S11 EP10: Adam Christopher Interview

And welcome to a very special episode of Radio Rebellion and Star Wars podcast. I'm your host, Rebecca De Rón, over there, it's our cohost, Otty, one can only, and I'll special guest today, Otto of the brand new Star Wars novel that just came out this past Tuesday, Master of Evil, is Adam Christophora, Adam, thank you so much for doing that, so how are you doing? Can you hear me Adam, how are you doing over there? Nope, there's some technical difficulties.

The wheels. Can you hear us? No, I'm guessing no. Oh, let's see him again.

So we'll wait for Adam to get back before we start some connection issues over there that he's been having some storms or he's at, lost on the internet. So anyway, what have you been doing? We're getting back in a couple minutes. I'm doing fine.

It's unfortunately, it's Sunday, which gives me the Monday scariest, but Sunday scariest, I don't know how you guys call it. But yeah, a lot of cleaning up to do when we're done because my family's coming over, we're Thanksgiving, so. Oh, yeah. Well, one of the big things that they, I mean, it's still not over, completely with the shutdown over maybe every boy start working a little bit better.

I know it's been a problem a lot of places. Yeah, that's one of the good things about the shutdown being over because like I was starting to get concerned being like, oh my god, like, have a lot of people flying over. I can work out. Yeah.

Okay, we maybe got him. All right. Adam, welcome back. How are you doing?

Yes. Okay. Thank you very much. Yeah.

I'm sorry about that. I'm here. I hope I can see you. I can hear you.

So we're all good. Okay, we can see you in here. Okay, so we're going to go ahead and get started. I know there's some connection issues.

I don't want to have you keep the opening and out, but congratulations, mostly the bookies out. Finally, you can talk about, is it more stressful now that a book is out or are you kind of relieved? Yeah, I think I'm relieved. Okay.

You can hear me all right? Yeah. So yeah, good. Okay.

Yes, I'm relieved. I get very nervous as we get closer and closer and then the actual day of release is very busy and kind of crazy, sure, as you can imagine. And then, yeah, I'm just relaxed. And the certain things that happen after a book comes out that week where I kind of, I'll probably start getting nervous again, hopefully, sometime.

Yeah, it's like, it's out of my hands. Sure. The book is not mine anymore. It belongs to readers.

I, you know, nothing I can do now about anything. Yeah. Yeah. Some of my opinion, separate, everything I've seen online, people have loved it.

People are starting to really integrate it. So I don't want to do too many spoilers because I've just came out less than a week ago. Well, people are finding out some of the things that happened and everyone's very interested and they love us going on. So congratulations.

I understand why it's a stressful time after so much work, but. Yeah, I think it was working out. I'm good. I think people have been thinking about it actually liking it so far.

So, yeah. Oh, good. Yeah. I still don't have my copy.

I recently moved and had a chip to my other address. So my mom will bring it over for thanksgiving. But I'm very excited to read it. Like, I was telling a bird's mouth to shout out this and I was like, I'll read anything this man, right?

Especially even Star Trek earlier. Like, sure. Like, let's go. Yeah, we need to get into our stuff at some point.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

So, this is clearly like a universe you enjoy at least writing for it. Can you talk a little bit about your Star Wars story and how you got into the franchise and how that relationship with the Star Wars story has evolved over the years? Yeah. So it actually started back in 2015, I think.

So long story short, a friend of mine Chuck Windig wrote the aftermath trilogy and we had the same agent. So when he got the aftermath books, I've always wanted to write a Star Wars book and he was like, well, I can introduce you to the editors at Del Rey at the time. So I did. It was 2015.

It was San Diego Comic Con 2015 where I met Elizabeth the editor and she's like, yeah, okay, great. You've done fine work before. You really have to be in the establishment also because there's lots of behind the scenes thing. Sure.

They need to be able to rely on someone who knows what they're doing and who's got a track record of doing what. So that's fine. That's fine. But she was like, you know, there's no books and you'll be waiting for like a long time and maybe there'll be something in five years, but there's a million people who want to write book.

You should do something else because it's going to be really terrible or stuff. I was like, that's fine. I can wait. I can be patient.

And it was five years later, so 2020 when I was invited to do the Mandalorian novel. Yeah. It's like, yeah, yeah, it's like, well, that's five years. So she was actually right.

And then that obviously didn't happen and that turned into show analysis. But kind of before that, I did a Stranger Things novel called Darkness on Edge of Town. Now, that was exactly the same people that did the Star Wars books. It's from Holley and the whole team at Del Rey.

It's like, yeah, I'll do that. There's no Star Wars books available. Obviously Stranger Things got a lot of Stranger Things. It's like, yeah, of course.

That in itself was a dream project. So I did an IDW Star Wars adventure, it's the story. I don't remember what year that was, but it was kind of what I was doing. I was doing the most, I was doing the first from a certain point of view in the film.

And again, it's because I had known, I met the editors. I kind of met friends of them. I live in the UK, but I always go to things like San Diego Comic Con or New York Comic Con. Because that's where you do the work.

