Club Jade

Of course. There’s a Darth Maul comic coming. Darth Maul: Death Sentence #1 will launch July 25 and feature Maul and his brother Savage Opress roaming the galaxy in a beat-up light freighter and solving mysteries. Well, I made up the bit about the freighter. And the mysteries. Everything else is true! Sort of.

Confirmation, non-fiction. It’s not available yet, but Rancho Obi-wan has added the new Steve Sansweet book, Star Wars: The Ultimate Action Figure Collection: 35 Years of Characters. It’s co-authored by Anne Neumann and noted fan photographer Dan Curto.

Confirmation, fiction. Looks like they’re moving ahead with a third character guide. Expect a totally new different-looking Ben Skywalker!

Street date shuffle. Feel like some super minor schedule news? Lost Tribe of the Sith: The Collected Stories has moved up a week, from July 31 to the 24th. Exciting!

Pretty. Knights Archive spotted the cover for Star Wars Art: Illustration on Amazon. There’s a Yoda on it: Bitches love Yoda.

Kids. Snark aside, Darth Vader and Son looks kind of cute. Sadly, we will never see a ‘Mommy and Me’ version of this, unless you count The Phantom Menace, and I wouldn’t. It’ll be out any minute now.

According to Del Rey’s latest publishing schedule, The Essential Guide to Warfare release date has moved from May 22 to April 3. Our schedule has been updated.

Meanwhile, Del Rey has posted two new pieces of art from the book on their Star Wars Facebook page, including the one at right, a Republic weapons factory from The Clone Wars era.

Del Rey’s Erich Schoeneweiss annouced that the street date of Troy Denning’s Fate of the Jedi: Apocalypse – the final book in the series – has moved from April 3 to March 13. I normally don’t make stand-alone schedule posts for a single book, but with the gap between the last book and Apocalypse so large, even a 3-week date change can make a splash. (At least on a day when I’ve already posted an EUbits.)

Street date shuffle. The release of James Luceno’s Darth Plagueis has been pushed back from December 27 (read: still after Christmas) to January 10. No big; our ever-present Star Wars book release schedule has been updated.

Hintage. Lucasfilm editor J. W. Rinzler hints at future projects with DK on Twitter.

Excerpts. Fans longing for the return of Diet Han (just one calorie!) will love the latest Shadow Games mini-excerpt.

New York ComicCon. Del Rey will have Drew Karpyshyn and Bonnie Burton at their Star Wars booth. NYCC runs Oct. 13 – 16.

Interviews. Amazon’s Omnivoracious blog interviews Paul S. Kemp, while the official blog talks to Carlos Garzón about Star Wars Art: Comics.

Street date shuffle. The release of Jason Fry’s Essential Guide to Warfare has been moved to May 22 next year, Erich Schoeneweiss announced on Facebook. On the plus side, it’s only two months, and he did include a nice Hoth sketch from Tommy Lee Edwards.

Contest. Suvudu is planning another meal for three fans with Timothy Zahn. This time it’s breakfast at Dragon*Con with Tim, Shelly Shapiro and Betsy Mitchell.

Fate of the Jedi. Suvudu also has five Ascension tidbits with Christie Golden, while the Star Wars Books Facebook will have a live chat with her tomorrow.

Video. The Blueprints has a trailer. Naturally.

Del Rey has tweaked the release schedule again… This time, Zahn’s Choices of One moves back to the original date of July 19th, while the Heir to the Empire anniversary edition moves up slightly to September 6.

Drew Karpyshyn’s The Old Republic: Revan jumps back a month to November 15. Meanwhile, on his blog, Karpyshyn compares game Revan to book Revan.

As I post this, Del Rey editor Shelly Shapiro is chatting with fans on Facebook. I’ll be back later with another post on her comments when the dust has cleared.

Del Rey announced a few schedule tweaks on Facebook today. The changes are due to “an adjustment to the book schedule as dictated by our publisher.”

Moving up are Zahn’s Choices of One (from July 19th to July 12th – the same day as one of the year’s most anticipated fantasy) and Golden’s Fate of the Jedi: Ascension (From August 23 to August 9.)

The pushbacks are just a tad more dramatic, sadly. Heir to the Empire: 20th Anniversary Edition moves the most, from June 28 to September 13 — the same week as the Blu-Rays. Kemp’s Riptide goes almost a full month, from September 27 to October 25.

Our release schedule has been updated.

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.

Zombies? Zombies! StarWars.com has posted the first chapter of Joe Shreiber’s Red Harvest as a PDF. Hopefully that will hold you zombie fans off until the tail end of December.

Let it go. There was much discussion late last week on Twitter over the appearance of a character in a Clone Wars preview clip who had been previously killed off in some minor video game several years ago. Y’all might have a case with the Mando stuff (though I still can’t bring myself to care, because Mandos) but this? This is why the phrase ‘don’t sweat the small stuff’ exists.

Interviews. Going back a bit, EUC has summarized some notable bits from an interview that the Fictional Frontiers podcast did with Del Rey’s Shelly Shapiro. She talks about Fate of the Jedi and links to Legacy. Also, Daniel Wallace talks The Jedi Path with StarWars.com.

Street date shuffle. I made a few tweaks to our book release schedule this weekend… Nothing particularly noteworthy, just a few minor adjustments in mid-2011.

Fanmade. Check out this version of Tenel Ka’s rancor tooth lightsaber by Heather (@hexterah) who dressed up as the character at DragonCon.)

Riptide. Paul S. Kemp broke out another brief excerpt from his Crosscurrent sequel on Friday.

Comics. Dark Horse has revealed the cover to Legacy: War #2; Writer John Jackson Miller talks Knight Errant at The Sci-Fi Block.

Further reading. EU Cantina has a new column by Chris (@VileZero) and so far he’s addressed the Darth Plagueis novel and upcoming comics as well as some gaming/Clone Wars stuff. Check it out.

Street date shuffle. It was a slow news week, so Random House moving Denning’s Fate of the Jedi: Vortex up a week got a lot of ink. Still months away, but I did update our book schedule.

Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter (@clubjade) for updates and discussion.