Terry Brooks

Terence Dean Brooks is an American author of fantasy fiction. He was born in Sterling, Illinois on January 8th, 1944. Brooks is best known for his work on the Shannara series, an ongoing epic saga of fantasy novels that have been broken up into several trilogies.

In 1999, Brooks helmed the novelization of an alltogether different trilogy, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Brooks wrote three chapters of material which included material that was unique to the novelization and did not appear in the movie. The first two chapters of the book concern Anakin's next-to-last podrace and its aftermath, while a later chapter describes an encounter between Anakin Skywalker and a wounded Tusken Raider in the desert.

Brooks met with George Lucas before writing the book and received his approval and guidance, including information about developments to come in Episode II and Episode III. This can be seen in such passages as the Tusken Raider scene, which ironically foreshadows the death of Anakin's mother in Episode II, and the passage leading up to Anakin's fight with the Rodian child (Greedo), indicating that Anakin's anger derives from his anguish at Padmé's impending departure (foreshadowing the plot of Episode III).

The novelization is especially well-known for a passage describing the history of the Sith, including Darth Bane. According to Terry Brooks' memoir, Sometimes the Magic Works: Lessons from a Writing Life, Lucas spent an hour on the telephone with him discussing the history of the Jedi and the Sith. Therefore, the information on this subject provided in Brooks' novelization can be presumed to derive from Lucas himself.

Brooks devotes the entire fourteenth chapter of Sometimes the Magic Works to the writing of the Episode I novelization, which was an extremely happy and fulfilling experience for him.

Body of work

 * Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (novelization)