Timothy Zahn
Zahn’s work in the Star Wars Expanded Universe includes thirteen novels featuring Grand Admiral Thrawn: the Thrawn trilogy, the Hand of Thrawn duology, 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.[5]: 190–191 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.[5]: 193
Zahn also wrote the young adult Dragonback series and the Conquerors trilogy. In 2014 Zahn collaborated with David Weber on the Manticore Ascendant series set within the Honorverse.
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,[6] and set the stage and tone for most of the franchise’s expanded universe content.[6]
In 2023, Dave Filoni confirmed during the Star Wars Celebration Europe that Zahn served as a creative consultant for the Disney+ miniseries Ahsoka in order to assist the creative team in writing Thrawn correctly, as Filoni felt that only Zahn could advise them with the “right” way to adapt Thrawn as the character’s creator.[7][8]