Club Jade

TeeEffYou, too. A summary has appeared at Random House for The Force Unleashed II novelization. Admiral Ackbar may appear in the game and Hayden Blackman wants a movie and/or TV show. I’m torn between eye-rolling and snickering, and ended up just pulling something from Robot Chicken. As you do.

Sample. With less than a month to go to release, there’s an audio excerpt of Sean William’s The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance.

Maybe they should just start a blog. The Insider is going digital.

Interviews. SWBooks.co.uk talks to comic writer Tom Taylor; The EU Review has John Jackson Miller.

Random House (as spotted by Eddie) has posted a new summary for Sean William’s The Old Republic tie-in. Even omitting the intro filler, it’s a lengthy one, so strap in:

Tassaa Bareesh, a matriarch in the Hutt crime cartel, is holding an auction that’s drawing attention from across the galaxy. Representatives of both the Republic and the Sith Empire are present, along with a Jedi Padawan sent to investigate, a disenfranchised trooper drummed out of the Republic’s elite Blackstar Squad, and a mysterious Mandalorian with a private agenda. But the Republic’s envoy is not what he seems, the Empire’s delegate is a ruthless Sith apprentice, the Jedi Padawan is determined to do the right thing and terrified that he can’t, the trooper hopes to redeem her reputation, and the Mandalorian is somehow managing to keep one step ahead of everyone.

None of these guests—invited or uninvited—have any intention of participating in the auction. Instead they plan to steal the prize, which is locked inside an impregnable vault: two burned chunks of an exploded star cruiser, one of which may hold the key to the wealth of an entire world.

But the truth about the treasure is dangerous and deadly. And in the end, Sith and Jedi, Republic and Empire, must do something they’ve never done before, something that all the agents of good and evil could never make them do: join together to stop a powerful threat that could destroy the galaxy.

The current release date for the novel is July 20

Sean Williams’ The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance will indeed be a July hardcover. (Though I suspect that date may still be subject to change pending word on the release of the actual game.) But that’s not the only upcoming Expanded Universe work set in the era: The site has announced another Old Republic novel from Paul S. Kemp and a StarWars.com short story from Threat of Peace scribe Rob Chestney.

UPDATE: Kemp has confirmed that his TOR novel is not the Crosscurrent sequel. Given that Crosscurrent sounds like it’s going to playing with timelines, I’m not sure whether this is the “Crosscurrent sequel” Kemp announced a few months ago or a third Star Wars book from him… With things still in the “the early planning stages” it could very well be either. But on a more solid note, an excerpt from Crosscurrent did surface today.

Still nothing official, though. An extended title for the unconfirmed novel by Sean Williams was spotted on Amazon: The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance. (The release date remains listed as July 2010, but we still don’t have a date for the actual game, so count on nothing at this point.) Wonder if this means we’ll get some kind of official announcement soon?

The blogside. Drew Karpyshyn is going on about the Sith again, while Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff writes about filk.

Authors. Aaron Allston is on Twitter. Sort of.

Hyperspace: Go obscure with The Forgotten War: The Nagai and the Tofs by James McFadden.

Dan Wallace confirmed the book and shared some additional details on Year by Year with us yesterday, but now StarWars.com has an item on the book – including some early cover art and the addition of Gus Lopez as a writer. They also give us a short Q&A on Adventures in Hyperspace, which is being penned by Scholastic regular Ryder Windham.

We’re still waiting on word of Sean William’s The Old Republic novel – as yet, Sue Rostoni is “unable to either confirm nor deny.” (Don’t panic: That’s pretty standard.) Though audio versions have shown up on RandomHouse.com.

NJOE spotted a listing (and ISBN) for a Star Wars: The Old Republic novel by Sean Williams in an ordering database, with a release date of July 27, 2010. If it’s in an ordering database, we should be getting some official confirmation soon.

We already knew Williams had another novel in the pipeline – he auctioned off a character namesake to help raise money for the Australian bushfires earlier this year. (Could this be the September mystery from Sue’s schedule, moved up to replace the July possibility that fell through?)

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.)

Good news, everyone! Several of the initial auctions in the Australian bushfire charity effort wrapped up this week, with the character name rights both netting impressive takes – $1,725 for Karen Miller and $1,028.75 for Sean Williams.

• The blogside: People Are Talking is the seventh entry in Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff’s Padawan’s Journal.

• Fate of the Jedi: The release date for book 3, Denning’s Abyss, has been moved up a week to August 18th, according to Sue Rostoni. Our book release schedule has been updated accordingly.
• The Old Republic: Part 5 of the Threat of Peace webcomic is up, while the game’s developer blog takes a look at Ord Mantell.

The bushfires that raged in the Australian state of Victoria earlier this year killed more than 200 and left over 7000 homeless. The fires may be snuffed, but the victims are still hurting, and Star Wars fans have banded together to help them.

Though there are plenty of items up on Ebay now, including signed photographs from David Prowse, Kenny Baker, Jeremy Bulloch and Bonnie Piesse. But of particularly of interest to EU fans is a chance to get a namesake (tuckerized) character in the fifth Clone Wars novel by Karen Miller or a yet-unannounced Star Wars book (!) from Sean Williams. And Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta are offering an original manuscript from one of the Young Jedi Knights novels.

Interviews: Matthew Stover talks to SWBooks about Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor, while John Jackson Miller discusses the Knights of the Old Republic comics at IGN. And finally, Drew Karpyshyn at Lightsabre.

• Buy stuff: Some Star Wars books are 3-for-4 at Amazon.com. It’s all older paperbacks (no Mindor, though it is 34% off) but a good chance to catch up.

• Awards: Sean Williams and Karen Miller are up for Aurealis Awards.
• Contests: Ben Harper and Chronicle Books pick the most obsessed Star Wars fans; Suvudu is giving away a copy of Millennium Falcon with the custom dedication page.
• Previews:Knights of the Old Republic #36, Knights of the Old Republic #37.