Roger M. Allen chat
Alec Usticke
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Subj: Roger M. Allen chat!
Date: 95-07-27 12:27:00 EDT
From: OtterPop 1
Posted on: America Online
Last night, Roger MacBride Allen, logging on from Brasilia, Brazil
(!), participated in a live Q&A session on Compuserve. He answered
questions for over an hour, until a mystery bug infected the Brazilian
phone lines and he had to log off suddenly. For those of you who were
unable to be there, here's a brief summary of what went on:
He doesn't have any plans to write more SW after "Showdown at
Centerpoint" is published. He wouldn't reveal anything about SAC's
plot, but said it would have a "Really Big Explosion" on the cover.
For the Corellian trilogy, he tried to write a story similar in feel
to the current world situation after the collapse of the USSR
(Reagan's "Evil Empire"). Several continuity questions were thrown
his way, but he reiterated the same thing we've heard before: all
these books are being written *simultaneously*, and there's no real
way to coordinate plots & characters with the other authors. Here's
his answer to "Why wasn't Callista in your books?"
"Who the hell is Callista? In a more serious vein, I am sure you
folks know know more about the Star Wars universe than I do. There is
so much material being produced, and the deadlines are so tight, that
I am just about certain none of the SW authors have managed to absorb
ALL of it-- with the possible exception of Kevin Anderson. ...The
writers have to spend their energy on the books, not on reading the
probably hundreds of sources and cross-indexing."
Here's his answer to "How do the planetary repulsors work?"
"It beats the hell out of me. ...In all seriousness, there were times
when it was tough for a "hard" SF writer to deal with the SW science,
much of which does not make sense. I know what all the tech manuals
say about repulsors, but obviously, no one in real life knows how to
make one either, and therefore the tech stuff is all doubletalk. I
tried to use the idea of a repulsor in a new way that stuck with the
internal consistency of the SW universe. As the canonical SW universe
is NOT internally self-consistent, this is not easy."
Here's his thoughts on Luke's love life:
"The guy is what, 36 or so by the time of my book. He must be getting
awfully -ah- frustrated."
And he gave the best distillation I've heard so far of the
"kidnapping" problem:
"[The children] had not really been treated as characters before--
more like trophies to be captured and recaptured."
And finally, I got a chance to ask him my pet question: Why is it
that poor Anakin is seven years old but can't read yet? Allen
answered that he *wanted* to have Anakin reading in the books, but
other people, including his wife and his editor (Tom?!), convinced him
to change it. So I'll have to blame them. :)
Interesting stuff, overall! (By the way, Allen has his own home page
at http://www.greyware.com/authors/Roger.Allen)
--otter
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