Timothy Zahn

Timothy Zahn’s novella Cascade Point won the 1984 Hugo Award. He is the author of the Blackcollar trilogy and the Cobra series (nine novels so far), sixteen Star Wars Expanded Universe novels, including eleven novels featuring Grand Admiral Thrawn: the Thrawn trilogy, Outbound Flight, Choices of One, Thrawn, Thrawn: Alliances, Thrawn: Treason, and the Thrawn Ascendancy trilogy.

Lucasfilm at times used some of the more detailed Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game supplements from West End Games as references, and West End sent boxes of their sourcebooks to Zahn when he started work on a new Star Wars novel trilogy. At the time, Zahn was writing Heir to the Empire (1991), the first book in what became known as the Thrawn trilogy, and West End in turn released sourcebooks from 1992–1994 based on Zahn’s three novels.

The Thrawn trilogy marked a revival in the fortunes of the Star Wars franchise, bringing it widespread attention for the first time in years; all three Thrawn trilogy novels made The New York Times Best Seller list,and set the stage and tone for most of the franchise’s expanded universe content. Zahn also wrote the young adult Dragonback series and the Conquerors trilogy.

He also collaborated with David Weber on the Manticore Ascendant series.