You meet people and all my editors are in states. My agent is based in states. So this is the time when you go and hang out with them. And it's really valuable.

It's kind of professional. It's really valuable. So I think, yeah, so then Mendelor and Ken London do that. We turned it into show analysis, which was 2020.

And of course the book came out in 2022. And it's like, as I think about this in the day, that book, Shadow of the Sith came out in June 2022. And then I think it was like the next day, almost, we started talking about doing it. Oh, wow.

So again, that's like three years ago. And in the meantime, I did other things, other things like that. The two other from a certain point of view, I've got a story in all three. I've done Warcraft and other bits and pieces that are all related to the same editorial teams.

But yeah, it's like, yeah, there we are. Have you always been a Star Wars fan or is it something like growing up? You kind of started getting into or? Well, it was definitely growing up.

So I'm old enough, like an original trilogy. So it was growing up in the 80s and watching it on VHS, home rental, because my dad worked for an advertising agency, which means that at weekends, you could borrow the company's VHS machine, the video machine. It didn't happen for years. At the time, that's like a luxury kind of item.

So he would borrow it at the weekend and we'd go to the rental store and get the impistrick spec and just probably, I don't know, two, three, four, five years. That's all I wanted to do. It's like you bring it on Friday night. We would go and rent it by the store's bag.

And also because of his job, he used to know a lot of business travel to places like Hong Kong and Japan, where he could buy Star Wars toys that weren't available in New Zealand. So it's like suddenly you come home and it's like, it's full of, like, I remember the X-Wing box and like you bought an AT-AT, which took up like the whole suitcase. Yeah. But it's really, like it says, completely lucky that you could do that.

And this is not the normal sort of, you know, growing up in New Zealand and starting from Star Wars. But yeah, so I was watching Star Wars and playing with the action figures and creating my own Star Wars stories that way. But at the same time, I was watching Dr. Who on TV and said, with Dr.

Who, rather than toys, it was the books because at my school library, like, at all, Dr. Headbooks. And then I got up to who I started getting into like Christmas presents and birth of Christmas things. So I was writing my own Dr.

Who stories as a seven-year-old. We've still got some of them, too. They're not good, but you know. Yeah, so somewhere, right?

No, no, no. So I was doing, so I was writing Dr. Who stories and writing. But I was also creating Star Wars stories using the toys and action figures.

And I was like, oh, those two kinds of things. What led me to here where I've written Star Wars and I've written Dr Who, especially, which is really amazing. So yeah, completely. I'm exactly the right age.

I just grew up in the 80s and all the old cliche, you know, mass-universe transformers, Dr. Who's, I was masked. I thought I should have thought of being behind me somewhere. Yeah.

Just, yeah. I'm just such a cliche, 80s nerd. I was sorry, is that the Dr. Everboard, the Millennium Falcon?

No, there's never crossover. I kept it. Yeah, really. Separate sometimes.

Yeah. Yeah. I was also born in the 80s, 1980s. I lived, my whole child wasn't there.

So I understand exactly what they're saying, but it's funny, but also something cool to hear that things you were doing as a kid just the past the time, you were able to turn that into what you do now for a living. It's awesome. Yeah. I think, yeah.

And it's interesting. I think it's, it was also there was something else where I wanted to write stories. So it wasn't just because I liked Star Wars. Because there were times when I was kind of growing up, I could have went off Star Wars or went off to do and then came back to it later.

But then those periods, I still was writing stuff. And especially at high school, I started just writing stuff that wasn't, amazingly, wasn't Star Wars would have to. So I think that had to be there as well. There'd be something that made me want to do that.

And then it just sort of all came together sort of later where I could, I could use that. People say, people come up to me and they say, how do I write a Star Wars book? And I'd like to be a Star Wars author or a doctor or whatever. The thing is like the key is you don't want to be a Star Wars author.

You just want to be an author. You don't write Star Wars. You just want to write. So thinking about it from that point of view, really like it turns the whole thing around for you.

And if you get the opportunity to do something like Star Wars, whatever by being, then that's amazing. But that's not why you do it. And that's an important distinction. I think.

Yeah. I think all of the time myself with all of that, some points sitting down and reading stuff. I'm trying to write something that my daughter gave me an idea for something so I know Star Wars or any franchise related. Sometimes never kind of even written.

So you're just getting into it. And if you want to be a writer and hopefully that happens, whatever the franchise is like, you mentioned them on the other novel. And I remember when that was announced, I was so excited for it and then kind of dropped off. But at the same time, I'm so happy that it turned into Shadow of the Sith because that became my top five Star Wars book is right here behind me.

And I just, I know if all of the people, just the whole show just on the stuff, Shadow of the Sith we would talk into you a lot about it. How was it? How did you feel about being able to expand on race, parents, their name, their backstory, give up backstory, death and a mirror. I know you're very close to those characters.

