Dear Mr. Stackpole,
     I've been meaning to contact you for some time now as I've not 

only enjoyed all the Star Wars books you've written, but I also liked 

your choice of "replacement author" Aaron Allston for the X-Wing 

series. I just finished "I, Jedi" and it may have displaced "Heir to 

the Empire" as my single favorite Star wars novel. I found the first 

person perspective interesting and was especially pleased to see my 

favorite character, Mara Jade, brought back into the stroylines as 

too many of the lesser authors have allowed her to fade into the 

background. I thought that there was a special tension between her 

and Luke right from the beginning of the Thrawn Trilogy and was 

disappointed that they never became a couple in subsequent books. I 

recently petitioned Tim Zahn regarding these two and he informed me 

that he had just sent the manuscript to Lucasfilm for editing and 

that no changes were possible even IF he was so inclined. 
     I am particulary impressed with "I, Jedi's" showing on the New 

York Times Bestseller List and although the numbers are not 

spectacular in and of themselves, they ARE impressive when you take 

into account the lackluster promotional efforts put forth by 

Bantam-Spectra. Now that is a company which should be ashamed of 

itself IF it understood the concept! I knew something was wrong when 

the discounters Walmart and K-Mart in this area did not carry your 

book. As of today (Sunday) I see it is still hanging in at #31 after 

having spent 4 weeks on the list. I attribute this long lasting 

performance to excellent word-of-mouth promotion of the book among 

readers. Raking in the money from a run-away bestseller is nice but 

I'm sure it's these fans which you had in mind when actually writing 

the manuscript.   
     One thing I especially appreciate is the fact that you come from 

a military history background. As a World War II buff, I think it was 

this somewhat (for lack of a better term) "realistic" gritty, 

military-feel that Star Wars has and nearly all other Sci-Fi lacks 

which sets it so far apart. 

Sincerely,
	Bror Jace

PS - Is there any chance we'll see Bror Jace again? Perhaps we will 

if either the Rogues or Wraiths run into money problems and need to 

visit their old "friend" again, hat in hand. I'm curious to know if 

Bror's bloated ego was genuine or merely part of his cover while he 

was with the squadron.
***********************************************************************
>Bror,
>
>	Thanks for your letter. I appreciate it very much.
>
>	Yes, I, JEDI has been doing pretty well and eventhough it 

didn't
>crack the NYT top 15, I'm pleased. Since I did that book for a flat 

fee,
>the sales numbers don't mean that much, but it's nice to know folks 

are
>reading the book and the response to it has been overwhelmingly 

positive.
>
>	and Just wait until you get VISION OF THE FUTURE from Tim 

Zahn.
>You'll see how well we made things mesh between his last two books 

and mine.
>
>	I'm starting in on ISard's Revenge (X-wing 8) right now, but 

I"m
>not sure if Bror Jace will show up or not.
>
>	And thanks for crediting me with picking Aaron Allston as my
>replacement, but that's not true. I just introduced him to Bantam, 

they're
>the ones who tapped him to do the Wraith Squadron books.
>
>Best,
>Mike Stackpole
>
>
>