He then moved to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and achieved an M.S. degree in physics in 1975. While he was pursuing a doctorate in physics, his adviser became ill and died. Zahn never completed the doctorate. In 1975 he had begun writing science fiction as a hobby, and he became a professional writer. He and his wife Anna live in Bandon, Oregon. They have a son, Corwin Zahn.

[edit] Writing style

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Zahn's characters are noteworthy for taking various pieces of information, putting together a picture of events, and planning a course of action around it. Grand Admiral Thrawn is, perhaps, the seminal example. Zahn's Star Wars books also usually focus on a certain core group: Luke Skywalker, Mara Jade, Talon Karrde, Jorj Car'das, Grand Admiral Thrawn and the Chiss species. Throughout his Star Wars books, he often makes references to other characters or events that were created by him in previous works. As with the original Star Wars trilogy, all books in both The Thrawn Trilogy and The Hand of Thrawn Duology begin with an "exterior shot" of a Star Destroyer. Zahn tends to focus more on the logic of his characters rather than their feelings and has characters from the original trilogy re-use some of their distinctive dialogue.

Zahn's books are often described as "fast-paced". For example, he tends to develop settings only as necessary to advance the plot.

A distinguishing mark of his work is his fondness for obliquely referential wordplay. For instance, in the Thrawn trilogy, the name "Thrawn" comes from a word meaning "twisted", while the names of two pets—"Sturm" and "Drang"—are actually the real-world German words for "Storm" and "Stress", and seem to nod directly toward the "Sturm und Drang" writing style born out of the German Romantic movement. Given that the Star Wars science-fantasy saga is overtly rooted in Romanticism, Zahn's arcane referencing here would seem appropriate.

The names of characters, planets, and solar systems seem to betray a certain acquaintance with both ancient Norse and Semitic (Hebrew, Arabic) lexic and morphology. Note, for instance, the mysterious planet Myrkr with its near-impenetrable forests (cf. Old Norse myrkr "dark"), or the literally-minded species Elomin, sg. Elom (cf. the Hebrew m.pl. suffix -im). There are numerous instances of both medieval literature/saga, as well as, Old Testament references in his Star Wars novels. However, it is uncertain whether the linguistic patterns (associated with these sources) are intentional or simply a side-effect of said familiarity.

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Blackcollar Series

  • The Blackcollar (1983)
  • The Backlash Mission (1986)
  • The Judas Solution (2006)

Both The Blackcollar and The Backlash Mission were released in one joint novel titled Blackcollar in 2006.

[edit] Cobra Series

  • Cobra (1985)
  • Cobra Strike (1986)
  • Cobra Bargain (1988)

The first two were also released in one compilation called Cobras Two in 1992. A complete compilation was released as the Cobra Trilogy in 2004. See COBRA (science fiction novels) for more detail.

[edit] Conquerors Trilogy

[edit] Star Wars

[edit] Thrawn trilogy

[edit] Hand of Thrawn series

[edit] Other Star Wars novels

[edit] Graphic novels

[edit] Shorter works

[edit] Dragonback series

  • Dragon and Thief (2003)
  • Dragon and Soldier (2004)
  • Dragon and Slave (2005)
  • Dragon and Herdsman (2006)
  • Dragon and Judge (2007)
  • Dragon and Liberator (2008)

[edit] Other novels

[edit] Collections

  • Cascade Point and Other Stories (1986)
  • Time Bomb and Zahndry Others (1988)
  • Distant Friends and Other Stories (1992)
  • Star Song and Other Stories (2002)

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

Persondata
NAME Zahn, Timothy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION science fiction novelist
DATE OF BIRTH September 1, 1951
PLACE OF BIRTH Chicago, Illinois
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH