An Interview with R.A. Salvatore
by Pamela Mohan
On Star Wars, Fantasy, and Teenagers
From Amazing Stories #567
     Bob Salvatore vividly recalls being hit by a powerful force when he was still in his teens.
     "I remember going to the theator--it was packed, of course--and the only seats open were in the front row....As the opening sequence played, my eyes widened and I said, 'Cool.' I was hooked from the start.
     The opening sequence that caught Salvatore's eyes and kept him mesmerized until the final credits rolled was the beginning of Star Wars: A New Hope. Salvatore instantly saw that the epic adventure would be a monumental hit and an enduring classic. What he didn't know as he slumped his eighteen-year-old frame down in the front seat of the movie theator was that sixteen years later he would be asked to write Star Wars: The New Jedi Order--Vector Prime, a new novel based on the continuing Star Wars universe.
     "Are you kidding?" Salvatore said when asked if he'd even fantasized about such a possibilty. "Never in my wildest dreams! I thought I'd be writing computer manuals for a living. This has all been an accident, a really good accident," he said.
     When you look at Salvatore's past writing successes, it's easy to see that it was no accident that Lucasfilm and Del Rey Books chose him as the author to launch a new adventure in the continuing saga. As a bestselling author of fantasy fiction, Salvatore is well known in the entertainment industry. Twenty-six of his books have been published--six of which have made the New York Times bestseller list--and, in addition to his new Star Wars novel, two other titles are due to be released in the fall.
     Still, he says, his audience has been "fairly restricted" because of the genre he has chosen to write in. "Fantasy isn't for everyone. Some people think they are too grounded for it. But they don't question the Force, and it's the same thing in a different format."
     Because Star Wars is a popular topic, Salvatore said, many of his friends who have never read his writing will now be reading one of his books. And the reaction in his hometown of Leominster, Mass., to his commission to write Vector Prime has been "interesting. People are coming up to me and congratulating me on having made it to the big time. I've been in the business for a long time, but their perception of me has changed. Before, I was just the guy who wrote twenty-six books. Now I'm the guy who landed a Star Wars book. In a way, it's intimidating," he said.
     Salvatore began writing for publication in 1982. He sold his first book, The Crystal Shard, which was set in the Forgotten Realms shared world, in 1988. That book, published by TSR, Inc., climbed to the number two spot on the Waldenboks bestseller list. The second and third books in what became The Icewind Dale trilogy--Streams of Silver and The Halfling's Gem--also did well. In 1990 The Halflings Gem became Salvatore's first book to make the New York Times bestseller list.
     It was about that time that Salvatore decided to quit his day job. "I was in a bad working situation and decided it was time to take a chance and quit." He has never regretted taking that gamble. Soon after becoming a full-time author, Salvatore began writing the popular Dark Elf series, published by TSR, Inc. His more recent epic, the Demon Wars trilogy, is available in hardcover from Del Rey.
     Salvatore said he was honored to have been choosen as the first writer in Del Rey's new Star Wars publishing program. He also was apprehrensive.
     "I think the first time I really understood what I had gotten myself into was when I was at a Chicago comic book convention last year and they had a signing (autograph) booth with the guy who wore the R2-D2 costume in the movie, as well as a couple of other people who had played minor roles. They were charging six dollars for an autograph, and the line was huge! People stood in line for hours. I looked at (Del Rey editor) Shelly Shapiro and asked:'What the heck did I get myself into?' I think that's when it hit me how huge Star Wars really is," he said.
     In addition to knowing he was going to write a novel based on what is arguably the most popular box-office hit of all time, Salvatore also suffered some anxiety because he had not kept up with the continuing story portrayed in the Star Wars novels that came after Return of the Jedi.
     "When I was brought in, my concern was that I hadn't read the novels. I had been so involved in trying to keep up with the worlds I was working in that I hadn't had time to sit down and read the (Star Wars) novels."
     Salvatore's good friend and Star Wars novelist Michael Stackpole suggested which he should read first in order to get a handle on characters and plot elements introduced after the third movie. Salvatore also read the Star Wars Encyclopedia by Stephen J. Sansweet--a resource guide he refers to as a "wonderful source"--as well as the four Star Wars guidebooks.
     "I went through them, just looking, getting different ideas. That gave me enough of the mechanical background to be able to write the book."
     Salvatore not only had to work within the confines of the Star Wars technology, which was a little more restrictive than in worlds he invented himself, but also had to use characters that someone else had already created. He was used to inventing his own in his other books. He did, however get to create one of the book's minor heroes and all of its villians and their biological weapons.
     Although it was a different adventure for a writer who was accustomed to following the beat of his own creative drum, Salvatore said he understood his role from the beginning. "The purpose of this book was not for me to start a story that I would continue; it was for me to start certain aspects in a certain realm so that others could continue it."
     In addition to getting caught up on his Star Wars reading in preparation for writing Vector Prime, Salvatore also sat down and watched the original three Star Wars movies over again.
     "When the characters in the book talk, you should hear them sing. When you hear Han Solo talk in the book, you should be able to see the smirk on his face," he said.
     Salvatore watched the movies closely, he said, in order to memorize the voices of the characters he wanted others to "hear" in his book. "When you listen to the movies, the voices are very real and become ingrained in your head. It wasn't hard for me to get the voices right, particularly with the main characters who were in the movies."
     One character who was particularly easy for Salvatore to portray was Han Solo, who is now forty-something and the father of three teenagers. The author who is also forty-something and the father of three teenagers said he, like Solo, spends a lot of time with his children. Of course, their times together are much less adventurous than those of the movie character's family. But, he says, in spite of the fact that they are literally galaxies apart, he empathizes with the movie hero father.
