Chicago ? The Force.

In the “Star Wars” universe, there is nothing more magical or powerful. There also is nothing more sacred to the millions of “Star Wars” fans worldwide.

So it would seem the last person “Star Wars” creator George Lucas would want to turn his screenplay for “Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith” into a novel would be an author who previously had upset countless fans with his interpretation of the Force.

As Yoda might say, “Incorrect, that assumption is.”

Meet Matthew Woodring Stover, a 43-year-old author of seven science fiction novels, including three in the “Star Wars” series. He writes by day and mixes drinks by night as a bartender in Lake Bluff, a suburb north of Chicago.

Stover has been an unabashed Lucas fan since the original “Star Wars” movie debuted in 1977. Then 15, he rode his bicycle to see the movie at a theater in his hometown of Danville, Ill., and was hooked. Two years later, he left for Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, where he earned a theater degree and met his future wife, Robyn Drake. He moved to Chicago in 1983 and after a brief acting career, started tending bar and later turned his lifelong love of writing into a professional pursuit.

Author Matthew Stover, who wrote the novel Star

His first book, “Iron Dawn,” came out in 1998. “Jericho Moon” and “Blade of Tyshalle,” which is the sequel to “Heroes Die,” followed. Stover is currently working on the third book in that series.

He almost glows when asked why he agreed to write “Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith.”

“I did it basically for this reason right here, when you look at that cover, there are two names on it, mine and George Lucas,” Stover says, motioning to a copy of the book on the table in front of him, as he runs his fingers over their names. The book omits in its title the words “Episode III.”

Stover started writing “Star Wars” novels three years ago after his New York-based publisher, Ballantine Books, sent his 1998 sci-fi/fantasy novel, “Heroes Die,” to Skywalker Ranch for review. Impressed, Stover was then invited to be one of about a dozen authors to pen a “Star Wars” project.

His first effort, “Star Wars: The New Jedi Order: Traitor,” published in 2002, is the one that upset so many fans.

“I had one character tell a Jedi-in-training that the only dark side he needed to worry about was the one in his own heart. And that got a lot of people up in arms … because the dark side has been for a lot of people, a surrogate for the devil,” Stover says. “One of the things that ‘Revenge of the Sith’ makes absolutely clear is that the dark side has external existence in the same way that the Force does, but it really springs from the human heart.”

Fans who disagreed with his interpretation started blasting Stover on the Internet. When they started calling his suburban Lake County home earlier this year after a newspaper published the town’s name, his wife began to worry.

“Right as he left for tour, he was gone and I started getting phone calls,” she said. “People started calling and asking for him and that got real scary because we live way out here in the country.”

Even so, the couple has since gotten to know some fans through conventions and found them mostly polite and receptive.

Howard Roffman, president of Lucasfilm’s licensing division, said the company understands that with legions of devoted “Star Wars” fans out there, “it’s hard to do anything that doesn’t cause an uproar.” The company signed Stover on for a second novel, “Star Wars: Shatterpoint,” which was published in April 2004, and then handed him the job of writing the novel version of “Revenge of the Sith.”

“We chose Matt because we liked the way he handled characters and character development, and we knew that would be a key element of doing the novel for ‘Episode III,'” Roffman said.