With that in mind, I suspect that the stereotyped Jedi advice to “be mindful of the present,” in addition to “pay attention, stop daydreaming,” also means, “Don’t base your decisions on what you see of the present—if you do, you’ll mess up.”
Q: You get into some intriguing aspects of Sith philosophy in this novel that I don’t recall seeing addressed before. How did you go about expanding or deepening the Sith philosophy? What restrictions or guidance did you have? And do you think a Jedi could embrace aspects of Sith beliefs and Force techniques without becoming evil or going over to the dark side as Anakin Skywalker did?
AA: As a writer, I have to do a lot of thinking about the personal ethics of the so-called bad guys in my novels. I’m not fond of cackling madmen or antagonists who willingly embrace the notion of evil. They are, in a word, lame. So the variations I’ve made to Sith philosophy emerge from that—from what I see as a need many of the Sith would have to create a philosophy that makes their actions acceptable, even heroic…from a certain point of view.
So with the Sith, we see a “career path” that makes them capable of ever-greater crimes and atrocities as they progress. Typically, the human method of inuring oneself to atrocities is to become numb to them, to dehumanize the victims of the atrocities, and so on. That’s normal, but it’s also old hat, so I wanted to sort of chart a different course for the Sith—to suggest that those who try to deal with the issue ethically do so by forcing themselves to suffer when they cause suffering, to love what they are destroying, as a means to keep their own excesses in check.
I also wanted to suggest some points in common between Jedi and Sith philosophy, to better express their comparisons and contrasts. For example, if the extreme version of Sith philosophy involves destructive rage, destructive surrender to passion, then the extreme version of Jedi philosophy would be aloofness, emotionlessness, a tendency to become vested in law above compassion, that sort of thing…all with the notion that this was one of the errors made by the Jedi Council during the era of the prequels. I wanted to suggest that any philosophy taken to extremes is destructive, even a philosophy that is theoretically heroic and altruistic, like the Jedi Code.
I didn’t have much in the way of restrictions. In part, that’s probably because we floated this concept at a November 2004 story conference with Lucasfilm at Big Rock Ranch, so everyone knew what was going to be explored and what everyone else’s concerns were about it.
As for the question of whether a Jedi could embrace some aspects of the Sith philosophy and remain good—well, I suspect that the answer is yes, as long as it’s “aspects” and not the whole package. I also wonder sometimes whether a nonhuman could be a full-bore Sith and not be evil—I don’t think that’s possible with a human, owing to the weaknesses in human nature, but perhaps it would be possible with an alien.
Q: Wasn’t Vader supposed to unite the two sides of the Force? It would seem that prophecy of the future, at least, didn’t come true.
AA: Unite them…or bring them into balance? Much of the philosophy of the Force is based on real-world Eastern philosophy, which posits the opposed but complementary positions of yin and yang. Bringing balance would seem to involve keeping yin and yang roughly equivalent in influence, rather than blending them together into some sort of New Age protein shake.
Q: Your writing is exceptionally detailed in its descriptions of military hardware, weaponry, and so on. Is the accumulation of detail the secret to convincingly describing objects that don’t really exist?
AA: I suspect that you’re the first person ever to say that to me. My natural tendency as a writer has always been to under-describe surroundings, so much so that I have to do a separate editing pass on each manuscript to make sure that I’ve included an adequate amount of sensory detail.
But, yes, I try to put myself into the reader’s head and analyze each passage of a book, asking, “Does this offer enough detail that the reader can visualize what’s going on?” Add to that the tricky task of describing equipment that’s already familiar to fans of the Star Wars universe—for example, X-wings—but still must be visualized by those who aren’t. What’s the magical halfway point between those two positions? I’m constantly trying to find it.
Q: What keeps you excited about working in the Star Wars universe after so many books and so many years?
AA: Well, it’s such a vast universe that there’s always a new pocket to develop. And the series now spans so much time that we can look in on the familiar characters at each new stage of their lives and find something interesting.
I mean, just look at Luke. There’s Luke as a teenager just experiencing the Force for the first time. Luke as a twenty-something, at the top of his craft as a fighter pilot, founding Rogue Squadron and acting as an important Rebellion leader. Luke as a Jedi Master, the only one in existence, taking on the burden of re-creating the Jedi order. Luke apparently doomed, by a series of romantic interests who appear in one novel each, to be a perpetual bachelor. Luke finding the right woman. Luke as a married man. Luke as the Master of a reviving Jedi order that includes other Masters in conflict with him. Luke fighting to keep his family alive in the face of an alien invasion that might destroy civilization as he knows it. Luke as a father. And so on, and so on. Every one of those Lukes can be the protagonist of one or more novels exploring those circumstances, and he’s only one character.
In other words, there’s always neat new stuff for every writer to jump into.
Q: Are you working on any other projects, Star Wars–related or not?
AA: Oh, yes. My plate is pretty full these days. I have two more novels in this series to do, and other, non–Star Wars, novels on the burners as well. I scripted, produced, and directed an ultra-low-budget horror movie, Deadbacks, that is now in post-production. I used to write role-playing game supplements for my living, and have another couple of projects to do in that field. I’ve also done some preliminary work on a couple of nonfiction books, one about writing fiction and one about low-budget film-making.