For you as a Star Wars fan as a writer, how did you feel to be able to be back story, especially to Rey, which is such a big character now in different ways? Yeah, that's probably the biggest, my biggest thing probably ever in Star Wars is really for his parents. Sure. Because they existed previously because we see them briefly in the rise of the sky, but they exist.

But there was nothing. So I named them. I came up with them. Which is, they were amazing.

And I said, that I think is the one thing that is my greatest contribution to Star Wars, like I named Rey's parents. If we ever get like a Rey movie and we already mentioned- When we got a movie? I don't know. I was just like, I'd spontaneously combust in the movie theater or something, but the names are mentioned.

Oh yeah, that would be lovely. Yeah. But it's like, the kind of, what I liked about it was the freedom because when, they're like, okay, we've got this other book you could do if you wanted. And it's like, take the line from the rise of Skywalker with a guy named Lando on the sauna and he just says, oh yeah, me and Luke were chasing Ochi at their snip.

And it's like, well, take that line and write that story. That was the entire instruction. Wow. Nothing else.

So from that, it's like, okay, I'll write a book, I guess. Because again, it's like, well, there's nothing. Like it's, it's set between, you know, between Return of the Jedi and Force Awakens. And at that time, we had hardly anything.

There's some books and comics, but not much at all. Raised parents were like, well, there's nothing there. There's nothing there. Yeah.

So it was that book, the freedom of that book was really amazing. That's unusual. It's, you know, we do, it's not what it was. You normally, you have to fit something into such a particular point.

Yeah. Or tell a particular character story and it's kind of fit between movie or TV or comic or something. Which is great. And this is what I love doing because it's a real puzzle.

You know, you have to work out how that all works, which I love doing. You know, but the shit that said, it's like, just right, you know, Luke, we know what happens to Luke. Like, I don't know, 15 years later or something. It's like, it's a long way away.

Or we know what happens to Lando because we see him in the right of his soul. But while I had to do a sort of get the middle point, you know, the direction that they were heading in. I think that's why when you mentioned that don't go into the wanting to just be a star, or rather going to be in a ride and then forget a chance to ride a star, or it's because if I just want to start, we're sorry. And then, okay, go right, I'll story about this line in a movie.

I have no idea where I will even start. And from that little, you know, from that they gave you a right shadow, they said, I understand why this background is very important. Yeah, because they have to, they have to just trust you. They have to trust you to do the job.

Because every star was like, we need this. We need this. It's got to do this character. They can't hold your hand and tell you what to do and hope that what you handle at the end is what they want.

Like, they're going to like, okay, we'll just need to do it. Go and do it. We're really good. And we know it will be good.

And we don't have to worry about it. That's the same with any, any, the title. It's like, yeah, just write the story and we know we trust it. It's going to be what we want.

But you only get that through experience. Sure. When you get a chance, like you mentioned, to bring great friends to life, basically, but also create your own characters. You're like great character in Mass of Evil, Helen God.

We'll get to him later. What do you find more challenging or the same thing I guess more interesting writing? Creating new characters where a world like Star Wars or Redocha, whoever other franchise, or having to write those legacy characters, like a looks guy, other character, a walker, a bando, and a king. And make sure that you stay kind of faithful to those characters at the same time.

What's more challenging do you prefer one to the other? I think the key point is those legacy characters. I hope you can see them here. Yeah, fine.

Okay. The legacy characters are very important because that's actually why people find the books. They say looks like I'll cover up. and go, whatever, Princess Leia.

That's why they're buying the books. So it's really vital that those characters are treated well and are true to what people expect. People, you go to E-book, a Star Wars book, there's an expectation of what is coming. Characterized anyway, so that's good.

When you're doing original characters, like you mentioned, Goss, that's really great because obviously you're gonna create new characters because there's a Star Wars and you have to tell new stories. But the trick is like you have to create a new character that can somehow be as big and alive and interesting as Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader, which are characters that people have loved now for nearly 50 years. Like growing up with them, we've grown up with them. You have to create a new character that can somehow stand up to them and be in the same scene and interact.

And they can't vanish on the page when Darth Vader walks in because they are the ones telling the story. So again, it comes from experience. And this is what everything talking about comes from experience because story comes from character, not the other way around. So if you have characters that are strong enough to do things, which is a story, then you kind of have to work with that.

So like Goss was the master of evil, it was like the first thing that came to my mind was this character Goss. And I knew once I had Goss, he could tell the story about Darth Vader, that the book needed. Cool. So I was like, well, I painted it, like there's an absolute thrill to writing the book style, I'll go with Darth Vader.

Like I can't believe sometimes. Like the type of things, like this speaking, these words that I'm putting into Darth Vader. And it's real Star Wars, like it's not make up, it's not like real Star Wars. But that's absolutely amazing.

And the kind of the feeling you get with that is different, very different to the character like Goss or whoever. But the key is like you have to then realise that they are real people in the story. So they all have to have their own voice, which is strong enough to go head to head, even if they're legacy. Yeah, that's part of it.

