Club Jade

Lucasfilm just approved the cover art for a soon-to-be announced STAR WARS novel. (FP)

— StarWarsBooks (@DelReyStarWars) January 8, 2013

So, erm, the EU Twittersphere went a little nutty over the above tweet this afternoon.

(Yes, it was a bit of a slow news day.)

It’s “nothing we’ve mentioned before” Jennifer Heddle says, so no, not the mystery Paul S. Kemp books. I figure the chances of it being something I find completely unexciting (like yet another The Old Republic book) are fairly high, but you never know. It could be, well, pretty much anything.

This may seem like an odd sentiment for a news blogger, but I’m actually glad to see that Del Rey has held onto this, whatever it may be. Even if the book doesn’t come out until fall 2014, there being a cover bodes well to us getting some basic idea of the plot from the start… And I am so unbelievably sick of seeing fandom worry at Kemp’s duology like a sore tooth when I suspect it was announced with the contact ink still wet. We’ll find out what that one is eventually – and this as well, very soon. Time to gather a bit of that Jedi calm.

What will happen to the Expanded Universe? Well, it’s too soon to tell, honestly, but a sequel trilogy could certainly mean upheaval in the galaxy far, far away – and the post-Return of the Jedi continuity that’s been in the works for the past several decades. My bare bones advice? It’s time to start hardening yourself to a more fluid concept of continuity and canon. (You might also want to check out IGN’s Joey Esposito’s great post on the 007 approach to continuity.) But it is far, far too soon to speculate about what new Star Wars movies will bring to the party when we don’t know anything about them aside from their basic existence. (Yes, I’m sure I’ll have more thoughts on all that later, but one thing at a time!)

One place we can speculate on is who’s going to handling that future in publishing. We’ve seen no indication that Disney is going to shake up the way Lucasfilm works, so we can assume that Lucasbooks will remain the guiding hand. But what of the licensees themselves? They all have contracts, so things will stay as they are for now. But once those contracts are up?

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It’s the talk of the publishing world today: Parent companies Pearson and Bertelsmann are discussing combining the publishing houses Penguin and Random House. Together, the two publishers would control more than 20% of the U.S. market,. so antitrust issues are sure to be a concern.

Both companies have Star Wars licenses: Random House’s Del Rey handles the adult Star Wars novels (as is Bantam, which handles the backlist,) while Penguin publishes books for younger readers, mostly based on The Clone Wars. DK is also a part of Penguin.

io9′s Charlie Jane Anders looks at what the merger might mean for the genre as a whole.

What do we have here? Why, on the right, could that be a mockup/sketch of the new Star Wars: The Essential Characters that was announced at CVI? Doug Wheatley is doing the interior art for the book, and Erich Schoeneweiss says that is his “very rough and not final” sketch for the cover.

Both Del Rey and Dark Horse have Star Wars panels at NYCC this Friday. Del Rey will be revealing one new book (could it be the rumored Matt Stover Imperial Commando title?), and Dark Horse will have some big announcements as well.

Knights Archive also spotted 2 sets of (presumably eBook) bundles on the Random House online catalog: The Essential Novels: Star Wars 10-Book Bundle and The Essential Novels: Star Wars Reads Day Special Edition: 4-Book Bundle. Could this why Del Rey’s Darth Internous was asking about EU books for newbies last month?

UPDATED! Well, it didn’t take long for us to find out! Del Rey has revealed the contents of the bundles, and they’re all over the map.

The Old Republic: Deceived
Republic Commando: Hard Contact
Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader
Death Troopers
Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor
X-Wing: Rogue Squadron
Heir to the Empire
New Jedi Order: Vector Prime
Legacy of the Force: Betrayal
Crosscurrent

That’s quite the sampler plate. I definitely agree with the inclusion of Heir to the Empire, Rogue Squadron and Shadows of Mindor, but some of these are just puzzling.

Here’s the 4-book bundle:

X-Wing: Rogue Squadron
Heir to the Empire
New Jedi Order: Vector Prime
Legacy of the Force: Betrayal

For instance, I wouldn’t wish Vector Prime on my worst enemy. Yes, the New Jedi Order is a gigantic chunk of the backlist, and there are worse Star Wars books, (though not that many,) but it’s definitely the series starter that flopped the worst for me. (And no, I’m not talking about the Chewbacca thing, stand down: I just find it horribly written.) Legacy of the Force may not be everyone’s favorite, but Betrayal is at least a solid book.

With absolutely nothing to go on aside from the titles, I’m a little intrigued at what they’ll consider ‘Essential,’ aside from the Thrawn trilogy. If you could only pick 10 Star Wars books what would make your cut? And what about the 4-book bundle?

Today was fairly busy, starting off with the Del Rey panel. It was also the first official reveal of Detours, which I chose not to attend in order to write up Del Rey. This one goes a little beyond just the stuff I was able to attend, if only because of the sheer overlapping amount of big things going on. (Yes: Still exhausting!)

Oh, and apparently The Clone Wars is moving to a Saturday morning debut? Alrighty then. Bryan Young went to the S5 premiere tonight and has posted a review and recap.

Some quick thoughts on Del Rey, Detours, cupcakes, the Essential Reader’s Companion, Mark Hamill and more below the cut.

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We got news about two new projects this morning at Del Rey’s panel. The first is a new series, Rebels, featuring the classic characters, which launches with a Leia-centric tale by Martha Wells. The second, focusing on Luke, will be written by Kevin Hearns. These were just approved, so no art. It’s set between ANH and ESB, I believe.

The second is something we’ve all been waiting for and half-expecting: A Jaina trilogy, Sword of the Jedi, written by Christie Golden. Lots of cheers from the audience it! It’s set not too long after Fate of the Jedi and does have some (temporary?) art. The Jaina fans are super-excited, and who can blame them?

But most of the panel was, as promised, given to Q&A. Some highlights and updates on other upcoming books, including Crucible, Scoundrels and more beneath the cut. In attendance were Pablo Hidalgo, Aaron Allston, James Luceno, Drew Karpyshyn, Jennifer Heddle, Shelly Shapiro and Timothy Zahn.

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Before we put the Comic Con files in the archives, I’ve got a few more videos to show from San Diego this past weekend. First up is a tour of some of the different licensees in the Lucasfilm area. We’ve already gotten a tour of the Her Universe booth with Ashley Eckstein, but now let’s take a look at:

• Chairs and beanbags from Red5inc
• Star Wars novels and guidebooks from Del Rey
• Anovos Productions‘ costumes and props (Wait! those aren’t Star Wars!)
• Purses, belts and other accessories from Rock Rebel
• Museum Replicas’ line of customizable Jedi outfits, Star Wars logo lamps and lightsaber umbrellas

James, that scoundrel, sent in four videos from the panel yesterday, as well as new photos (starting here.) At this panel, they announced two new books and talked about several new comics, including Brian Woods’ Star Wars. Part 1, above, is the introductions and Dark Horse announcements

Then, Del Rey…

Their announcements…

And the longest bit, the question and answer session:

Live, from the con floor, thanks to a few enterprising fans, under the cut! Note, if you’d just like the news, head here: Post-Fate of the Jedi novel from Denning, Dawn of the Jedi novel from new author coming.

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