Club Jade

Rebel Force: The official site gives us our first look at book five of Scholastic’s latest series, Trapped. (Is anyone reading these? I keep forgetting they exist.) It’s due out in January.

• A Padawan’s Journal: Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff on droids.

• Reviews: SF Site weighs in on Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor and The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia, Volume 1.
• Comics: Preview The Clone Wars #7.

You can listen to Steve Sansweet, Pablo Hidalgo, Josh Kushins, and Mary Franklin talking The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia on the ForceCast’s ‘Holiday Special’ right now. On Sunday, Steve will be appearing on Fictional Frontiers with Sohaib.

After going through practically every holiday since 1999 with some sort of “coffee table book” from the Star Wars franchise, you would think that I’d be mentally prepared for the weight associated with it.  Well, I was fooled again with the latest edition of The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia.  I nearly dropped the blasted thing (all 12 pounds of it — I weighed it) when I tried to pick it up.

Still, this baby’s beautiful! Three hardcover volumes in a shell.  (Which is making it resemble, more and more The Encyclopedia Brittanica.)  That beautiful Empire red and black coloring.  Images subtly glowing out.  Each hardcover has its own different cover design. Each book has its own quote for the dedication page.  A lot of fun! (more…)

This is a big week (literally) for Star Wars stuff: The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia finally arrives in bookstores tomorrow, along with Karen Miller’s The Clone Wars: Wild Space. And on Wednesday, comic fans can pick up The Clone Wars #3, aka ‘the one where Anakin thinks a eyepatch is an effective disguise.’ If that’s what they teach in those fancy Jedi disguise classes, why bother with Order 66?

StarWars.com features The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia, including several sample pages that the more keen-eyed among us might actually even be able to read. The book, written by Steve Sansweet, Pablo Hidalgo and Dan Wallace, Bob Vitas, Chris Cassidy, Mary Franklin and Josh Kushins, will be in stores next week. (Santa Maul would no doubt encourage you to consider it for your holiday lists.)

Also on the official site tonight are the March 2009 comics, including upcoming issues of Legacy and Knights of the Old Republic, along with a new Clone Wars digest, The Wind Raiders of Taloraan.

• Interviews: John Ostrander talks up Vector and Legacy at Comic Book Resources, while The Clone Wars’ Karen Miller headlines SWbooks.

• Upcoming: Dan Wallace has a blog entry on The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia. It’ll be out in a little over a week (Dec. 9) but at least one of the Amazons is already shipping it…
• Toys: Up close and personal with some of the new comic packs: Wedge Antilles, Borsk Fey’lya, Luke Skywalker, Deena Shan, Ki-Adi-Mundi and Sharad Hett.

StarWars.com showcases the covers of The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia‘s three volumes. You can also pre-order a signed edition (all six authors!) at StarWarsShop.

• Coruscant Nights: On the official boards, Sue Rostoni drops a short except from Patterns of Force and confirms the (much-confused) release date as January 27th.

• Interview: Sean Williams over at the Adventures in Sci-Fi Publishing podcast (Thanks, Zee Zee!) while Lightsabre talks to webmaster-turned-Complete Encyclopedia contributer Bob Vitas.
• Preview: Legacy #29/Vector part 10.

I’ve been doing a bit of work on our book release schedule over the last few days, adding all all the recently announced and (hopefully) soon-to-be announced-because-they’re-in-the-catalog books. But there’s always more going on…

• Zee Zee noticed that the The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia has been pushed back a few weeks from November 18 to December 9. At least it’s still in time for Christmas?

• And the (US?) paperback of Order 66 has been set for May 19, 2009; UK readers may note some funny business – the book isn’t coming out in hardcover there at all, and will be instead released as a paperback on October 2, 2008.

A mockup of The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia was on display at SDCC so little of this is really a surprise, But: Three volumes! Full-color artwork! November release! Signed copies! A timeline!

Okay, maybe the signed thing. And the timeline. Try and resist, Wookieepedians…