History Creator / TimothyZahn

** ''Literature/HandOfThrawn''

** ''[[Literature/StarWarsThrawnAscendancyLesserEvil Thrawn Ascendancy: Lesser Evil]]''

** ''[[Literature/StarWarsThrawnAscendancyChaosRising Thrawn Ascendancy: Chaos Rising]]''
** ''[[Literature/StarWarsThrawnAscendancyGreaterGood Thrawn Ascendancy: Greater Good]]''

Timothy Zahn (born September 1, 1951) is a ScienceFiction, {{Fantasy}} and SpaceOpera author, best known for writing Literature/TheThrawnTrilogy, one of the founding contributions to the old Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse (now Franchise/StarWarsLegends). Among fans, he's often considered to be among the best, if not ''the'' best, of the ''Star Wars'' authors. There are a number of factors involved in that, including his respect for Imperial characters as multidimensional beings, his ability to write immensely complicated and detailed plots, the fact that he reads and uses the other books in the EU, and his habit of foreshadowing things that will be revisited years later in different books.

In the final years of the Legends canon, a lot of his characters were killed off unceremoniously. Reputedly, he knows that although he created them he doesn't have a say in how they die, but he's still a bit annoyed that none of the authors doing so bothered contacting him. However, with Disney's acquisition of the ''Star Wars'' franchise and the development of ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels'', his most iconic character Grand Admiral Thrawn [[SchrodingersCanon has been inducted into the "official" canon,]] with Zahn himself not only [[ApprovalOfGod approving of his character's true-to-form interpretation]] but ''also'' writing a new Thrawn novel released in April 2017. One wonders how many more of Timothy Zahn's concepts will be introduced alongside Thrawn, but it would be safe to leave that with those who indulge in WildMassGuessing.

* MindManipulation: A major part of many of Zahn's works: [[Literature/TheThrawnTrilogy C'baoth]], [[Literature/QuadrailSeries the Modhri]], ''Angelmass'', the ''Blackcollar'' books, [[Literature/TheCobraTrilogy telepathic animals]], etc. The forms of it shown range from beneficent to nightmarish, but Zahn's characters tend to be very suspicious of any kind of mental influence, even in its most benign forms.

** Possibly a ShoutOut to ''Film/Spaceballs'', and King Roland's similar request to Lone Star and Barf:

* DeathWorld: Specifically, jungle planets where the death factor stems from the ecosystem consisting of EverythingTryingToKillYou. Examples include Granparra in ''Conquerors'', Caelian in ''Cobra'' and to a lesser extent Myrkr in his ''Star Wars'' books.

** ''Literature/ThrawnAscendancyChaosRising''
** ''Literature/ThrawnAscendancyGreaterGood''

In the final years of the Legends canon, a lot of his characters were killed off unceremoniously. Reputedly, he knows that although he created them he doesn't have a say in how they die, but he's still a bit annoyed that none of the authors doing so bothered contacting him. However, with Disney's acquisition of the ''Star Wars'' franchise and the development of ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels'', his most iconic character Grand Admiral Thrawn [[SchrodingersCanon is being inducted into the "official" canon,]] with Zahn himself not only [[ApprovalOfGod approving of his character's true-to-form interpretation]] but ''also'' writing a new Thrawn novel released in April 2017. One wonders how many more of Timothy Zahn's concepts will be introduced alongside Thrawn, but it would be safe to leave that with those who indulge in WildMassGuessing.

* FantasticRacism

* SpaceOpera

* AuthorUsurpation: Timothy Zahn has written many other novels that have been critically and financially successful, yet fans only associate him with ''Literature/TheThrawnTrilogy''. Even his other ''Star Wars'' books, including the sequel duology ''Literature/HandOfThrwan'', aren't cared about nearly as much.

* SuperSoldier: In particular [[{{Deconstruction}} deconstructing]] the concept and examining the BlessedWithSuck aspects. The Cobras from ''Cobra'', the Blackcollars from ''Blackcollar'', the Copperheads from ''Conquerors''.

* {{Xenofiction}} and HumansThroughAlienEyes

Zahn has written a number of short stories, two of them in collaboration with Creator/MichaelStackpole of the ComicBook/XWingSeries. The two authors seem to get along pretty well, and while Zahn freely involves characters introduced by other authors, he uses Stackpole's characters more specifically--all of the Rogues have at least one line, though most of them aren't directly named. He and Stackpole also wrote ''The Reenlistment of Baron Fel'' but, [[WhatCouldHaveBeen agonizingly]], this hasn't been published.

* GodDoesNotOwnThisWorld: In the ''Franchise/StarWars'' franchise, this is to be expected. He's expressed in the past that [[CreatorBacklash he doesn't like it]] when other authors kill off him characters, especially when they don't tell him about it, such as with [[spoiler:Mara Jade and Pellaeon]] in ''Literature/LegacyOfTheJedi'', but at [=DragonCon=] 2018, he has stated that he finds it interesting to see what other authors do with his characters, such as Mara Jade, comparing it to watching your daughter go on her first date.