I love it. I was gonna ask you what it was to write for Darth Vader. I think you can answer it. But I got one question, I didn't, or you know plan on this.

I just gotta remember the other day. There's another character that I believe you're very fond of. And it's A Little in general, Enric Pride, which I know you post about him, you love to talk about. What was that character that he was great in Ratsu Skywalker, but you gave him a lot to do in Shadow of the Sea, also your story in a certain point of view.

He likes to drink, he likes to smoke a little. That's the thing, he's got a Wookiee pearl or something. It's not the best person out there, but it's very interesting the way you use him in your stories. Well, they came from watching the rise of Skywalker originally, when I went to the cinema.

I didn't know that Richard E. Grant, the actor, was gonna be in Star Wars. That he's my favorite actor. Oh, wow.

So when he appears, I was like, what is happening? He's in Star Wars, that's crazy. And the other factor of that is that, you know, General Pride, he just sort of appears. He's suddenly, he's in the movie.

But he's really, like, he's in charge. Like he's actually giving cucks orders. It's a very weird sort of where he come from. What was he doing in the last couple of movies?

So there's this kind of mystery of what he's been doing. And yet he's so, he's a boss. And really grand. But then I realized that, as a movie, Richard E.

Grant's first movie was called What's the Name of Life. From 1986, 1987. And it's a kind of, it's a black comedy about two actors who are out of work. And it's all like, yeah, it's lots of heavy drinking and smoking.

And they're down and outs. The whole thing is they try to go on holiday to take a break and it goes wrong. Which is Richard E. Grant's first movie.

And I love that. It's my favorite movies. I realized that Pride is basically the character with male, the eight-lives of the movie. Just older, like, just like, you know, 30 years older.

So my approach to writing Pride, I thought I need to, I mentioned in the search of the search of the search, I thought, well, if I kind of, because again, the actor is the right kind of age. All I have to do is go backwards from whenever they form the show, yeah, between like, 2018, whatever. Yeah, and then, oh, okay, he's gonna be this old. So he'll be doing this.

And then again, from Shadow backwards again to Return of the Jedi, because he's in my story and the, you know, from a certain point of view, Return of the Jedi. Because again, knowing where he was later in life, I could go backwards and say, okay, we're just gonna be doing this. And I could, like, I don't know as much what's nail-nigh as I could. Like, I, it's just so bad at me.

Like, I quite like this movie. I give those lines to Pride. Nobody's noticed. Which kind of isn't the wing because of the other.

I'm gonna go watch this movie now. This is what's nail-nigh. Honestly, if you watch what's nail-eye, it will change everything. You will suddenly, like, Shadow Decere will be a different book if you watch what's nail-eye.

I will give this a month. That's totally true. I recommend it's a great movie anyway. But then, if you imagine this is Pride as a kind of late 20s, or whatever, then, yeah, amazing.

It makes sense. I love Pride A because of Richard O'Gran. I don't think there's an actor out there that can sell the menace that Richard O'Gran passed, but at the same time that you see his eyes and you're like, this guy's having so much fun going this movie. And also Pride is weird because he's like a true believer, which usually in the Empire we have all these people who, I don't really care about this dark-sight thing, but Pride is all in it.

Yeah, and I also love, like, maybe the whole reason why I put him in Shadow Decere was so that in the Rise of Skywalker, when he races down to the hang of Bane, and his O'G's ship, and he's furious. He turns around, he's like, who's ship is this? He's realizing he's seen this ship before. And it belongs to O'Gee, and O'Gee, like, they're encounters in Shadow Decere.

It's basically just a couple of arguments. Yeah. Like, Pride, hate, O'Gee. Yeah.

So in Rise of Skywalker, he's like, who's ship is this? But suddenly, I was like, yeah, I need to put him in Shadow and set him kind of work backwards. So this whole reason is kind of why he's there. That's pretty clever.

Adam, so I'm fascinated. Characters like Darth Vader have existed for almost 50 years. The Emperor has been around for a long time. What do you think is about the essence of these characters that, like, 50 years later, 40 years later, we can still come back to them and be like, huh, I think there's a story here that hasn't been told and further keep exploring them.

Yeah, I think it's because he is Darth Vader, as an example. People say it's like, we know everything there is to know about Darth Vader. We've seen all the stories as comics, as books, whatever. But those are all just snapshots of Star Wars.

You know, if you look at the original trilogy, there are three movies. Darth Vader is in a screen time, it's something like 32 minutes out of what, six hours? And yet, when you think of the original trilogy, it's like, well, Darth Vader's the big guy. Like, this is, you know, we don't even consider that.

So the fact that he has such an impact in such a relatively small, small and screen time. And the other thing is that actually, especially because I must have been able to sit just after revenge on the Sith. So we've got that whole transition from the Republic to the Empire, which is way more complicated than we can imagine. Like, it's a whole, it's not just take the switch and something that was the Empire.

