Club Jade

Fate of the Jedi. The seventh of John Jackson Miller’s Lost Tribe of the Sith ebooks, Pantheon, was released today. It features an except of the next Fate of the Jedi book, Golden’s Ascension, which was also the subject of the last mini-except on Facebook. Ascension will be out August 9.

Upcoming. Announced last week, The Millennium Falcon Owners’ Workshop Manual by Ryder Windham with Chris Trevas and Chris Reiff on art. Currently scheduled for a February 2012 release.

SDCC. Del Rey will be giving out Revan masks in San Diego this weekend. (Revan masks? Really?) I seem to recall them promising that the book’s cover would revealed at the con, so there’s that, too.

Excerpt. The official site has a PDF except of Paul S. Kemp’s Riptide, which is due in October. The cover painting is up on eBay… I never would have guessed it was Dave Seeley, but it does look a little better here. (He also has Blood Oath and Mindor up.)

Namesake corner. I have a Choices of One post coming up, but for now, just know that Mara took the top two spots in the Expanded Universe category of Rebelscum’s Hasbro wishlist poll.

Two smugglers walk into a bar… Today on the official forums, editor Sue Rostoni shared a brief excerpt from the proof of Michael Reaves and Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff’s Shadow Games. Black-barred for the paranoid spoilerphobics:

“In case you haven’t noticed, Captain, there are Imperials all over the place. It would be in our customer’s interests to be discreet.”

The Wookiee said something, to which Han replied, “Of course I’m discreet. I’m always discreet.” To Dash he said, “What’d you have in mind?”

The proof, for those of you keeping track, is 338 pages. Shadow Games will be out in paperback in the fall.

Interview. Lightsaber Rattling talks to Paul Kemp about his just-released Old Republic tie-in, Deceived.

Blurbs. In other Kemp-related news, there’s a summary out there now for his September paperback, Riptide. (via)

Comics. The Crimson Empire story that will be in Dark Horse Presents #1 will feature Kir Kanos in a standalone tale that will both recap some of the earlier CE and set things up for CEIII, according to Randy Stradley.

First look. The next in the Lost Tribe of the Sith series, ‘Pantheon,’ will hit July 18th.

StarWars.com has the PDF of John Jackson Miller’s Lost Tribe of the Sith: Sentinel. It includes an excerpt of Allston’s Fate of the Jedi: Conviction, which is due out in hardcover on May 24.

While it has been previously announced that John Jackson Miller’s ebook novella series, Lost Tribe of the Sith will be collected in a print anthology, more details emerged about the series in an author chat hosted by Del Rey’s Star Wars Books Facebook account. Both Miller and Del Rey reps confirmed the following schedule for the (free) digital releases:

• Part Six: “Sentinel” – Februray 21, 2011
• Part Seven: “Pantheon” – July 19, 2011
• Part Eight: “Secrets” – March 8, 2012
• Print collection – August 2012, and it will contain an additional “long” story.

The concept of the overall series is that the first four form the Founders tetralogy (how the lost tribe started from some stranded “middle-managers in the cause of evil”), and the second four fit into the Darker Times, while the new material will help show how the tribe evolved from to closer to what is encountered in the Fate of the Jedi series.

And in very early phases of Knight Errant, there might have been some sort of Twilighty romance between Kerra Holt and Lord Daiman, but scrapped as the characters developed – since Daiman’s really only in love with himself, and Kerra is just way too busy trying to stay alive and help those around her. Pitched from Dark Horse to Miller as a “lone female Jedi”, Miller envisioned Kerra traveling solo like the Lone Ranger, even without a sidekick or droid Tonto.

Going back to Miller’s work on the Knights of the Old Republic, he mentioned that the charming con artist Gryph was originally supposed to be an Ortolan, like Max Rebo, before being changed to a Snivvian. Zayne Carrick’s last name connects back to Miller’s college dorm room.

We got a number of schedule updates from Sue Rostoni today. There were a few notable delays – Riptide, Shadow Games and (sigh) Fate of the Jedi: Apocalypse have all been pushed back a few months. There were also a number of additions: Drew Karpyshyn’s contribution to The Old Republic tie-ins set for October. Looking forward into 2012, Luceno’s Plagueis novel is up for January, and Allston’s new Wraith book for July.

We also got what is perhaps our first conformation that John Jackson Miller’s Lost Tribe of the Sith is set for print. Head on over to our book schedule for all the details.

With Knight Errant coming out next week, writer John Jackson Miller has crossed over to the dark side – or at least crossed from penning comics and short stories to his first novel. John took some time to talk with Club Jade about the new book, as well as the Knight Errant comics and Lost Tribe of the Sith series of e-books. (more…)

‘Purgatory,’ the fifth installment of John Jackson Miller’s Fate of the Jedi tie-in is here, complete with a Jaina and Lando excerpt from next month’s Vortex.

Are you one of the dozen or so EU fans deeply invested in timelines and whether the ones that are published in the books are complete? If so, it’s your lucky day: Suvudu has posted a PDF of the new one which includes everything an novel obsessive will need. (Theoretically, anyway. But my slavish attachment to informed opinion about reading in publication order is another post entirely.)

I’m no timeline junkie (clearly) but there does actually seem to be news in there! Head on over to EUC to see why the future installments of Lost Tribe of the Sith are exciting. (I guess?)

The fourth free eBook novella and Fate of the Jedi tie-in from John Jackson Miller went up on StarWars.com tonight. And even if the Sith don’t do anything for you, don’t forget this contains our first look at Christie Golden’s Fate of the Jedi: Allies.

UPDATE: Look, Googlers: There will be no more Imperial or Republic Commando books. Aaron Allston is writing a Wraith Squadron book that took RC #2′s publishing slot. It’s over.

Sue Rostoni has let lose several bits of news on the StarWars.com message boards today:

• Michael Reaves and Maya Bohnoff will do a fourth Coruscant Nights book with the tentative title of Jedi Dawn. It’s set for November 2012 and is in addition to the 2011 holostar novel.

• A hardcover has been assigned for March 2012, but the author can’t be revealed yet.
• Imperial Commando #2 has been scheduled for February 2012. An author has been selected – but the contract hasn’t been signed yet so we’ll have to wait for that reveal. It will likely be the last novel in the series (thus technically making it a duology,… Details, details.)
• She’s “hoping” that a paperback anthology of John Jackson Miller’s Lost Tribe of the Sith stories will be released in paperback sometime in 2010.

She’s also posted an updated release schedule: I’ll be updating ours later today. Thanks to Eddie for the heads-up!