Steve Perry

Steve Perry (born August 31, 1947) is an author best known for writing the Shadows of the Empire novel. He has also co-written several works with Michael Reaves.

Biography

Steve Perry was introduced to science fiction when he was around twelve years old. In his childhood he had his first computer that was suitcase-sized and could do simple calculations; in retrospect, considering that such devices became much smaller in the later years made him feel like "living here in the future."

In his late twenties, Perry was based in Louisiana and worked as a physician's assistant, although he was "stricken with the writing bug." He decisively moved to the Northwest and began a writing career, focusing on space and fantasy tales.

Perry had written several novelizations of movies including one of the 1994 movie The Mask. As it was a hurried work with little money and no royalties, he did it as a favor to Bantam Spectra senior editor Tom Dupree. To return the favor, Dupree offered him to take a crack at a Star Wars book.

"I never thought about doing a Star Wars novel before, because I thought they'd be real hard to get and you'd have to know a whole bunch about the universe to write one," he says. "But Tom said, 'here's the deal, it's going to take place between Empire and Return of the Jedi, and no one else has gotten to play in there.' I thought that was terrific, because I like the characters. It would be fun to do. I wouldn't have to know all the stuff that happened after Jedi. At this point, Darth and the Emperor are still alive. And I've got the usual gang, everyone except Han."

The job would be formidable, because the Shadows of the Empire project would cross over with many Lucasfilm licensees. Perry was told this right away. "Before I started working on the novel, I went to Skywalker Ranch," he says. "It was delightful, it's an amazing place. Someone said to me it looks like a giant Methodist Youth Camp, and it does. It's like a bunch of Victorian buildings in the middle of nowhere." This November 1994 meeting laid the groundwork for the entire Lucasfilm Shadows publishing plan. "It was a lot of fun," Perry recalls. "I didn't meet George Lucas, but I did meet with the people who head up Lucasfilm Publishing. Howard Roffman, Lucy Wilson, Allan Kausch, and Sue Rostoni. Several of the artists were there. About 12 or 15 of us sat around a big conference table and talked about what we wanted to see in this book. They had come up with a one-page springboard. Just a general idea, some character names, and a feel for what they wanted to do."

Preparing for the project, Perry marveled when he was e-mailed a 112-page compendium of the Star Wars planets.

Sources

Appearances