So kind of realizing that within Star Wars story, it's far more complicated than we can understand. Because, like, if that was alive and that was happening, it's chaos, diffusion and transition. And, you know, all these new systems and things going into place. So Cadillac Vader is, for me, is the most complex character in Star Wars.

Now, we can sometimes forget that because he's so part of our popular culture in general. Like, you know, everybody knows the silhouette, the mask, the breathing. The voice, everything. Exactly, like, you know, in the 50 years, we forget that actually, when he first appeared in 1977, you know, when he storms and it's like handled and it's like, this character looks like nothing else we've ever seen.

It's so strange. And we forget things like his mask is like a skull. Like, it's a deliberate design. It's a skull.

And the cloak and the fact that he's really huge. So that's why the character kind of persisted for us in pop culture. But if you look at it from Star Wars universe, how did that imagery that we know so well kind of get its foundation in Star Wars universe? Because again, the Emperor put him in the suit that looked like that for a reason.

Because everything is a purpose. And also with Vader, we can't really comprehend the transformation that he's undergone. Because although we've seen him from young child, adulthood, ultimately to his death, that's not his life. That is just snapshots of his life.

And we can't comprehend the transformation from Anakin Skywalker to Darth Vader. But then Darth Vader is encountered with Obi-Wan to Darth Vader that we see in the original trilogy. So all those things make him such an interesting character and such a powerful character. And I think I said the most complicated character in Star Wars.

So you could tell Darth Vader stories forever and still not get to the full depth of his character. He's not just a gov of the lightsaber who kills people when it's exciting. That's part of Vader, absolutely. And that's the spectacular part that we see, especially in the comics, because it's a comic-time scene visual.

So you see great imagery and great artwork in the lightsaber and all that. When you talk about a book, it's really about, it's not just about Vader, but it's about the perception that other people have of Vader, because that's almost more important. Vader is, it's all that diminishing returns. Especially this time in the Star Wars history, because if we're talking about that first bit of the Empire, just after a revenge on the Sith, when nobody knows who Vader is, like he's disappeared.

And the whole part of the story is got the stuttering who Vader is and what that means. But him personally, but also for the Empire as a whole. But like the more you get into, the more you get into Vader, the more his mystery miniatures. And when his mystery diminishes, the light mirror terror quality of him, which for outsiders is the most striking thing.

You start to lose that. So it's a bit like the book Dracula. Someone can pay the book to Dracula, which is like I'm not saying this is actually a classic that has gone through the history. Yeah, no, it's been 15 years before, you see this.

Yeah. But the thing about Dracula is, it's a book about Dracula as much as Dracula is a character. Dracula is not in Dracula very much, actually. It's about other people.

And the fact that Dracula is so powerful and so dangerous, that when he's not in the book, everybody is still thinking about Dracula. So in Master of Evil, does things have been character, we see his play of you sometimes. Golf has also been character. And we see his point of view.

And as a part of the book, there's no spoilers, but like Vader goes away and then comes back. But like when he goes away, all that does is focus everybody else's attention on Vader. It's like he's so powerful that his presence is felt even more when he's not there. Which is the kind of thing, which I think is the Dracula thing.

It's like Dracula is so dangerous and evil and powerful and important that when he's not there, it's almost worse than when he is there, which is the whole book Dracula. The Master of Evil is the kind of same thing. That Vader is so complicated and so deep, but also to us, he's the other. He's like, we can't understand what he's gone through in the transformation that he is really different to us in ways that we don't understand, which is really a way to answer your question.

Yeah. It's like that's cool. It's really cool. So I want to ask one of my questions.

I say one of yours by mistake. I'm sorry if I go back. It's fine. No, but I want to pull on a thread.

That Adam mentioned. So for me, it's fascinating as time has gone on, for me, the relationship between Darth Vader and Palpatine has changed a lot. I think as a kid, it's very easy to watch those movies and be like, oh, yeah, they're just like the two evil guys in the galaxy. But when you start really thinking about it, you start realizing like Darth Vader is just another pawn in the game.

He's just like under the thomp of Palpatine, most of the time, until he finally finds the strength and courage to break free. So for you writing the book, do you feel like you learned something new about these two characters relationship? Do you feel like something changed in the way you see them in the movies? Yeah, I think so.

And you're exactly right. Like the relationship between them, like everything else in the book is more complicated than I think. I think Vader starts the book very much as Palpatine is the master, I'm the apprentice. Palpatine knows so much more than I am now, which he pushed way to them wants to find out about.

By the end of the book, I'm not really spoiler, but he knows what he realizes that actually Palpatine's been playing a bit of a game. And he sort of like he fell for it in a way, which changes the dynamic between them. So he's still like the apprentice master in cities is like the most powerful of all of this. So what changed for me is like, yeah, they see that dynamic.

It's shifted. Vader is aware of his position and kind of the weaknesses of that. And he knows about the system, how they work, and the kind of the theory that I had where really the master draws the strength from the apprentice. But the apprentice is all this hate fear that we see in the trilogy, the emperor is like, encouraging the wrong word, but he's focusing Vader on all that stuff, those dark emotions, because they knit fuels as power and stuff.

