Triple Threat

Triple Threat was a proposed novel by Timothy Zahn, Michael Stackpole, and Aaron Allston. It was described as a 'braided novel' by Allston and as a 'triptych' by Zahn. The novel would have followed three generations of the Horn family in an overarching story divided into three eras, with each author contributing their part of the story to the novel. It was proposed to Lucasfilm and Del Rey in 2012, but due to the sale of Lucasfilm and the decision to cease publishing novels set in the Expanded Universe/Legends timeline, the project was abandoned.^[1]

Development

At Origins Game Fair 2012, authors Timothy Zahn, Michael Stackpole, and Aaron Allston were featured on panels, and while they were there together they started to discuss the idea of doing a triptych, or 'braided novel,' together. Before long, they had a proposal they were eager to pitch to Lucasfilm and Del Rey, with Allston mentioning it offhand in a comment at day three of the convention.^[2]

As Timothy Zahn remarked at Dragon Con 2013, "We actually had an idea at one point for a three-part Star Wars triptych, Triple Threat, a braided novel where the three parts would work together. We'd worked out characters and then the Mouse bought Lucasfilm and as Aaron says, everything's on hold until they decide what they want to do with the book line." He continued to say that there was some interest from publishing, but circumstances prevented its further development, saying, "I think Shelly Shapiro was mildly interested but, again, everything happened before, so we don't know if they're ever going to get more books or what's going to happen with that."^[1][3]

Zahn commented further about the arrested development of the project in an interview with Club Jade in January 2013:

Q: "Back at Origins last year, I think there was a proposal to write, with Mike Stackpole and Aaron Allston, a set of tales about the Horn family over the generations. Any progress on that?"

Zahn: "That is on hold at the moment while we find out what Disney plans to do with the whole novel line. We don't know. They are concentrating on movies, possibly TV at this point. We may not know for a couple of months. We may not know for six months what they have planned after the book contracts are finished. So we're just kind of hanging fire and waiting to see what happens."^[1][4]

Proposed story

Details about the proposed story were shared sporadically at conventions and in interviews. The concept would have followed three different generations of the Horn family, possibly against a singular antagonist. Michael Stackpole commented at Dragon Con 2013 with Zahn and Allston, "We're basically doing three novellas combined into one book, and then we'd have to figure out how we do the last section. Which we can do the way you [Zahn] and I did the Star Wars thing. We plot the last section, we break it down into viewpoint chapters for each of our characters. So in that last section, we'd each have at least one viewpoint character. We might have more than one character."^[1][3]

Due to the diminishing chances of publishing the proposed story in the Star Wars universe, the three authors started to look at publishing the concept as a superhero story instead of within Star Wars. The story would have retained much of its original ideas. About the concept, Allston remarked, "One villain, three universes, he comes into each one and in turn our guys beat him back and then follow him back where he's going, where he's from."^[1]

In late 2013, explaining further about the title and new superhero direction of the project, Allston said, "[We] conceived an idea to do a braided novel, three short novels under one set of covers, set in probably a superhero milieu. So we're talking about that, and that may happen in the next year or so. We're calling it "Triple Threat" as a reference to both the events in the stories and the fairly obnoxious nature of the three writers." Allston passed away in early 2014, and the project did not end up being realized.^[5]

Notes and references