Club Jade

We’re at JadeCon, having a blast – and I’m just taking a brief email break, and what should come up on my feed reader but a brand-spanking new book schedule from Sue Rostoni? I can’t even wrap my brain around the date changes right now, but here’s the big news:

• Fifth and final Clone Wars book (Karen Miller) is Gambit: Siege. March 2010.

• July 2010 will be a “coming attraction by well-known author.” Nothing more to be revealed. Sean Williams, maybe?
• September 2010. A book that only “might” come to be.
• A second book by Joe Schreiber (not a Death Troopers sequel) is coming October 5, 2010.
• Fate of the Jedi book seven (Allston) is titled Conviction. April 2011.
• The tentative title for Zahn’s Allegiance sequel is Choices. September 2011.
• October 2011 bring a new author: Jeff Grubb.

Our book release schedule will be updated… Uhh, soon. Soonish.

In other news, she has confirmed that the Boba Fett book and Blood Oath are both canceled.

Okay, so I lied about updating that last post, as I forgot all about the Fate of the Jedi panel. First of all, a big thanks to EU Cantina for live-tweeting this so I could write up the post in real time (their roundup of today is here) and please don’t hate me for quoting you too much… Hopefully one day I can repay the debt.

• FOTJ. The name of the sixth book (Denning’s second) will be Vortex.

• Zahn’s upcoming. His 2011 book is indeed a follow-up to Allegiance, and scheduled for that October.
• Blood Oath. “Postponed indefinitely but not canceled.“

We should be getting detailed panel reports later tonight.

Cannot predict now. Despite the reappearance of Elaine Cunningham’s Blood Oath in the Del Rey online catalog with a 2010 release date, we still don’t know if the book will make it to publication. Sue Rostoni said yesterday: “Can’t say yet. Still don’t have the entire manuscript.” (She also answers some questions about the Crosscurrent cover.)

• Invasion. EU Cantina has an interview with Tom Taylor and Colin Wilson.

• Holostar. Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff on the Force and the light/dark divide.
• Rebel Force. Randy Martinez talks about his covers for the Scholastic series.
• Star Wars Insider. #111 has a Clone Wars cover (how novel!) and a peek at The Essential Star Wars Atlas. It’s due by the end of the month.
• Authors. Matthew Stover is writing at least one God of War book for Del Rey, or at least that’s what several gaming sites are saying. There’s something in the Random House catalog at any rate.

Sue has stopped in at the VIP thread at StarWars.com with an update:

…We’re all doing our best to keep it in the line-up and, if the manuscript comes in soon, the book will be moved again, maybe to April 2010. If there’s no manuscript, then it’ll have to be dropped. Events beyond the author’s control, or wishes, have caused the delays. I know, that really doesn’t tell you much, but it’s not my story to tell, ya know?

UPDATE: Today, Sue elaborates on why the manuscript has to be in at a certain point… And what it has to do with FOTJ.

Blood Oath in flux. The fan sites and forums are seeing some buzz about the strange vanishing of Elaine Cunningham’s whatever-happened-to-Zekk paperback from the various online catalogs and booksellers. (Last things we heard were a cover and a postponement.) It is rather mysterious, but I’m willing to wait this one out…

• Hyperspace/Fate of the Jedi: A Sithly short story by Christie Golden is part of the latest Fan Club Kit, as is a nice Adam Hughes poster from Dark Horse and a lot of Clone Wars stuff.

• The Blogside: Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff on How is a Star Wars Novel Like a Rollercoaster?
• Comics: Jo Chen walks us through the creation of the cover for Invasion #1.
• The Old Republic: Issue #8 of the Threat of Peace webcomic is up… Only one more to go in Act I.

EUC nabbed Lucasfilm Licensing editor Sue Rostoni to talk about Legacy of the Force, Fate of the Jedi, and other EU works past, present, and future.

Dave Seeley! Jedi! Hot chicks! (Leeloo? Is that you?) What more could one ask for in a Blood Oath cover? How about a summary? It contains some LOTF spoilers, so read it at the link or under the cut. (more…)

Our first street date shuffle of the new contract! After a fan noticed that there was something awry with the book’s catalog listing, Sue Rostoni has confirmed that Elaine Cunningham’s Blood Oath has been moved back to a December release date.

The manuscript hasn’t been delivered yet — it just got to be too late to make the deadline, so we moved it. I feel badly because the story, as you know, takes place before OUTCAST so we wanted it to come out as close to OUTCAST as possible… but it didn’t happen.

Meanwhile, there’s a whole new schedule entry on Sue’s blog, with a few additional details about the 2009 books, including some minor Fate of the Jedi details.

Off to update our book release schedule…

She’s back on the StarWars.com boards and had this to say about Dave Seeley’s cover for Elaine Cunnigham’s Blood Oath, including some hints at the book’s content:

We received the “final” cover art yesterday, but one of the other characters on the cover had to have her blaster changed — it looked too earth-bound, so we’re having it changed to a more Star Wars hold-out blaster style. Dave Seeley is painting the cover, and it looks awesome — At first glance it looks a bit like a romance novel cover, but don’t let that put you off. The cover features Zekk up front, with two women in the background… Hapan women… women you may remember from a previous LotF novel… oh, I just spilled my coffee — hang on a moment…

She answers a few questions on the next page, too.

Lots of tidbits: Sue Rostoni has continued posting bits and pieces about the new contract on StarWars.com boards and blogs, including the timing of Fate of the Jedi and Blood Oath (apparently Seeley’s cover art has Zekk “in a very manly pose, looking ruggedly handsome.”) Meanwhile, the first FOTJ cover will feature Luke, although no artist names yet, and the manuscript for Shadows of Mindor is 419 pages. And she’s updated her book schedule entry with a few new dates (already reflected in our schedule) and the news that the Reaves/Bonhoff ‘holostar’ novel is set two years before the Battle of Yavin. And today we swing right back to Fate of the Jedi: It “will continue to be a mix of characters.”

• Comics: StarWars.com has Dark Horse’s January 2009 solicitations, but it looks pretty slim: Just Knights of the Old Republic and the beginning of Legacy’s first post-Vector arc.

• The Force Unleashed: Sean Williams shares his piece from the Adelaide Advertiser on writing Star Wars.
• LOTF: io9 features Jacen and Jaina as one of Science Fiction’s Fiercest Sibling Rivalries.