Club Jade

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.

Comic fans are getting two titles this Wednesday: Legacy #39 and Dark Times #14. As for book fans, you can pick up the paperback of Sean William’s The Force Unleashed novelization today.

(It’s also a good time to start keeping an eye out for Ryder Windham’s A New Hope: The Life of Luke Skywalker. The official release date is next Tuesday, but Scholastic doesn’t seem to use the same strict streeting as Del Rey, so booksellers may put it out whenever it arrives.)

Random House has revealed the cover for Windham and Vilmur’s The Complete Vader, a nonfiction look at the Dark Lord in, out and around the films. Further details – like the blurb we got in February – can be found at Becker & Mayer.

ROTS-era Vader stock art isn’t going to blow anyone away, but the cover looks slick enough, so check it out beneath the cut. (more…)

Back in February we heard that Ryder Windham was writing another character ‘bio’ for Scholastic, and today brings details from StarWars.com – the title is A New Hope: The Life of Luke Skywalker. Above, the slipcase and cover art.

Windham has previously written The Life and Legend of Obi-Wan Kenobi and The Rise and Fall of Darth Vader.

Eddie of StarWarsTimeline.com potted the title (Darth Vader: The Dark Lord and His Universe) and blurb for the upcoming guide on beckermayer.com:

Fully licensed with Lucasfilm, VADER will be the definitive book on the history, myth, and cultural impact of Darth Vader. From his early development by George Lucas in the original classic films, to the new legends created in comics and novels, to his appearances on everything from commercials to bedspreads, VADER will present a complete view of the character. This book will contain unique pieces both printed flat and removable, including never-before-seen concept sketches, rare promotional materials, early comic books, video games, action figures, merchandise, movie posters, and more.

We also learn that Pete Vilmur and Ryder Windham are authoring it. Becker & Mayer were responsible for 2007′s The Star Wars Vault, so this is sure to be good.

A fan at TFN discovered a listing for a Luke Skywalker bio by Ryder Windham on Amazon, due out in September. And while we haven’t any official confirmation, previous sightings have been known to follow through.

UPDATE: Ryder Windham told EUC: “Yes, I have written a bio-novel for Luke Skywalker.”

Scholastic doesn’t bother with strict street-dating like Del Rey does, so it’s not too much of a shock that Ryder Windham’s The Life and Legend of Obi-Wan Kenobi has been spotted in stores (and Amazon is shipping it) despite being an ‘October’ release. Which in book time means September, but what the hell – we’re almost there.

StarWars.com updates today with the official announcement of Ryder Windham’s Obi-Wan bio (spotted on Amazon in March) which is titled Star Wars: The Life and Legend of Obi-Wan Kenobi and sports some nifty Hugh Fleming cover art.

Meanwhile, for the post-ROTJ fans, a hefty blurb for the highly-anticipated Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor.

A certain power droid of our acquaintance points us towards another mysterious appearance on Amazon – an Obi-Wan bio by Ryder Windham, in the form of a Scholastic hardcover set for October. Amazon isn’t the most reliable source for early news, but a companion book to last fall’s The Rise and Fall of Darth Vader is certainly not out of the question.

• Fanboys: The Stop Darth Weinstein campaign gets some mainstream coverage in the New York Post, Vanity Fair’s VF Daily blog, and The Daily Telegraph.

• Events: Author Ryder Windham speaks in Tiverton, Rhode Island.
• People George Lucas at …the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network awards? (Girlfriend Mellody Hobson was being honored.)
• Places: Tunisia’s Sidi Driss is among USA Today’s 10 great places to check into movie-hotel history.