Club Jade

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.

The fiction is coming from inside the house! The latest piece of Hyperspace original fiction, ‘Death in the Slave Pits of Lorrd,’ is by TFN’s Adrick “TalonCard” Tolliver.

• The blogside: Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff on sidekicks.

• Printed matter: Inside Star Wars Insider #110 is a Clone Wars episode guide and an interview with Fate of the Jedi author Christie Golden just as her first book, Omen, hits.
• Fansites: The EU Cantina is restarting their book club with Darth Bane: Path of Destruction.
• Free stuff: Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist giving away a copy of The Clone Wars: No Prisoners.

The hype continues. Joe Schreiber reports that that the first look at Deathtroopers got over 50,000 page views. It’s officially big on the internet! (Plus he’ll be at NYCC this weekend with some extremely unofficial swag – the book’s soundtrack.)

Meanwhile, we have another sighting: Literary agent Colleen Lindsay, with nothing but praise.

• Solicitations: StarWars.com has the May 2009 comics, including Star Wars Adventures: Princess Leia and the Royal Ransom, Legacy #6, Knights of the Old Republic #41, Dark Times #14 and The Clone Wars #6.

• Comic: Get your Dark Times fix with ‘Blue Harvest’ part 2 on MySpace.
• Short stories: A new Hyperspace story, ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Praji,’ by Nathan O’Keefe.

Comics: There’s a new update from Editor Randy Stradley on Dark Horse’s Star Wars Zone, and it’s of particular interest to you Dark Times fans. A new story will appear (online, for free) in the January and February issues of Dark Horse Presents on MySpace, with the comic coming back into regular rotation with #13 in April. (Thanks, Zee Zee!)

• The Old Republic: New screenshots, new aliens, and what may be visual proof of that whole lightsaber size thing.

• Reference: From what I’m seeing in the fanboy underground, the StarWars.com unveiling of Castaways of Endor is a big deal. Alas, requires Hyperspace.

There’s a new Hyperspace short story – ‘Fists of Iron’ by Ed Erdelac – a fan who has previously contributed a What’s the Story. (Well, don’t get too excited, fanfic writers – he does have a few publishing credits.)

Halloween kinda snuck up on me this year – clearly I haven’t been looking at our referral logs as the numbers rise with people looking for ‘Star Wars pumpkins’ and other tokens of the season. Those are already dying off, but for you last-minute Googlers, check out StarWars.com’s collection of crafts, audio, and costumes. You can also check out our halloween tag, though no guarantees all the links will still work.

UPDATE: Halloween Bantha Tracks.

So if last week StarWars.com was celebrating the Millennium Falcon, this week’s pet topic seems to be aliens: Cantina roll-call (originally published on the site back in 2003,) alien collectibles (Hyperspace,) and an old drunk driving PSA.

Just days after the last one, StarWars.com posts a new Hyperspace short story: Crossroads by Christopher Cerasi, featuring Leia only three months before Courtship of Princess Leia.

Deader than a Triton Moon is a brand new short story from Jason Fry, co-author of the upcoming Essential Atlas.

The Official Star Wars Fan Club Breakfast at San Diego Comic Con will be Friday, July 25th at the godforsaken hour of 7am. Tickets are going for $62.75, and fan club members will be able to purchase them on Wednesday.