But the master takes that from the apprentice. It's like that's where the strength of the master comes from. It's like, because it's control, it's all about control. And Vader is in such a position, I guess, like all the apprentices of the Sith are.

The master controls the apprentice. And like, if you can get your apprentice to be consumed by all those negative emotions under the guise of this is the dark side, it gives you power. This is what drives you. It's your destiny.

You know, but it's like, I'm sure, you know, help a team. If you think about it, OK, it's evil. Absolutely. But like, there's the kind of, there's not the anger and the rage.

No. It's kind of, there's the way it's like, it's like, it's a kind of background thing, whereas it was Vader, it's very much rage, anger, fear, pain, you know, hate, all that stuff, which is all control from from power. I think Vader kind of, he's starting to realize this because, you know, Vader's obviously smart and we see Vader. I think that Vader's journey is a character like we haven't seen all of it because he's different in the original trilogy.

He's different in the Obi-Wan TV series. He's different in the comics because his progression of character, you know, revenge on the Seth and Master Laidall. That's the very beginning of Vader. And then the comic, Charles Source comic, which I saw the same time as my book then jumps forward a few years.

And his character's always sort of evolving. And the whole thing is like, Patney, and he wants to get back back and we see it and things like the Vader immortal, the game, which is actually set like quite close to New Hope. And the whole thing of building his castle on Mustafar is to access the paradox and go to the portal to get back back. But again, that happens maybe 10 years later after I mentioned this.

So the whole thing of Master Mabel was like, yeah, OK, maybe we have seen those stories before. But where did that begin? Like, what was the beginning of that journey for Vader? And this is part of the question, like the relationship between the Emperor and Vader.

This is, you know, Master Mabel was all about how that relationship shifts. Yeah. So then Vader starts to take a little bit more control of his own destiny and what he wants because he knows that Palpatine is not going to really defend what he wants. But he can't just be a passive, you know, weapon, the property in wheels, he's got his own destiny and maybe he's got to work at that himself.

Which is the change, yeah, for me. The relationship that those two have in the book is very interesting. Again, I'm going too much into spoilers. It happens pretty early on that very lies to Palpatine about something.

And we won't go into it. That but you don't expect Vader to rely into Palpatine because we're trying to believe that Palpatine knows everything that's going on. So for Vader to kind of play that same cat, cat, a mouse game, oh, you're not going to give me all the information I need. Right.

You'll find myself. I'm going to lie to you. But that's when God comes in on what his part of the book is. And then honestly, I was one of those.

I said, Oh, really? Do we need another Darth Vader story with Red all of them? We've seen him in the movies. But as soon as he's on the pace and you start reading, then you go straight to what you mentioned.

Oh, this is why he's probably one of the biggest villains of all time. Pop culture character knows because he's an interesting character and I want to keep reading about him. So yeah, that's what we keep getting more stories about him because he's such an interesting character that you could keep telling those stories. And even repeating some of those because we know it was an extra that came as when I was born and anything, the old version of him bleeding the type of crystal that we had seen in the comic book.

Well, like you mentioned, two different mediums and it's a little bit different. He finds something else about most of our, but he's trying to lower this. So just seeing the same stories from different point of views can still kind of elevate those stories that have come before. So going into Master of Evil, what type of research did you do going into that book?

And what is similar to you mentioned for Shadow the Sea that they told you, hey, this line that Lando says wrong with it. What is something similar? Because Master of Evil, we cannot remember that. Probably one said in a new show, just the Master of Evil, though.

It was that something similar? How did this come about? I think it was more the fact that this year was going to be the 20th anniversary of the Earth. Jesus and the fact that we, and the fact that we, there wasn't a bad spade in the novel, but at this point, ten years, I know Vader is in the throne books and there's been an alphabet, but like a really book that's about Darth Vader.

So those two things really, and the line, you know, you're only most readable, is that one of my favorite lines in Star Wars. So that was, that title just came to me. All right. There was anything like, okay, and also it's going to be a revenge of the Sith anniversary book, either officially or unofficially, just because it's out saying, yeah, that it has to be set as close as possible to revenge of the Sith.

Okay, because it's a revenge of the Sith anniversary book officially. So that was it. I know it was a story. I'll tell you before before you go to a question that I saw Adam, you reposted someone that said, oh, the unofficial kind of sequel to the lead to those pre cultural books with Master and a friend is with Brotherhood and now Master of Evil was that kind of, is that just kind of happened or was that kind of the implant all along?

It's kind of, it's both. I think, I mean, it's something like, I, you know, like, no, something is what happens to the start, what's the opposite, but not what's the opposite. There's definitely that's delivered. Okay.

Whatever the years were, yeah, so it's very adventurous. Yeah, absolutely. And it's very cool. The now there are three books, which fit that 20 year anniversary thing.

