Hollywood.com put up a great interview with Expanded Universe author Timothy Zahn today as part of the promotional blitz for his upcoming novel Scoundrels. One question posed to Zahn was how best to deal with the daunting size of the EU and what authors and editors can do to address that problem:

HW: It’s a departure for you as well, because it feels more like a one-off, standalone adventure. It doesn’t feature some of the characters that recur in your work like Thrawn or Mara Jade. 
TZ: Actually, that was part of the goal with this. Shelly Shapiro, the Del Rey editor, and Sue Rostoni, who was handling these things for Lucas Licensing at the time, were looking for a story that could appeal to Star Wars fans who weren’t necessarily Star Wars readers. There are 150+ Star Wars novels out there and for someone who isn’t already familiar with them the whole thing can look a little intimidating. So my goal was to do a story that could draw in fans who don’t know anything about the Expanded Universe. What kind of story could do that? That story is Scoundrels. If you’ve seen the Original Trilogy, you’re good to go.

And of course, what are Zahn’s thoughts on Episode VII?

HW: What do you, as a Star Wars fan par excellence, want to see from the new trilogy? 
TZ: You got a couple of hours here? First of all, I think they need to skip a generation and have either Luke, Han, and Leia’s kids, or even grandkids, and have the Original Trilogy characters be the older, wiser mentor types. But one of the things I’d really like to see, and this would fit very nicely with Disney, as far as I can remember we’ve never seen a really good family relationship in Star Wars. We’ve had neurotic relationships and even outright antagonism with Luke and Vader. But I’d like to see Luke and his son or grandson have a true bond, a functional family relationship. And of course I want a really good storyline and space battles. I’d like to see something different than a Skywalker turning to the Dark Side. The Star Wars universe is so rich with storytelling possibilities that you don’t need to repeat the “turning to the Dark Side” concept of the previous films. I don’t want to see the same stuff over and over.

There’s other great questions and answers in there as well tackling everything from continuity to whether or not major characters should die in future books and movies. For more, head to the link above and read the three-page interview.