Club Jade

Sith check. Paul S. Kemp’s Old Republic novel, Decieved, drops two weeks from today, so naturally there’s a book trailer.

Kemp has been making the rounds: He appeared on TOR-Talk and an interview with Fictional Frontiers will surely be appearing soonish. And those audiobooks he was giving away last time? The winners are up.

Weird facts. Who’s written the most Star Wars (adult) novels? The answer may surprise you.

Recently… John Jackson Miller has Knight Errant novel answers.

Details, details. Dan Wallace on how the trade paperback Jedi Path will differ from the fancy box version. The answers will… Probably not surprise you.

Interview. There’s not a whole lot of Star Wars talk here , but if anyone deserves a link without that pesky fact, it’s our pal Mike Stackpole.

Awards. The Nebula nominations are out, and up for best novel is one of my favorite reads of 2010, N.K. Jemisin’s The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. Also up are M.K. Hobson’s The Native Star, Mary Robinette Kowal’s Shades of Milk and Honey, Jack McDevitt’s Echo, Nnedi Okorafor’s Who Fears Death and Connie Willis’ two-in one punch of Blackout and All Clear.

The Hunger Games. A pair of LJers consider the geography of Panem – quite impressively. (Because who hasn’t wondered what District their state would end up in?)

Sookie Stackhouse. Author Charlaine Harris told Hero Complex that her next two books will wrap up the popular supernatural mystery series. And she’s writing a video game?

Upcoming. io9 lists the books they’re looking forward to for spring.

Optioned. The screen rights for John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War have been acquired by Paramount. Naturally, Scalzi has a few things to say on the matter.

Excerpt. Preview one of the year’s most anticipated fantasies, Patrick Rothfuss’ The Wise Man’s Fear.

Review. Andrew Liptak on Mike Stackpole’s latest, At The Queen’s Command.

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.

Bookspot Central breaks in a brand-new interview feature by talking to Paul S. Kemp about getting into Star Wars, including some words of wisdom from Mike Stackpole:

At this last GenCon I met Mike Stackpole and asked him about his experiences writing Star Wars. He didn’t offer direct advice either, but he said if you write a good book, the fans will love you forever. Write a bad one, and there will be hell to pay.

Wherever would he get an idea like that? (via)

• IGN has a refresher on the characters of The Clone Wars. Nothing the obsessives don’t already know.

• Mike Stackpole honored with asteroid namesake.
• Chris Trevas confirms to EU Cantina that Chris Reiff is indeed a second artist on the blueprint collection, not just a figment of Amazon’s imagination.
• And now there are Mad Libs. Great. Can we just have Sir Dan make some instead? Authorized games so boring. (via)

Haven’t made it to the bookstore yet? Peek inside Making of Star Wars with a new feature on the Random House website.

Star Wars events all over this May, with author appearances by Timothy Zahn, Matthew Stover, J.W. Rinzler, Michael Stackpole, Helen Keier and more!

Rebelscum has Dark Horse’s April solicitations, including Legacy #11 and KOTOR #16. Trade paperbacks include Clone Wars Adventures Vol. 8, 30th Anniversary Collection Vol. 4 and Vol. 3 of Stackpole’s X-Wing Rogue Squadron.

And they ask him about Wes and Hobbie’s ‘relationship’ at DragonCon. (Note Helen to the right of Mike!)

But wait, there’s more beneath the cut! (Watch the video first.)

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Several transcripts from IRC chats with Star Wars luminaries – mostly authors – from the late 90′s: Bulloch, Zahn, Allston, Stackpole, Anderson, Crispin, Salvatore and more.

Requiem of the Outcast has done a a podcast interview with Timothy Zahn, Aaron Allston, and Mike Stackpole at StellarCon. Click on the ‘listen’ link to download the mp3 file.