It's kind of, I like that as a fan. That's really cool. It's like, oh, yeah, now suddenly it becomes clear. Oh, this is a trilogy sort of, but yeah, it's a combination of, of claiming and claiming things like that.

I haven't thought about it. Well, now I want to read those three books, you know, back to back to myself, I'm always to see how it all fits together. Yeah. So Adam, you've been able to tackle the dark side in both books.

Is there any character in the Star Wars franchise where you would be like, huh, I would like to see the dark side from third point of view and then maybe just like explore deeper. So many, well, it's kind of just two things. It's like, is it a star? Okay.

Is that deep star was nerd? We all are. I love it when you can take tiny character from the background and make a whole thing. Yeah.

Because that's fun. It's also deeply geeky and you have to be careful about like these books that we've got to read, but they're not just from us. Yeah. I love it's kind of funny because my first step was because of that.

It looks like I was looking at my second star was looking at the dark side of the book. So I clearly need to go through the main characters of Star Wars. Yeah. So maybe the next one will be about, I don't know.

I love the book. Yeah, that'd be good. So, because actually, yeah, I mean, this is the kind of anniversary again. So that's the tip of the anniversary of the first one.

So we've got, yeah, anniversary is good because you can just find stories to tell. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man.

Yeah. So think about those movies came out 20 years ago. It's wild. Like, my first meeting with Star Wars editors was in 2015, which was 10 years ago.

Yeah. At that point, Revenge of the Sess was 18 years old. Oh, Jesus. But it's like Revenge of the Sess both feels like a new movie, but also it's a movie from 20 years ago.

I can't quite get my head around how that works. I mean, there's something about the prequels. Like, I feel like all Star Wars is timeless, but there's something about the prequels that I watch and I'm like, this does not feel 20 to 30 years old. Like, yeah.

Yeah. Well, I think because the prequels, I mean, I love the prequels. And for me, the prequels, because we're now made and how they're playing and stuff, it's a more like visually cohesive Star Wars, like instant, it's a very personal Star Wars universe. This is what Star Wars looks like.

It's what Star Wars sounds like. What Star Wars feels like. Probably more so than the original trilogy, because obviously the original trilogy was the first time around and like they're just working things out and what to put in, what to keep out. How does it change from, you know, in Vice Trek's back is very different to a new home.

Return of the United States feels different, but it's probably a little bit closer to in Vice Trek's back. It feels like in Vice Trek's back in between the United States, like part of the same thing. And you hope because it's the first one, the random money is all kinds of problems. It feels different.

But yeah, the prequels is George like going, this is what I think Star Wars is. So this is like, yeah. Because the original trilogy, it's like a lack of conflict, but we're following this ragtag group of rebels from, you know, hiding spot to hiding spot. And then in the prequels, George gets the chance to be like, Hey, this is the entire galaxy.

We're not just going from base to base hiding from the young. So in the prequels and the original, and the sequel to the all have droids and there was a very important Star Wars, I do it to C3PO, of course, BB8. So every time I knew Star Wars comes out, we all want to see who then do not new dry this, even Android will be to emo had a cool drawing. Here you have a drawing that's very important to the story.

It's very important to one of the main characters with the Silent God in TC 99. I am very important. It's not just a joy to be a joy to be a joy. It's very important to story.

How do you come up with the decision to make that character at the Royal instead of let's say a human or an alien and then given the personality that he has, because I am personality syndrome is a very different star. And that's kind of going to make a great character. How did that decision come up? Hey, this is going to be a droid and this is personality.

Well, I think it came naturally from the fact that God is sick, but he's trying to hide it. So he's going to do every trick you can to kind of keep it a secret from everybody. So having a droid available to me seemed the obvious thing to do because droid, they're not just machines, they're characters. You know, it's just a great thing about Star Wars.

Every Star Wars movie or TV show has a great droid. I mean, the greatest droids in C3PO and RTD2 like that. Fader, like some of the most famous recognizable characters in all the pop culture, not just Star Wars, like in anything. So to have a story where a droid is very prominent as a character, I have always wanted to do.

I'm just trying to think, and well, see, shout out this Sys has RTD2 with Luke, which again was important because I thought I'd love RTD2 and it was important that he stuck with Luke. And I think there's a couple of other droids. There's one later on, the KB68, I think it's a droid, which was maybe the start of me thinking about what if a droid was more a companion than just a cool or a computer or something. Like what if a droid could exist as their own being, not just a machine.

So there's all kinds of aspects of freedom and control and one of the themes of the solo movie is all about droid, droid, freedom and sentience and things. So that's really important for Star Wars. So I kind of thought I'd do that a little bit for most people. But it's just one of these natural things where Gotham, this droid, just started talking to each other and when I was writing it and they're up here, they're in the book to hear that for a lot, but they go off and they do their insipidings.

And especially because like TC99 yet goes off and does stuff, I was out of love. But he had to be more than just a droid to do that because otherwise, why would you be reading it? It's just a character. He's a character.

