Club Jade

The Star Wars Books Facebook page posted their first excerpt from the annotations of the Heir to the Empire 20th anniversary edition.

“Each of the three classic Star Wars movies includes a Star Destroyer in its opening scene. All of my Rebellion-era books do the same.” — Timothy Zahn

Okay, so many of us have reread the Thrawn trilogy dozens/hundreds of times and are already pretty familiar with this. But Del Rey says in the comments: “They get longer…just wanted to get everyone’s feet wet.” One down, 13 to go!

The annotated edition will be released June 21.

The new information pretty much lines up with what Del Rey’s Erich Schoeneweiss told the EUCast earlier in the month, but we do get a title for the new Thrawn novella – and word of an introduction from Timohy Zahn:

Del Rey Books is publishing a commemorative edition hardcover of Heir to the Empire, with commentary-style annotations by Zahn and other behind-the-scenes people responsible for making the book a reality. Zahn will also pen an introduction to the book.

The book features a reflective jacket (fitting for the book’s platinum anniversary) and also has a specially printed version of the original cover underneath. It will include a new Zahn novella, Crisis of Faith, featuring Grand Admiral Thrawn. Heir to the Empire: The 20th Anniversary Edition is due out from Del Rey on June 21, 2011.

Namesake corner. Artist Grant Gould did a Thrawn trilogy/Tron: Legacy mashup for the cover of his 2011 sketchbook. I LOL’ed.

I gotta see how they managed that. Apparently there’s a full-color excerpt from the Knight Errant comic in the Knight Errant novel. The paperback. It’s on glossy paper, but is it readable at that size? I guess we’ll find out. Maybe we should ask author John Jackson Miller, since he’s taking questions and all.

Map love. Entertainment Weekly dug up the galaxy map from The Essential Atlas, so it’s been making the rounds. Again! Oh, internets.

Comics. Dark Horse has posted a preview for Legacy: War #2.

Review. Book Legion says Year by Year is the “best Star Wars book to date.”

“There are no plans for reprints of Dark Force Rising or The Last Command at this time,” LucasBooks editor Sue Rostoni wrote this afternoon on the StarWars.com boards.

Note that it’s not an outright denial: Let’s hope that the sales figures for the annotated Heir to the Empire are good enough to make them consider doing the rest of the trilogy.

The EUCast had Del Rey editor Erich Schoeneweiss on their latest podcast, and he revealed a few tidbits about upcoming projects. Most notably (at least to us,) is that we have some confirmation that Timothy Zahn is not the only one contributing annotations to the book; Editor Betsy Mitchell and a few folks at Lucasfilm (Leland? Pablo?) will be as well.

He also said that the cover art we’ve seen for the Heir to the Empire 20th Anniversary Edition is likely to be close to the final, but:

To my knowledge it hasn’t been completely approved yet, but that’s definitely the direction that we want to go. I believe the plan is that that will be the jacket, and it will have sort of treatment, some sort of silver foil treatment on it. But then when you take the jacket off of it, underneath, (kind of similar to what we did with the Death Troopers hardcover) it will have the original book cover as the paper-over-board cover.

Does this make me a prophet? Well, except for the part about it being the original (ugh) art.

In other news, Schoeneweiss said that Jason Fry’s The Essential Guide to Warfare is being pushed back to 2012 and an Essential Guide to the Underworld is in the planning stages. Updated versions of the character and ship guides are also likely in the next few years.

They also got in touch with Shelly Shapiro, who said that while they’re still discussing Paul S. Kemp’s duology, “There’s a good chance” it will be in the Old Republic era.

NJOE (via) was first to spot that Random House’s summer catalog has gone up for public consumption – and in it is an early cover for the Heir to the Empire 20th Anniversary Edition on page 75.

Cover art that appears in the catalogs tends be very preliminary, so it’s hard to say if the final will look anything like this. But you know what? I don’t mind it. And if they do it in foil, it’ll stand out nicely from the crowd. Granted, I loath the original, so your mileage may vary.

The catalog also contains a listing for Choices of One (page 79,) but I’m not seeing anything new there. But also appearing with a preliminary cover is Jason Fry’s The Essential Guide to Warfare (page 89.)

StarWars.com has revealed that the Heir to the Empire anniversary edition will feature annotations and an exclusive short story featuring Grand Admiral Thrawn. (Naturally.)

NJOE has discovered a listing for a special reissue of Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire coming out next year. This is unconfirmed of course, but LFL has been hinting that something special is coming for the 20th anniversary of the book that jump-started the modern Expanded Universe.

Sue Rostoni confirms:

Yes, there are plans for a 20th Anniversary Issue of HEIR TO THE EMPIRE, coming out next June. It’s a hardcover — and that’s all I can reveal at this time.

Let’s hope the details emerge soon – and that they’ll include better cover art.

Del Rey brought plenty to the table for Celebration, but the biggest EU news is without a doubt the reveal that Aaron Allston will be writing a brand-new Wraith Squadron novel. It’s too early for details, but expect a spring/summer 2012 release date.

We also learned that Thrawn will appear in Zahn’s Hand of Judgment, Drew Karpyshyn will be writing a third Old Republic novel, Jeff Grubb’s 2012 paperback will feature Hutts, and Han Solo will appear in the Dash Rendar/Holostar novel. And TFN reports that something is in the works for the 20th anniversary of Heir to the Empire, to which I say: Damn straight.

As for Fate of the Jedi, we learned that the final book will be titled Apocalypse. Cheery! Also addressed was the heightening of drama, Vestara’s role, and (sigh) the whole Jacen/Tahiri thing. Except, not really. (I do love the Mando quote, of course.)

Meanwhile, the comic fans got a surprise of their own: Crimson Empire III is a go, for real this time. The 6-issue series will begin in March with Mike Richardson and Randy Stradley scripting and Dave Dorman on covers.

Knight Errant got a big push, complete with a costumed representation, but if the EUC report is anything to go by it’s too soon for much of a reveal.

As for Legacy, there are currently no plans for anything after the War mini – Ostrander and Duursema will “will be working on something entirely different.”

The rest of the news rehashes much we’ve already heard, but a hardcover edition of Dark Empire will commemorate the comic’s twentieth anniversary. And the return of Dark Horse Presents may yield some Tales-like stories.

Also getting some love at the con (but not enough for their own entry) was The Force Unleashed (Yoda? Really? That Muppet needs a better agent.) and The Old Republic.

RIP. Artist Al Williamson, who illustrated the Star Wars comic strip and adaptions of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, passed away this weekend. He’s remembered by editor Dave Land at DarkHorse.com

We read it uphill, in the snow, with no boots. Suvudu salutes Heir to the Empire — with a little help from Tim Zahn, editor Tom Dupree and art director Jamie S. Warren — as part of their 25 years of Spectra features.

Solicitations. Look ahead to September comics from Dark Horse, with new issues of Invasion, The Old Republic: Threat of Peace, that Fett thing, and a $1 reprint of Legacy #1.

Blogside. Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff on mistakes.

For the nitpickians. A new Essential Atlas appendix – in PDF form. Prime your hole-punchers!