EUbits: Richardson on CEIII, inside The Complete Vader

Crimson Empire III. With Empire Lost #1 in stores, Dark Horse founder and co-writer Mike Richardson talks to Comic Book Resources about getting the Star Wars license and getting re-acquainted with Kir Kanos and crew.

The Complete Vader. Undecided on whether to get the book or not? Take a peek at some of the contents courtesy of Wired. For those who already have it, the Star Wars Books Facebook page is hosting a chat with authors Ryder Windham and Pete Vilmur on Tuesday.

Nonfiction. Also coming on Tuesday is the release of Industrial Light & Magic: The Art of Innovation, a nice coffee-table book for the effect nerds.

Video. Author J.W. Rinzler & Art Director Leslie Dilley talk about the massive Blueprints book at NYCC.

Excerpts. A tiny bit of The Old Republic: Revan, and a bigger one for Shadow Games.

Poll At Suvudu, Eric Geller asks which Star Wars books you’d like to see adapted for the screen. Alas, there’s not option for ‘none of them.’

EUbits: New excerpts for Darth Revan, Riptide, & Darth Plagueis

Plagueis the child? Today, Star Wars Books gives us the first in a series of mini-excerpts for James Luceno’s Darth Plagueis on Facebook. The Sith aren’t babysnatchers… most of the time.

On Stranger Tides: Paul Kemp dishes out a second excerpt, eight pages long, from Riptide, which comes out next week. If you missed the first excerpt, check it out on Suvudu.

Inside the Sith Empire: Random House has a good chunk of the first chapter of The Old Republic: Revan up on its site. Drew Karpyshyn’s novel about the character from the Knights of the Old Republic game comes out in November. If there’s one thing to be said about the Sith Empire, it’s that the trains run on time, so they must be doing something right.

Vader turns the page: At Suvudu, Eric Geller previews The Complete Vader with a video walkthrough of the book that looks at Darth Vader as both character and as pop culture icon.

Fate of the Jedi: In case you missed it, last week, Troy Denning has turned in his manscript for Apocalypse.

Comics: I’ve been busy reviewing the latest Star Wars comics over at Big Shiny Robot: Last week we had the awesome Invasion – Revelations #4, and the lackluster The Old Republic – The Lost Suns #5. This week, I take a peek at Knight Errant – Escape #3, and a The Clone Wars digest: Strange Allies.

EUbits: Zahn and Vader in the Insider, third Riptide excerpt, Padawan Menace on video

Star Wars Insider: Issue #127 hits the shelves this week, with Titan Magazines putting an overview online of its 100 pages. The cover article explains why Han Solo is still the man, and other features include a look at the new Star Tours attraction, an interview with Timothy Zahn, a look back at the radio dramas, and an extract from Drew Karpyshyn’s forthcoming The Old Republic: Revan novel.

Meanwhile, Del Rey announced on Facebook that a Darth Vader short story (not written by Haden Blackman) will be coming to an upcoming issue of the Insider.

Riptide: Just as Comic-con was getting going, Del Rey released a third mini excerpt from the upcoming novel Riptide by Paul S. Kemp.

LEGO Star Wars: The Padawan Menace: After being broadcast over this past weekend on Cartoon Network, the animated LEGO Star Wars special will be coming to DVD and Blu-ray on September 16, coinciding with the Star Wars saga Blu-ray release. Also, Scholastic is putting out an adaptation for the kids of the show, sayeth Amazon. Stay tuned for our review of the hilarious adventure.

Comic-Con news: Book of Sith coming in 2012

Book of SithThe team of The Jedi Path now invites readers to delve into the Dark Side with Book of Sith, coming from Becker & Mayer through Amazon Publishing in January 2012.

At Comic-Con International, Epic Ink (part of Becker & Mayer) is showcasing the amazing (and large) Star Wars: The Blueprints by J. W. Rinzler, in its first public appearance, but is also spreading the word about the upcoming project, Book of Sith. Don’t want to shell out $500 for Star Wars: The Blueprints? Maybe you can win a copy in Epic Ink’s Comic-Con Giveaway! Or just drool over it virtually with the trailer.

You’ll also want to check out the cover art for Drew Karpyshyn’s Revan novel:

And in other Comic-Con news, check out Swank-mo-tron’s review of the Star Wars Blu-ray experience at Comic-Con’s Preview Night.

EUbits: New Lost Tribe, Fate of the Jedi excerpts

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.

EUbits: Interviews with Rostoni, Shapiro and Allie

Interviews, everywhere! There’s been an absolute plague of interviews lately. EUC talks to Lucasfilm Licensing’s Sue Rostoni, Podcaster Sohaib had Del Rey’s Shelly Shapiro on his show last week, and Roqoo Depot has Jedi: The Dark Side writer Scott Allie.

Blurbs. Drew Karpyshyn’s Revan novel gets a summary.

Fandom. Michael Falkner is breaking up with the ForceCast over their recent treatment of Expanded Universe fans.

Namesake corner. I’ve got two fairly minor Mara Jade bits today: io9 named her one of their 10 sexiest assassins. Naturally, it features fan art of both the badly photoshopped and naked body paint persuasions. (Sigh.) On the other hand, there’s a new namesake: A foal. She has a twin sister named after Princess Leia.

Street date shuffle: Choices, Heir shift again; Revan pushed back to November

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.

FOTJ: Ascension pushed back a week; Del Rey wants your input on The Old Republic era books

Del Rey announced today on Facebook that Fate of the Jedi: Ascension by Christie Golden will have its release date pushed back from August 16 to August 23. (Our book release schedule has been updated.) Don’t forget that the next FOTJ novel, Aaron Allston’s Conviction, comes out on May 24!

Also, their reader poll this week gives a chances for readers to give feedback on continuing The Old Republic era after the third novel, Revan, comes out. Did people read and like Fatal Alliance and Deceived? Get your thoughts in on their Facebook discussion.

EUbits: Don’t expect a Big 3 novel from Kemp

Interview. Paul S. Kemp’s Star Wars books so far have seemed to be fairly well received, but will we ever see him step up to write Luke, Han, Leia and the rest? In an interview with the Dearborn Press and Guide, Kemp says “I don’t think so.”

“Writers bring certain things to the table as part of the craft. Some are very good at plotting, some are gifted at prose, I think where I excel naturally is developing interesting, conflicted characters. To do that, I need a lot of room. It’s hard to do that with characters with so much history already behind them. It’s difficult for me to tell the kind of story I’d like to tell and have it star Luke, Han, Lando, and Leia, and their kids.”

The rest of the article echos much of what he said in a blog entry about getting started as a writer.

The Old Republic: Revan. Drew Karpyshyn has a brief Q&A on his site about the upcoming book – which, you may be happy to know, is already in the hands of Del Rey. The book is current scheduled for an October release.

Comics. Comic Book Resources interviews John Ostrander about the upcoming series Agent of the Empire. Also at CBR, six pages of Jedi: The Dark Side #1.

Art. If you’re a fan of the Hildebrandt’s artwork for Shadows of the Empire, you’ll want to check out this gallery by Paxton Holley on Flickr, which contains some shots of the models for the some of the paintings. (via mMathab)

Opinion Chris over at EUC has some suggestions for the various publishing eras.