Club Jade

That’s no moon. With the Essential Reader’s Companion only 3 weeks away, copies are landing on the desks of the official types (with, one assumes, an audible thud.) Expect to see a lot of reviewer tweets about it soon. In the meantime, you can get a closer look at some of the portraits and check out the first 28 pages in the Random House catalog. (via)

The blogside. Tor’s Emily Asher-Perrin takes a look at ‘the true nature of the force,’ addressing a lot of the weird and complicated issues at hand with ‘balance’ and all the rest of the simple tricks and nonsense scattered throughout fandom.

Costuming. Trisha Barr interviews Shea Standefer about her great Jaina Solo costumes at CVI. Bria wrote about gender-swapped costumes, including a crossplay Wraith Squadron she took part in at D*C. And, on that note, more Expanded Universe costumes from D*C.

Interviews. John Ostrander talks about the next arc of Agent of the Empire at CBR; Roqoo Depot caught up with Timothy Zahn, James Luceno, and Troy Denning at Celebration.

Blurb. There’s now one for The Last Jedi by by Michael Reaves and Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff. (via)

Audio Random House Audio has a poll up on Facebook asking which of three books – Miller’s Knight Errant, Reaves/Perry’s Death Star or Zahn’s Allegiance – you want to hear on audio first.

Random House Audio continued their convention tour, bringing some of their audio book production team to Star Wars Celebration VI as well as having a show floor presence. I caught the Star Wars University: Audio Books panel with staff from Random House Audio, producer Aaron Blank, narrator Marc Thompson (check out my interview with Marc), and director Kevin Thomsen. Crashing the panel was Leland Chee, keeper of the Holocron. Key points from the panel: (more…)

After the Random House Audiobooks panel, I had the opportunity to chat with voice actor Marc Thompson about his work as the narrator of the audio versions of the Star Wars novels. Plus he gives us a little sample of one of his favorite characters, Cilghal.

James sent in several videos from San Diego, including this tour of Her Universe’s new offerings from Ashley Eckstein, including our first look at the new Her Universe logo tee! And Ashley mentions that they have lanyards, which have been pretty thin on the ground at cons lately… I hope they bring them to Celebration!

James also talked to Katie Fleming about the Random House Audio Fan Fiction contest. He also confirmed for us that they will be bringing the fan fiction recording to Celebration VI.

Other videos: The ‘As You Wish’ Boba Fett helmet art project, artist Jeff Carlisle, and the Well of Souls. James also took a ton more pictures – they start here, if you’ve already seen Wednesday’s.

Random House Audio is looking for fans to record a five-minute audio sample of their fan fiction stories on the convention floor at SDCC. Only stories from five fandoms – which include Star Wars – are eligible. The winner “be professionally recorded and mixed by Random House Audio for streaming at www.randomhouseaudio.com.”

I am not making this up. (Can we blame Fifty Shades of Grey?)

The other fandoms are Paolini’s Inheritance Cycle, Percy Jackson, Hitchhiker’s Guide and Artemis Fowl. Plus, Sunday is “open mic.” Registration is open now.

If they announce a Laurel K. Hamilton book at the Star Wars panel, I’m applying to become the new divination teacher at Hogwarts. (via)

UPDATE: Bryan Young talked a bit more in depth with the PR people about the contest, and the fan fiction thing “is not the primary goal.” Nonetheless, the whole concept makes me very nervous, something which I’ll explore further later.

Column. Over at EU Cantina, Nanci takes a look at how the prequels effected the post-Return of the Jedi Expanded Universe.

Fate of the Jedi. Roqoo Depot spotted an audio excerpt for Denning’s Apocalypse.

Book of Sith. Take a look inside Dan Wallace’s latest tome with MTV’s Laurel Woods.

Excerpt The first mini-excerpt from Jeff Grubb’s Scourge.

We might not be getting further annotated editions of the Timothy Zahn classics, but at least audiobook fans are getting something: Unabridged recordings of Dark Force Rising and The Last Command will be coming out in June, Random House audio announced this week.

Read by Marc Thompson, the audiobooks will be available digitally on June 26.

As the new edition of Heir to the Empire approaches, so does a flood of excerpts and extras and the like. Today we have an excerpt from the audiobook (via) and a text one featuring actual pages. (And a chance to win an actual copy.)

NJOE discovered a new listing for an audiobook download called Heir to the Empire: Behind the Scenes. Set for release the same day as the annotated novel, the audio listing carries the subtitle of ‘An Expanded Universe is Born’ and credits for both author Timothy Zahn and the book’s original editor, Betsy Mitchell.

I suspect this will end up containing an interview/discussion about the book and it’s long-ranging influences of the Expanded Universe. Or, if we look to the new audiobook art lurking in the Random House database – a new, unabridged recording. (The image credits Marc Thompson as the reader — according to Wookieepedia — Denis Lawson read an abridged version back in the day.) We’ll have to wait for an official announcement to know for sure!

An audio excerpt of Christie Golden’s Allies – the fifth book of the series, out on the 25th – is up at Random House.

In related news, Sue Rostoni has revealed on the boards that Kenth Hamner, not Saba Sebatyne as previously announced, will get the back cover spot on the sixth book, Denning’s Vortex. (It’s due out in December.) A model has been hired, so presumably he won’t be a dead ringer for William Shatner this time around.