The Essential Guide to Dan Wallace

(May 1999)

An interview by Alex Newborn



Recently I had the chance to pick the sometimes frighteningly detail-filled brain of Dan Wallace, the author best known for his Essential Guide books to "Planets and Moons" as well as "Droids".

ALEX NEWBORN: Dan, first off, tell us a bit about yourself... What are your vitals: age, marital status, no. of kids, education, employment?

DAN WALLACE: AGE: Old enough to remember when the cantina aliens were known only as Hammerhead, Snaggletooth, and Walrus Man. Part of the "Star Wars Generation," whatever that means.

MARITAL STATUS: Married to a wonderful woman who doesn't understand what all the fuss is regarding Star Wars. She does wonders for my sanity.

KIDS: Two boys, who would much rather watch Big Bird than Boba Fett. The oldest (two and a half) recognizes Darth Vader, though my Darth Vader Talking Bank scares the bejeezus out of him.

EDUCATION: Advertising degree from Michigan State University, a year of graduate school... Oh, you mean *education*. Watched the Star Wars trilogy a hundred times, made working lightsaber out of Cub Scout flashlight, used food coloring to make actual Blue Milk.

AN: How does it taste?

DW: It's been a couple decades, but as I recall, not very good. Some things are better in concept than execution.

EMPLOYMENT: Work for a major advertising agency in Detroit and do freelance writing on the side.

AN: When did you first realize you were obsessed with the minutiae of SW?

DW: When I realized I couldn't remember where I had left my car keys twenty seconds ago, but I could recite the entire Death Star conference room scene from memory, complete with different voices for all the generals. It was then that I realized there was something tragically crosswired in my brain and the best I could hope for would be to pour it all out on paper through guides and such. But instead of exorcising it, it's actually gotten worse. "The Rebellion will CONTINUE to gain support in the IMPERIAL senate..." - dang, there it goes again.

AN: Why did you focus on the planets?

DW: I found two things really intriguing about the expanded universe - the timing and chronology of events like the Clone Wars, and the placement of planets into sectors and regions. At the time I started cooking, in early '94, there were a half-dozen Star Wars timelines on the net already, so I decided to focus on the latter subject, hoping nobody would beat me to the punch and hoping I might be able to create a giant galactic map. I found the map to be beyond my abilities at the time, so I just made a big alphabetic list.

AN:When did you decide to create your online Planetary Guide? Is it still running?

DW: Back when the online planet guide was first released (1994), the web was still in its infancy and the internet was mostly text-only. At first, the only place to access the guide was in AOL's software library and via FTP from the now defunct Star Wars Archive. Eventually the very generous Jim Fisher put it up on a web page, where it's still visible at http://www.jimfisher.net/planet. Be warned, however, that it hasn't been updated in over three years, and it's really more of a museum curiosity now.

AN: When were you contacted by LFL?

DW: Lucasfilm became aware of the planets guide at the same time when they needed to hire a writer for - get this - The Essential Guide to Planets and Moons. The coincidence is amazing, for which I can only thank the powers that be. At Lucasfilm's request, I wrote up a 4000 word spec piece on the planet Hoth, and they were pleased enough to offer me the job. Since then I have been the grateful beneficiary of a snowball effect.

AN: No pun intended? I recall you once saying about the spec piece that you burned out your thesaurus looking for synonyms of the word cold.

DW: Icy, frigid, numbing, frost-bitten, bone-chilling, yeah I thought of them all. By the way, this Diet Coke I'm sipping on is positively hypothermic.

AN: What is your publishing record (books, mag articles, Adv. Journal, etc.?)

DW: Not counting my (bad) literary publishings in college, and the time as a grade-school student I won third place in a local newspaper contest (am I reaching yet?), I started writing articles for the SW 'zine Blue Harvest in 1994. Eventually I started writing articles for Sci-Fi Invasion!, the Star Wars Insider, and Star Wars Galaxy Collector.

Book-wise, there's the Essential Guide to Planets and Moons and the Essential Guide to Droids, as well as a portion of the Anakin Skywalker book/figure package jointly produced by Chronicle Books and Hasbro. And don't forget the Millennium Falcon Make-A-Model Book! I wrote the inside front cover.

The Official Star Wars Adventure Journal ran my only SW fiction piece, "The Great Herdship Heist," in their final issue, #15. A sequel was written, approved and set to run in issue #18, but the financial difficulties of West End Games put an end to it. And in the "miscellaneous" category, I wrote most of the trivia questions for 1998's Star Wars Trivial Pursuit.

AN: That was you? Uh-oh, next time I disagree with a printed answer that costs me a piece of pie, you might get an angry phone call! What difficulties have you encountered on the road to publication?

DW: It's been a fairly smooth road, all things considered. There have been many crises and last-minute fires to put out, but that's to be expected with any project. Something that has impressed me throughout is the degree to which Lucasfilm edits and oversees the internal continuity of their universe.

Whenever you pick up a book and are annoyed by a misspelling or such, remember that you're not seeing the seven hundred other glitches that were caught and squashed during the editing stage.

AN: What other duties do you fulfill for LFL?

DW: Mostly I'm just a freelance writer, but I'm always happy to help out in any capacity in which my experience might be useful. The folks at Lucasfilm are a great group to work with and they've been very helpful and supportive over the years.

AN: What does the future hold for you?

DW: What's What in Episode One, a mini-hardcover book from Running Press, should be out in conjunction with The Phantom Menace in late May. It's a pocket guide to all the "stuff" of the new movie, including spaceships, creatures, and equipment. Later on in the year will be The Essential Chronology, a big project that's been in the works for literally years. Kevin J. Anderson and I are working on that together, weaving all the various story threads into asingle narrative. And sometime in 1999 will be another action figure/book combo, but I don't know when that is scheduled for release.

AN: This is a broad question, but what is your favorite fiction work?

DW: In the realm of Star Wars, I'm a sucker for anything written by the late great Brian Daley. His Han Solo trilogy is a classic, and his radio drama scripts are so good (that dialogue!) it makes me want to cry. Nobody knew the characters better, save for George Lucas.

In sci-fi, the best book I've ever read is The Forever War by Joe Haldeman, and you can't go wrong with anything by Ray Bradbury. In the realm of fiction, I admire John Updike and Walt Kelly, and Bill Bryson is never a bad bet, though he's mostly a non-fiction guy. I love to read, but I don't do nearly as much reading as I want to. The last non-SW book I read was An Anthropologist on Mars by Oliver Sachs, which was really really good.

AN: Finally, in reference to your fiction piece, why do you love Tynnans so?

DW: Great question! It's a combination of my love for the works of Brian Daley and my love for anthropomorphics, or "funny animals." Funny animals are a broad category, including everything from cartoon characters like Bugs Bunny to totemic archetypes like the trickster rabbits in Native American mythology.

Many sci-fi anthropomorphics are based off cats (including Daley's own Trianii), but Tynnans are a goofy cross between an otter and a beaver. You can't think of a *less* intimidating figure than a Tynnan, yet they're sharp and smart. I like that.

AN: Thanks, Dan, for a most entertaining grill session. I'll have my stormtroopers untie you from that scan grid now...



Return to the main page

STAR WARS is ®,TM, and © Lucasfilm, Ltd. (LFL) All Rights Reserved.
This site is for entertainment purposes only. Please don't sue us!