History Creator / TimothyZahn

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 is being indicted 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 to be 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.

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.

In the Thrawn trilogy, he [[JustifiedTrope justified]] or filled in almost all of the original three movies' {{Technobabble}}, [[LeftHanging Loose Ends]], ScotchTape, and [[PlotHole Plot Holes]], resulting in a [[MagicAIsMagicA consistent universe]] with [[MinovskyPhysics coherent rules]]. Years after the Thrawn trilogy, he wrote the ''Literature/HandOfThrawn'' duology, renowned for [[FixFic fixing]] a lot of [[CharacterDerailment odd details]] that had appeared in [[RoundRobin subsequent novels]], pairing up Mara Jade and Luke Skywalker, and having the New Republic finally sign a [[PeaceConference peace treaty]] with the Imperial Remnant.

[[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Timothy_Zahn Timothy Zahn]] is a ScienceFiction, {{Fantasy}} and SpaceOpera author, best known for writing ''Literature/TheThrawnTrilogy'', one of the founding contributions to the Recap/StarWarsExpandedUniverse. Among fans, he's often considered to be among the best, if not ''the'' best, of StarWars authors. There are a number of factors involved in that, including his respect for Imperial characters, 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 ''Thrawn'' trilogy, he [[JustifiedTrope justified]] or filled in almost all of the original three movies' {{Technobabble}}, [[LeftHanging Loose Ends]], ScotchTape, and [[PlotHole Plot Holes]], resulting in a [[MagicAIsMagicA consistent universe]] with [[MinovskyPhysics coherent rules]]. Years after the Thrawn trilogy, he wrote the ''Literature/HandOfThrawn'' duology, renowned for [[FixFic fixing]] a lot of [[CharacterDerailment odd details]] that had appeared in [[RoundRobin subsequent novels]], pairing up Mara Jade and Luke Skywalker, and having the New Republic finally sign a [[PeaceConference peace treaty]] with the Imperial Remnant.

Zahn has written a number of short stories, two of them in collaboration with 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.

Recently a lot of his characters have been getting 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.

* ''Star Wars'' Expanded Universe:

** ''Literature/OutboundFlight''

** ''SurvivorsQuest''

** ''Literature/TheThrawnTrilogy''

* BadassFamily: The Moreaus in ''Literature/TheCobraTrilogy'', the Cavanaghs in ''Literature/TheConquerorsTrilogy'', the Skywalker/Solos in his ''[[StarWarsExpandedUniverse Star Wars]]'' books.

* 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 ''StarWars'' books.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: Both within a book and between books in a series. Rereading a Zahn book will inevitably provoke a series of "oh, ''right!''"s from the reader as the significance of apparently meaningless points and enigmatic hints is now known.

* MagicAIsMagicA: Defining rules for how FantasticScience elements work, and then coming up with clever ways to get around those rules. Did this for the StarWarsExpandedUniverse as well as featuring it in his own universes.
* MagnificentBastard: Grand Admiral Thrawn in his ''StarWars'' books, Damon Lathe in ''Blackcollar''. Tends to overlap with MilitaryMaverick.

* PunctuationShaker / TheUnpronounceable: His alien names. However, they also generally work on internally consistent rules specific to a species (which, in the case of the StarWarsExpandedUniverse, pretty much every other author fails to get right when writing about a Zahn-created species).

He's also written several short stories set in the ''Literature/HonorHarrington'' setting, and will be the author of the upcoming ''Manticore Ascendant'' prequel series about the early days of the Royal Manticoran Navy. The introductory short story, "A Call to Arms", was published in the ''Beginnings'' anthology.

