“I was given pretty much free rein on developing my plot, other than that it should take place immediately after the second Death Star is destroyed,” said Kenneth C. Flint of “Star Wars: The Heart of the Jedi,” the novel he was commissioned to write by Bantam Spectra in the early 1990s.
“I up front figured it would be most logical to deal with a defeated but not destroyed Empire, its military desperately trying to regroup and retaliate against the Alliance, while other elements sought to make peace. Along with this was my assumption that I had to deal with what Luke Skywalker had become, and where he was going as a Jedi.”
At first Flint was told his novel would only be delayed from its 1993 publication date. Then 1994 rolled around. And 1995. Somebody invented the World Wide Web. Then smartphones. Calendar pages kept flying.
Maybe George Lucas or one of his minions hated it?
Maybe it didn’t blend well enough with Timothy Zahn's Heir To The Empire trilogy of novels, launched in 1991 and depicting what Luke, Leia and Han were up to five years after the events of “Return of the Jedi”?
In any case, we can finally read Flint's lost sequel to “Return of the Jedi.” For free even.
More is coming, but the first eight chapters are already available here.
J.J. Abrams' "The Force Awakens," which will likely contradict both "Heart of the Jedi" and "Heir to the Empire," arrives in cinemas Dec. 18.
