Star Wars has dabbled in every possible genre with its expansive universe, with stories ranging from space westerns with The Mandalorian, spy thrillers like Andor, and coming-of-age tales in Skeleton Crew. Over the years, there have been several pieces of forgotten lore in the grand mythos of this IP, and one of them has been hiding in the dark since it came out nearly thirty years ago. Star Wars: Galaxy of Fear was the franchise’s first attempt at pure horror, trading in lightsaber battles and intergalactic dog fights for dread and anxiety. The only difference was those scares weren’t intended for everyone — they were meant for its younger fans.
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Spanning twelve books, Star Wars: Galaxy of Fear cast a new group of cosmic castaways as they planet-hopped into unsettling places with fearsome inhabitants and situations. Targeted for readers who weren’t quite YA yet, the stories weren’t particularly scary but they did provide something special to the universe. It turns out these novels were actually canonical at the time, turning these supernatural space yarns into something for fans to hold onto and appreciate in a much different way while also adding something to the overall saga of the franchise. Many don’t remember Galaxy of Fear while others are completely unaware of its existence, but it’s hard not be curious about what goes bump in the night in the Star Wars universe.
Star Wars: Galaxy of Fear Grabbed Young Fans In An Unexpected Way
Timing was everything for this series. Star Wars: Galaxy of Fear arrived on book store shelves in early 1997, just in time for a new group of young readers about to start on their next school year. This was less than a month after the Star WarsSpecial Edition films started to hit theaters, reinvigorating the fanbase with incoming fans of all ages. It was the younger ones that most interested Lucasfilm, so along with Kenner action figures, bed sheets, and Halloween costumes, books for middle-school children including the Young and Junior Jedi Knights series became a key part of the merchandise that would drive the series back to prominence. One of the most popular series for that segment was R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps, horror novels that broke into this demographic by giving them age-appropriate scares with a side of humor to lighten up the frights.Star Warswasn’t known for this type of terrifying content at all, but as we’ve learned from a different sci-fi franchise, “in space no one can hear you scream.”
John Whitman was tasked by Lucasfilm to write a six-book saga that started and finished a multi-part Star Wars spooktacular. The series began with “Eaten Alive,” introducing force-sensitive siblings Tash and Zak Arranda who, survivors of the Death Star’s first test that destroyed Alderaan. The brother and sister duo are accompanied by their shape-shifting Shi’ido uncle Mammon Hoole and a droid designated DV-9. This foursome of refugees find themselves on the planet D’vouran, which they later discover is alive and eating its inhabitants. They manage to escape with the help of a familiar face (more on that later), kickstarting their adventures as they try to find a new home while matching wits with evil scientist Borborygmus Gog as he works to finish his diabolical experiment codenamed “Project Starscream.”
Most books for Star Wars fans at the time were intended for adult readers, balancing interstellar politics with starfighter clashes and other action scenes. Most of them centered around Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and other established characters who fans recognized from the films. Galaxy of Feartook a big risk by heading into uncharted literary waters, creating completely original characters who were well under the age of the rest of the fictional cast. There were other series already doing that, but those featured Jedi youth who, while still under training, had abilities the average child did not. The kids in Galaxy of Fear were dropped in the scariest places and facing awful sights never seen before in any of the movies, offering something very different to a fandom hungry for more.
Star Wars: Galaxy of Fear Is Actually Canonical And Killed Off A Known Character
After the success of the initial three, Whitman was signed on for six more for a total of twelve published books. Their adventures brought the makeshift family into abandoned space vessels, a planet-wide cemetery, a forgotten Jedi library, an amusement park that turned your worst nightmares into reality, and other nerve-wracking locales that had young readers on the edge of their seats. Per the mandate of Lucasfilm, every chapter had to end with a cliffhanger in a similar way that Stine wrote in his Goosebumps series. Nowhere was safe, and made it for some very unexpectedly interesting stories that touched on genres the franchise had never done before.
While the series centered on its four main characters, Galaxy of Fearwas never shy about bringing in some big names to add more notoriety to the stories. Han Solo saved the group at the end of Eaten Alive, while Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Darth Vader, Jabba the Hutt, and others appeared throughout the books. Grand Admiral Thrawn shows up decades before he appeared in Star Wars Rebels and other characters from the movies showed up in these books, and even Yoda has an important cameo in the series finale, The Hunger. Most notably, Boba Fett arrives in the second bookCity of the Dead on the hunt for another known character, Dr. Evazan. This was the same psychopath who buddied up with Ponda Baba whose arm was famously lopped off by Obi-Wan Kenobi’s lightsaber in Episode IV. In City of the Dead, Evazan is being tracked down by the bounty hunter, who kills him in cold blood by the book’s end after learning the horrible truth about the doctor’s latest experiment with reanimating corpses. Dr. Evazan might not have been a major character, but this was a big deal for a kids book. How often did an established character get taken out in a book meant for middle schoolers?
“Once I got the approval for the cameos, I started working people in who I wanted to see,” Whitman explained in an interview with Yodanews.com. “I wanted it to be the kind of thing where an adult could read it to their kids and there would some hooks. Moments of pleasure, recognizing the author had thrown in this character [that the parents] knew. The only moment I had to get approved by Lucasfilm prior to submitting a draft was when I got to kill off Dr. Evazan. It got kicked all the way up to George Lucas and he said “fine.” Except for that one thing, as long as I stuck inside the basic lifeline of the character, I could do whatever I wanted. It was a lot of fun.”
Galaxy of Fearwas written at breakneck speed by Whitman, with titles published for a little over one year before the series concluded in August 1998. With so much media being consumed by a new generation of Star Wars fans, we believe this scary series should rise from its grave and come back to scare a new era of readers. This is the kind of series that could easily be adapted for a live-action show, whether it’s done in an episodic anthology style, retelling the story of Zak and Arranda or introducing a new group who can solve the galaxy’s strangest and most frightening mysteries.
Did you read Galaxy of Fearwhen you were growing up and have any memories of them? And how do you think a scary Star Wars show would fare on Disney+ or somewhere else? Join the conversation and let us know in the comments.
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