[[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Timothy_Zahn Timothy Zahn]] is a ScienceFiction, {{Fantasy}} and SpaceOpera author, best known for writing ''Literature/TheThrawnTrilogy'', one of the founding contributions to the StarWarsExpandedUniverse. Among fans, he's often considered to be among the best, if not ''the'' best, of StarWars authors. There are a number of factors involved in that, including his respect for Imperial characters, 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 Thrawn trilogy, he [[JustifiedTrope justified]] or filled in almost all of the original three movies' {{Technobabble}}, [[LeftHanging Loose Ends]], ScotchTape, and [[PlotHole Plot Holes]], resulting in a [[MagicAIsMagicA consistent universe]] with [[MinovskyPhysics coherent rules]]. Years after the Thrawn trilogy, he wrote the HandOfThrawn duology, renowned for [[FixFic fixing]] a lot of [[CharacterDerailment odd details]] that had appeared in [[RoundRobin subsequent novels]], pairing up Mara Jade and Luke Skywalker, and having the New Republic finally sign a [[PeaceConference peace treaty]] with the Imperial Remnant.

Zahn has written a number of short stories, two of them in collaboration with MichaelStackpole of the 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.

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He's also written several short stories set in the ''Literature/HonorHarrington'' setting, and will be the author of the upcoming ''Manticore Ascendant'' prequel series about the early days of the Royal Manticoran Navy.

He's also written several short stories set in the ''Literature/HonorHarrington'' setting.

** ''StarWars/{{Scoundrels}}''
** ''StarWars/{{Allegiance}}''
** ''OutboundFlight''

** ''StarWars/ChoicesOfOne''

** ''HandOfThrawn''

* MindManipulation: A major part of many of Zahn's works: [[Literature/TheThrawnTrilogy C'baoth]], [[Literature/QuadrailSeries the Modhri]], ''Angelmass'', the ''Blackcollar'' books, [[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.

* ''{{Spinneret}}''

* ''Spinneret''

* BadassFamily: The Moreaus in ''TheCobraTrilogy'', the Cavanaghs in ''TheConquerorsTrilogy'', the Skywalker/Solos in his ''[[StarWarsExpandedUniverse Star Wars]]'' books.

* ''TheConquerorsTrilogy''

* ''TheCobraTrilogy''

* MindManipulation: A major part of many of Zahn's works: [[TheThrawnTrilogy C'baoth]], [[QuadrailSeries the Modhri]], ''Angelmass'', the ''Blackcollar'' books, [[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.

* ''QuadrailSeries''

* ''{{Dragonback}}'' series

He has also written ''[[SurvivorsQuest Survivor's Quest]]'', ''OutboundFlight'', ''{{StarWars/Allegiance}}'', and ''{{StarWars/Choices of One}}''. An interview dealing with that is [[http://gabri-jade.livejournal.com/206266.html here]].

A prolific author, he's also written numerous books outside of Star Wars, including the ''{{Dragonback}}'' series, ''TheConquerorsTrilogy'', ''TheCobraTrilogy'' (sequel series has just started back up), the ''QuadrailSeries'', the ''Literature/{{Blackcollar}}'' trilogy and several short stories set in the ''Literature/HonorHarrington'' setting. Non-series science fiction books include ''Manta's Gift'', ''The Green and the Grey'' and ''Angelmass''.

!!Tropes characteristic of Timothy Zahn's work (only include if they appear in at least two of his works):

[[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Timothy_Zahn Timothy Zahn]] is a ScienceFiction, {{Fantasy}} and SpaceOpera author, best known for writing ''TheThrawnTrilogy'', one of the founding contributions to the StarWarsExpandedUniverse. Among fans, he's often considered to be among the best, if not ''the'' best, of StarWars authors. There are a number of factors involved in that, including his respect for Imperial characters, 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.

[[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Timothy_Zahn Timothy Zahn]] is a ScienceFiction, {{Fantasy}} and SpaceOpera author, best known for writing TheThrawnTrilogy, one of the founding contributions to the StarWarsExpandedUniverse. Among fans, he's often considered to be among the best, if not ''the'' best, of StarWars authors. There are a number of factors involved in that, including his respect for Imperial characters, 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.

A prolific author, he's also written numerous books outside of Star Wars, including the {{Dragonback}} series, TheConquerorsTrilogy, TheCobraTrilogy (sequel series has just started back up), the QuadrailSeries, the {{Blackcollar}} trilogy and several short stories set in the ''Literature/HonorHarrington'' setting. Non-series science fiction books include ''Manta's Gift'', ''The Green and the Grey'' and ''Angelmass''.