My website, www.AaronAllston.com, has all the details on these projects and more.
Interview with
Karen Traviss, author of
STAR WARS:
LEGACY OF THE FORCE:
BLOODLINES
Question: Bloodlines is the second novel in the Legacy of the Force storyline, a nine-book arc that picks up several years after the defeat of the Yuuzhan Vong. The Yuuzhan Vong were an external threat, from outside the galaxy. This time the threat to the Jedi and the Galactic Alliance comes from within, both literally and figuratively, with a rebellion centered at Corellia that threatens civil war not only across the Galactic Alliance but also within the Solo and Skywalker clans, and Jacen’s disturbing embrace of the dark side. Did you and the other writers, Aaron Allston and Troy Denning, work out the plot of this arc together? What considerations led you to make the choices you made, and what degree of input and control was there from the folks at LucasBooks?
Karen Traviss: It’s a classic team effort. We sat in a meeting room at the Lucasfilm offices at Big Rock Ranch in California for a day—I flew out from the UK specially for the meeting—and we didn’t finish until we had a complete story arc that covered nine books. Much tea and choc chip muffins were consumed, I can tell you. The whole gang brainstormed—LFL Licensing people, Del Rey, and authors—and kicked ideas around; then it all went on a whiteboard and we sliced it nine ways. And I begged LFL to let me bring back Boba, so I was utterly delighted when they said yes.
It’s the opposite end of the spectrum from the way I tackled the Republic Commando novels, which were virgin territory, and I was the only one writing them. I like that variety in my working day. I really enjoy kicking stuff around with other creatives, and everyone now knows I’m a retcon addict. Retcon is “retroactive continuity”—the science of making stuff fit and getting better stories out of it. Retconning isn’t about changing existing continuity: it’s about taking seemingly contradictor
y issues that coexist in continuity already, due to errors or oversights, or even gaps, and finding a way to make it all work together, so that no piece of the continuity is ignored. Forget sudoku and Rubik’s cubes—retcon is my Olympic mental gymnastics of choice.
Q: At the end of the previous novel, Betrayal, Jacen Solo has just killed a fellow Jedi in cold blood and embarked on the path to becoming a Sith master under the tutelage of Lumiya, an old adversary from Luke’s past. I’m sure I’m not the only reader who wants to slap some sense into him! Yet it must be a fascinating challenge for you to attempt a sympathetic portrayal of a Jedi’s corruption, especially with Jacen believing that he is only doing what is necessary to bring peace and order to the galaxy.
KT: I don’t aim for sympathetic or unsympathetic, actually: I aim for real, and even with a character that isn’t built by me—when I create characters, I build them from the ground up with a psych profile—I let them do the living and the talking. How does a clever, morally aware man go down the path that Jacen does? By self-delusion and self-justification. Jacen already has a high opinion of his powers and judgment, and that’s not misplaced: the man is good at his work. But he just disconnects from the outside world once too often and starts to see himself as having this mission to save the galaxy, and only he can do it…you watch the drift from good intentions to what he sees as necessary evils to all-out self-justification. Sadly, in my previous careers—as a journalist and later a spin doc working with politicians—I saw that very human pattern of behavior time after time after time. And I can watch it now in politicians in my own UK government: I won’t get too political here, but the capacity of those with power to make themselves believe in their own purity of purpose even when it’s obvious to those around them that they’re going bad and beyond bad is staggering to behold. They really do shift into a parallel world that only they can see, and shut out all dissent as they focus on what they want to believe and hear. Some of them start out corrupt and opportunistic, and some get sucked into it.
Getting into Jacen Solo’s head was one of the most unpleasant experiences I’ve ever had. When I write, it’s very tight third-person POV—there’s no narrator. It’s all the characters’ own voices, seeing the world as they see it with no real help from me, and I just report what they see. Letting go in order to do that is very much like method acting, actors have told me. You become that character for the time being. And boy, was it scary being Jacen. It all seems utterly logical and inevitable to him—and, like all people who do terrible things, he has no sense of his own evil.
A wise friend described the slide into a personal delusional hell like Jacen’s as stemming from a deep-down belief that you’re the focus of the universe about which everyone else’s destiny pivots. And, of course, that’s exactly what Jacen thinks: only he can save the galaxy.
I was so freaked by being in his head that when I switched point-of-view characters, I wanted to launder my brain. It was so easy a trap to slip into. Anyone could do it in the right circumstances. That’s what makes evil—if we can use that value-laden word—so dangerous. It’s not rare, handed only to demons; it’s lurking in all of us, and it’s pretty banal.
Q: You’re no stranger to the Star Wars universe. How did you begin writing Star Wars books?
KT: Well, I am a stranger, really. I’m a total newbie. I’ve only been in print for just over two years (March 2004, when my first novel, City of Pearl, came out), and Bloodlines is my third Star Wars novel. I’ve just written a lot in a very short time.