He's a book as a person. Which sounds so bad. What would you think of droids as being machines? And are they sentient?

Are they free? Are they enslaved? Are they equal to living beings? These are all really important questions.

And especially I think the gods and TC99 are friends. Which is really important. I think it makes, it's a really great pair. Like I really loved writing them.

And it's kind of like, it's kind of sad what happens. That's why I get it. So as we started to kind of ramp down, without giving too many spoilers out, what do you hope fans get out of mass of evil? Or what can you tell fans how they get them even more excited to go ahead and pick this book up?

Right, yeah, it's an all-dried-fairy story. But not really. There's a reason why there's more dried-fairy stories. What can you say out there to get fans excited for this one?

Okay, well, I think maybe three things. So firstly, it's a really interesting part of the Empire. This is really, really, and through Gotham, because Gotham is being the Soul James experience, he's decorated. He thinks he knows what's going on.

And then he meets Darth Vader and Darth Vader, although it's a lightsaber, and Gotham suddenly what is happening? The Jedi ever did. The lightsaber was a burned. We won the war, and then suddenly Darth Vader is there.

Is he a Jedi? Is he something else? Who knows? So it's like the kind of early Empire, which is really interesting, like really, really interesting.

And then secondly, it's a book about Darth Vader. And if you think about Darth Vader as being the most complicated and interesting character in Star Wars, there are so many different ways to examine his role in the Empire and his role within Star Wars. And there are times when, yeah, you want to see him going ham and whaling with his lightsaber, like it's really actually a visual action excitement. You know, one of the best things in Rogue One, for me, great movie, but at the end, everybody loves the Coridor scene, where Vader suddenly pairs and he takes all the rebels out.

It's really dramatic and spectacular and scary and action-packed. But you can't have that without two hours of Rogue One beforehand, you can't have a two-hour Vader Coridor scene, like it doesn't make any sense. And it would be way less interesting than what we actually get. So for me, yeah, so it must be a book, it's a Darth Vader book, and it's about Darth Vader.

So I think going with that kind of like you're going to learn so much about this character through other people, because that is the mystery and the power of Darth Vader. Like as soon as you start getting closer, you diminish the mystery, you diminish the terror, you diminish the impact that has within the Star Wars universe and within kind of our, yeah, because absolutely we are saturated with Darth Vader. He's everywhere, like everybody without even seeing Star Wars, no Darth Vader is. So like there's a way to see past that and to remember the original creation and the impact that he had.

So it must be, I think, does go there in a kind of new and different way. And absolutely, it's maybe it's not going to expect, but I think it's so much more interesting to explore a way to that way. There's two things. The third thing, when Gotham TC99, this is a friendship, it's not always a book about friendship, as well as horror and darkness, like it's about to look about two friends in Star Wars, which is actually not that common.

It's, I'm not saying it's new, but like, you know, say that often. And the thing about a novel is that you've got the space to you know, go into that kind of more so than a comic, maybe more so than a movie or, but that's what novels are in a different type of storytelling. So yeah, so like it's a 20th anniversary of the original series. It's cool.

Yeah, it's cool that we got the novelization of the movie, which is like perfect right after it. And we never just mentioned that Highland God is actually one of the Emperor's Royal God. We've never gotten the story from Royal God, all of those, them, were the inner workings being next to the Emperor. We always think about Darth Vader.

Not just other people close to him. So when you start thinking about it, you can explore and you did with this character, which was very interesting. No. Right.

I think I know we can skip some of your questions. I don't know if you want to go back. No, I think the reason I skipped this is because I know Adam kind of like answered them. So I don't want to be redundant.

All right. So with that, we'll bring an end to our interview Adam again. Thank you so much for joining us. Everyone out there, Master of Evil, just look at that cover.

Just if you don't want to really just buy it and put it on your shelf because the cover in itself kind of is worth it. It's like, great book. Just came out this past week. Adam again, thank you for being here and congratulations on the book coming out.

Oh, thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. I hope I have made an impact on the help of.

Yes. No issues. Sorry. So yeah.

Yeah. After that first kind of difficult conversation, yeah. Yeah. That's how we will think.

Invasion of communication is going down. But after that, smooth sailing, I mean, thank you so much. Darth Vader, such interesting character and like Otty mentioned after he read the channel to say something. If you read a Star Wars book, we'll be there and both of us are found out that we'll try to get into those stories also.

We will watch that Richard E. Grant movie and see if it changes. No, yeah. You need to watch it and then tell me because we need to talk about it.

Because yeah, we're going to be doing it. I have an impact as well. We'll keep in touch. Thank you, Adam.

We'll be back. Everyone. Thank you for watching this. Make sure you like the video, subscribe to our channel, so that we get cool people to join us.

And if you did, I mean, listen to all the podcast, give us a heart rate and a review. We'll be back soon. Again, for Otty, for Adam and everyone watching today, thank you. Stay safe.

Be safe. I made a fourth deal with you.