     He's a little older than me, but I think we're at similar places in our lives," Salvatore said.
     "It's funny. When I watched Star Wars for the first time, I empathized with Luke because I was the same age and had the same idealism, and now I am closer to Han by far. Han's a lot cooler than I am, but I like to think I'm cool."
     It's an anything but "cool" Han Solo who spews to Leia, in a scene from Vector Prime, "I thought we had raised our kids with more sense than to dive into an asteriod belt with a bunch of fighters chasing them!"
     Of course, Leia is there to remind Han that she remembers a young man "who once flew into an asteriod belt with a host of Imperial Fighters on his tail."
     "That was different," Dad Solo says.
     But it was Dad Salvatore who put the words in Solo's mouth. You kind of get the feeling, reading this scene, that the author has used that three word sentence in his own life. Salvatore may not be raising Jedi Knights, but he knows the joys and frustrations all parents share.
     Although relating to Solo and the challenges of parenthood was natural for Salvatore, putting the words in teenagers' mouths was not. "The kids were the hardest to write," he said. "I almost had to create voices for them.
     "I see so many books that are written about teenage heroes in fantasy--that's huge. And I very rarely see them done well. I know this because I have teenagers: Fourteen-year-olds are a lot more savvy than most people think.
     Chewbacca probably would have to agree with Salvatore's assessment of fourteen-year-olds. "Chewie" sometimes has a bit of a problem dealing with the workings of the teenage mind--and mouth. The hairy Wookie is now sort of an "Uncle Chewie," who plays with, protects, and occasionally scolds the Solo children.
     In one scene in the book, fourteen-year-old Anakin Solo makes the grievous but eventually forgivable error of referring to Chewie's beloved Millennium Falcon as "just a stupid ship". Chewie demonstrates his dipleasure by hoisting the kid up in the airwith one hand, taking his lightsaber with another, and pretending to bite it, all the while making his characteristic Chewie-type howls.
     "Okay, I get it," Anakin tells the peeved copilot. The Wookie has made his point.
     Salvatore said it was tough to write about the Solo children because, even though they are Jedi Knights, they are teenagers and, as such, "a complicated group. There is a lot of frustration, a lot of idealism, a lot of self-confidence, a lot of self-doubt, all rolled into one. That makes teenagers, any teenagers, hard to write, but I love writing about them."
     Salvatore said he hopes adolescent readers "will pick up this book and read it and really identify not just with Jaina's superb flying skills, but also with the ongoing conflict between Jacen and Anakin, or the conflict between father and son."
     Salvatore's favorite character in Vector Prime, he said, is Luke's wife , Mara Jade. "It's suprising to me, because I didn't want her in the book. I thought I had too many protagonists. I usually write books with three, four, or five heroes, and in Vector Prime I had twelve. They were almost fighting for lines in my head. It was like they were saying: 'Let me say something. Let me say something.' I'd have a scene where there should have been only one main character and have to deal with four."
     Although the Star Wars universe is a "hugely different" genre for Salvatore to write in, it is not, he says, what he would consider hard science fiction. "It's filled with wonderful technological marvels, and that would make me call it science fiction, but I think the magic of Star Wars is that George Lucas took science fiction and made it read like a fantasy novel. It's a wonderful blend, if it's done right."
     Star Wars isn't high-tech. In fact, the new "technology" Salvatore introduces features elements of horror, fantasy, and technology. One of the criteria he was given in writing the book was to create a "brand new menace" that utilizes biotechnology. In addition, characters who oppose technology make use of biological weaponry throughout the book. "There is nothing you need to know about physics to enjoy Star Wars," he said, be it the movies old or new or any of the novels. "I don't consider Star Wars hard science. I think of Star Wars as an epic adventure.
     As such, he said, his style fit the needs of the novel.
     "I have a different style than most writers. It's quick and it's visual. It's a well-paced book and a fast read, which is what a Star Wars book has to be," he said. Lucasfilm editors call the book "filmic", which Salvatore said he believes is their way of saying the book is a visual read.
     The author is happy with the finished work, too, he said. Still, in spite of the fact that he knows that readers will be able to "see" his battle scenes, "hear" the books characters--new and old--and feel their joys, triumphs, and pains, he will not know whether he has succeeded in making Vector Prime "everything that Star Wars fans want it to be" until the book is published and read.
     Salvatore said he wants readers to know that this book has a special place in his heart, for several reasons. "I didn't take this as work-for-hire, something to fill in a couple of months. This is not a knock-off projectfor me in any way, shape, or form. I went after this book the way any writer goes after any book worth reading, and I took it because being part of Star Wars is thrilling. It goes back to the eighteen-year-old sitting in the movie theater, " he said.
     Unlike his former eighteen-year-old self, Salvatore said he does dare to wish for bigger and better things these days.
     "I have a fantasy about this book. The fantasy would be that George Lucas and his people read it and say, 'Boy, this gut really captures the movies well.' And then say, 'Hey, let's go look at Dark Elf and Demon Wars and see if there is a movie to be made.' That would be cool! And those books would make great movies, too."
     For now, though, he says he is "just Bob. I write the books. I spend time with my family. I try to enjoy the life that fate and a little perseverance has given to me."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Amazing Stories Associate Editor Pamela Mohan is a former criminal court news reporter, columnist, biographer, young adult science fiction novelist and assistant editor of this magazine under the direction of past editor Patrick Lucien Price. She refers all questions about her relationship to current Editor-in-Chief Kim Mohan to her German shepard, Justice, who says he isn't talking