Club Jade

Embrace the pain. Inspired by the latest in transparent rumor-mongering, Cracked puts their well-worn Wookieepedia bookmark to use to come up with five reasons the Star Wars sequels would be worse than the prequels. As an EU fan, I say… Well, yeah. It’s easy to be hard on the prequels, but we can’t deny that the post-ROTJ EU is at least equally screwed up. (I for one have no problem admitting the EU is probably worse. One word, kids: Volume. Also, [insert your least favorite author/book here.])

Not that I would expect George to actually use the existing EU for much besides a few spare parts if he ever did decide to make a sequel trilogy. But various statements he’s made over the last few years show he really doesn’t see much in the sequel era – Han Solo and the Backyard Barbecue much?

Postponed. The Complete Vader will be getting a new release date due to printing issues. It was supposed to be out on Tuesday, but better a nice, carefully reconstructed book than a complete crispy mess completely encased in plastic, right?

The blogside. Mike Stackpole on assumption that authors are their characters.

From the horse’s mouth. A speculative TFN thread prompts John Ostrander to make a preemptive strike and announce that Legacy will not be following in the footsteps of Knights of the Old Republic and ending with issue #50.

Also in comics: Previews for Legacy #41, Invasion #5, The Clone Wars #10 and the one-shot Purge: Seconds to Die.

You probably don’t need me to tell you that the internet famous Star Wars/zombie mashup novel Death Troopers is out today, what with all the twittering and reviewing and interviewing and such. Like, StarWars.com’s Zombie Week. (I don’t know about you, but I’m crossing my fingers for an official ‘Thriller’ video.)

Don’t forget Joe Schreiber’s book tour, which begins tonight in Huntington Beach, California.

As for Wednesday comics, there’s Invasion #0, which may look a little familiar.

Buffy is here to save the day! No, wait, it’s only Invasion #4, out in comic shops on Wednesday. Oh well!

But on that note, the TFN boards are celebrating ten years of the New Jedi Order. Grab your favorite womb spore and… uhh… err… Chewbacca! Damn it. Sorry, I’m just not up to this one.

If Amazon is to be believed, today is the ‘official’ release date of Ryder Windham’s A New Hope: The Life of Luke Skywalker. Wednesday brings Invasion #3, featuring the triumphant return of Beefy the Vong! Or something.

Winceworthy. Geekdad’s Lonnie Morgan gets a bit too into reading Star Wars novels and celebrates by inflicting yet another round of fantasy casting upon the internets. (I dislike this kind of thing: They all tend to come out in fail.) There’s also a poll on which (if any) EU series/era you’d like to see come to the screen.

Lost Tribe of the Sith: Sue Rostoni gave a tentative date of February 9th for the next installment of the Fate of the Jedi tie-in ebooks. That’s about a month before the fourth book, Allston’s Backlash, is due out.

The blogside: Dan Wallace and Jason Fry continue with their Essential Atlas endnotes; Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff on dealing with aliens.

Podcasts: Thursday’s EUCast (7pm EST) will focus on Mara Jade.

Comic previews: Invasion #3, Knights of the Old Republic #45, and The Clone Wars #9.

Gaming: A 20-minute video walkthrough of The Old Republic MMO.

The official site has the November solicitations, including the much-anticipated Purge: Seconds to Die one-shot. Also, Invasion #5, The Clone Wars #10, Knights of the Old Republic #47, and Legacy #42. There’s also the third installment of the Star Wars Adventures digests, Luke Skywalker and the Treasure of the Dragonsnakes.

And for reprints, a Shadows of the Empire omnibus and Thrawn Trilogy hardcover collecting the comic adaptions of Zahn’s Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, and The Last Command.

No book releases until the 18th (more on that later,) but you can look forward to two comics on Wednesday: Dark Times: Blue Harvest #0, which looks to be the online lead-in in print form, and Invasion #2.

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.

StarWars.com has Dark Horse’s solicitations for October, including Invasion #4 and #0 (which reprints the StarWars.com previews with six new pages,) Knights of the Old Republic #46, a Mando-fanboy pleasing Legacy #41 and Legacy Volume 7.

On that note, there’s a quickie interview with Invasion’s Tom Taylor on the TFN boards.

So the new comic debuted last week, and both NJOE and IGN have reviews, while Dark Horse has an interview with creators Tom Taylor and Colin Wilson.

I was fairly underwhelmed with it, but that’s pretty much par for the course with Dark Horse… I’ll just have to wait and see how it pans out.