I was asked if I wanted to write Star Wars completely out of the blue in late 2003. I didn’t even know what a tie-in entailed, in fact. Del Rey and Lucasfilm had seen advance copies of my book—City of Pearl wasn’t even published when they approached me—and said they thought I’d fit in okay. Then I got the call in late February 2004 to do the first Republic Commando novel.
I knew absolutely nothing about the universe, too, although I’d seen the movies, and I think coming to it stone cold gave me a different take on it. I had no preconceived notions, and I wasn’t raised on it. I fell in love with Star Wars’ complexity and its gray areas, which are perfect for a writer like me. I’m a journalist by background, so I take a neutral stance and just report what I see: I hate guiding readers and telling them what to think and who to like and dislike. I just want to show them what’s there and let them make up their own minds, which is something Star Wars enables very easily.
Q: You seem to have a special affinity for the character of Boba Fett.
KT: He’s a gift if you love writing flawed characters. I don’t write heroes or villains—I can’t see people that clearly differentiated—and Boba has so many flaws woven in with his brilliance that I could unpick his psychological profile for weeks and still not get bored.
The man is both a mess and an inspiration. He’s had the childhood from hell. No mother figure, and don’t tell me Taun We is any substitute; a cloistered existence; a father who, frankly, has a lot of strange emotional baggage himself; and then he sees Dad, the center of his life and his sole focus, killed in front of him. Paging Dr. Freud, Dr. Freud please pick up…and yet he still wins. He doesn’t just survive, he excels. He’s seen as a villain, but he has an unshakable sense of honor and a rigid moral code. And he’s defined wholly by one thing: his relationship with his father, cut short before its time. Even his desire to excel as a bounty hunter is, I’m convinced, a legacy of his need to please his father and live up to his expectations.
So that makes a seventy-plus-year-old Boba a fascinating character to write. He worships Jango as the perfect example of fatherhood, and yet he’s abandoned his own wife and child—because no human with his upbringing could ever really relate well to others, especially women. He’s made a fortune (more than once) but has no real use for it. He’s used to being the best in the galaxy at a very physical profession, but mortality and age are creeping up on him. How does he handle that? How does he come to terms with the legacy he’ll leave behind, such as it is?
The secondary fascination is how he handles the role of Mandalore. I’ve done a lot of work on Mandalorians, and even developed the culture and a working language for LFL, and the variety of styles of leadership over the centuries is striking. But Boba doesn’t speak Mandalorian—I stuck with the literal continuity there—and he’s still a working bounty hunter while in office, so to speak. That tells you a great deal not only about him, but also about the Mandalorians themselves.
It’s a fiction goldmine for me. I never tire of Boba or the Mandalorians.
Q: You mentioned City of Pearl, the first novel in your acclaimed Wess’har Wars series. Those books offer a hard SF look at the complications of first contact distinguished by complex world building and an unsentimental focus on the evolving—in more ways than one!—relationship between a human female, Shan Frankland, and an alien male, Aras. Some critics have complained that your view of humanity in this series is misanthropic…which seems like a parochial criticism for a reader of science fiction to make! But it’s true that humanity does not exactly distinguish itself by its collective actions in these books.
KT: I don’t think either point is accurate, actually. Reviews—professional reviews—haven’t complained about the portrayal of humanity in the series at all; quite the opposite, in fact. I think you mean a couple of Amazon reviews, which isn’t quite the same thing. I just describe the kind of human that I saw every working day for decades, and if it isn’t pretty, that’s the reader’s interpretation of it. Just as many readers have found a message of hope and human decency in the books. And the series isn’t focused on Shan and Aras—there are six books in the story arc and a big cast, and they get equal air time.
But it’s all unsentimental, I’ll give you that. Like I said, I just build the characters from scratch, put them in the scenario, and let the model run. The interactions among the characters are the plot. That’s all there is to it, really. The behavior of individuals and organizations is the way real ones
behave: no heroes, and no villains, just people who are mixed bags of good and bad elements. The alien races are treated exactly the same way. But if you’ve been raised on the kind of SF where humans are top dog, and the aliens are always evil invaders, then my books are going to disturb that certainty. But I do that in Star Wars, too. Because I wasn’t steeped in the Star Wars culture to begin with, I found pretty bad things in the Jedi and some good in Vader, which comes from the journalistic approach I take. I don’t know how to do anything else beyond asking awkward questions, I suppose. All my stuff is about the politics of identity at some level, and the lines we draw—the point beyond which we abandon decency, and how we handle the moral dilemmas that our science and technology create for us.
Q: Do you finish writing a tie-in before embarking on the next original book, or do you prefer to have multiple projects going at the same time?
KT: I split my time pretty well equally between tie-ins and my own-copyright books. The schedules mean I don’t usually have an unbroken run at a book—sometimes I’ll have to stop mid-manuscript and switch to another book because I need to do revisions and copyedits. But I can handle switching between books and even to short fiction and related features like the work I do for Star Wars Insider. I can either partition my mental hard drive and switch the other work off completely in my head, or let it stay in my conscious brain: with the latter, I find that sparks all kinds of useful ideas for the other work. The more you write, the more you write…sounds crazy, but once the creative juices kick off, they keep the process going. You know what they say: if you want something done, ask a busy person. It’s about momentum.