Roundup: Star Wars authors consider future movies, Ewan down with a return to the desert

X-Wing: Mercy KillPonders. Christian Blauvelt asks eight Star Wars authors (Drew Karpyshyn, Paul Kemp, Troy Denning, John Jackson Miller, James Luceno, Michael Reaves, Christie Golden and Aaron Allston) what they’d like to see in Episode VII and the other new films. Lots of love for the EU and female characters, naturally, which is more than I can say for most of the other wishlists that have been popping up daily.

Spin-offs. Ewan McGregor continues to voice his willingness to return as Obi-Wan. “I don’t know what he did in the desert,” he tells MTV. “We could make up some stuff.”

Superfans. Kevin Smith is (still) very excited. Though his casting for a young Han Solo is… the worst I’ve seen yet. Hopefully for the LULZ.

Video. J.J. Abrams D.I.C.E keynote speech.

EUbits: Crucible tweaks Han, Maul’s Lockdown gets a release date

One Han, Two Hans. New version is on the left.Adjustments. The Han on the Crucible cover got a slight tweak. (Why yes, it is a slow week for EU news!) The important thing is, the release date remains the same: July 9.

Street dates. Speaking of upcoming releases, pencil in Joe Schreiber’s Maul: Lockdown for a January 21, 2014 release. Not because we don’t believe it’s coming, but because this far out, dates are subject to change. And on that note, 2014 is now an actual thing on our release schedule. Meanwhile, if you don’t want to wait most of a year to read about Maul, Aaron Goins has a list of 7 tales you can check out right now.

Comics. Corinna Bechko and Gabriel Hardman chat about their forthcoming Legacy: Prisoner of the Floating World at Geek of Oz.

Reviews. Over at Big Shiny Robot, James gets enthusiastic about the happenings in Agent of the Empire: Hard Targets #4 and Dark Times: Fire Carrier #1.

EUbits: Into the Void protagonist, plotline revealed

Force Wars image from The Jedi Path. Dawn of the Jedi. Del Rey has posted a blurb for Tim Lebbon’s Into the Void, the first novel tie-in to the comic series. It reveals the novel’s protagonist, Je’daii Lanoree Brock. Always nice to see another female lead!

Previews. Jedi News has first looks from Dark Horse at standalone Darth Vader and the Ninth Assassin, the Lost Tribe of the Sith: Spiral trade and what looks to be the first Legacy omnibus.

Comics. Brian Wood’s very upcoming Star Wars comics, Scoundrels, and The Clone Wars got some love from USA Today this weekend, including another cover and some extra preview material for the comic.

Interviews. Fangirl Blog continues their talk with Troy Denning. He hints a bit about Crucible, revealing that it’s a “Han-driven” book.

Reviews. James is underwhelmed by Purge: The Tyrant’s Fist #2.

EUbits: Read 50 pages of Scoundrels

ScoundrelsScoundrels. With only a few days until the book’s release in January 1, we’re seeing plenty of Scoundrels action. There’s 50 pages on Suvudu and a brief excerpt on io9 (which is also part of the larger chunk.) And Aaron Goins’ review is up over at Star Wars Report.

Interviews. For it being the holiday season, there sure are a lot of them popping up lately. Fangirl has Troy Denning, there’s Brian Wood at Newsarama, Randy Stradley at CBR and Steve Sansweet at GalacticHunter.

Rebels. Martha Wells is nearly done with the first draft of her Star Wars novel.

Another excerpt. Knights Archive was first to spot that there’s a chapter of Michael Reaves and Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff’s The Last Jedi up at the Random House catalog.

EUbits: Denning’s Crucible date shifts again – but not far

Release dates. Troy Denning’s Crucible has appeared in the Random House catalog with a date of July 9 – last we heard, it was the 2nd. But remember, we’re far enough out that it may still change again.

Comics, currently. Brian Wood talks about his Star Wars comic with Westfield Comics. (You can take a look at the cover for issue #2 at Newsarama.) And CBR has a look at Doug Wheatley’s cover for Dark Times: Fire Carrier.

Interviews. Fangirl talks to Drew Karpyshyn, while the latest installment of Jedi Journals has Del Rey’s Erich Schoeneweiss – recorded before the Episode VII announcement.

Comics, history. CBR’s Comic Book Legends Revealed looks at the rumor that George Lucas was not so pleased with Jaxxon the giant green rabbit, among other Marvel hearsay.

The blogside. If wacky old Marvel isn’t crazy enough for you, Tosche Station’s Nanci has continued her Jedi Prince retrospective with Zorba the Hutt’s Revenge, Mission from Mount Yoda, and Queen of the Empire.

Scoundrels will tease Crucible, Dawn of the Jedi

Scoundrels will be out January 1st, while Into the Void and Crucible are currently scheduled for May 7 and July 2. All three books are hardcovers.

EUbits: The Essential Reader’s Companion approaches

That’s no moon. With the Essential Reader’s Companion only 3 weeks away, copies are landing on the desks of the official types (with, one assumes, an audible thud.) Expect to see a lot of reviewer tweets about it soon. In the meantime, you can get a closer look at some of the portraits and check out the first 28 pages in the Random House catalog. (via)

The blogside. Tor’s Emily Asher-Perrin takes a look at ‘the true nature of the force,’ addressing a lot of the weird and complicated issues at hand with ‘balance’ and all the rest of the simple tricks and nonsense scattered throughout fandom.

Costuming. Trisha Barr interviews Shea Standefer about her great Jaina Solo costumes at CVI. Bria wrote about gender-swapped costumes, including a crossplay Wraith Squadron she took part in at D*C. And, on that note, more Expanded Universe costumes from D*C.

Interviews. John Ostrander talks about the next arc of Agent of the Empire at CBR; Roqoo Depot caught up with Timothy Zahn, James Luceno, and Troy Denning at Celebration.

Blurb. There’s now one for The Last Jedi by by Michael Reaves and Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff. (via)

Audio Random House Audio has a poll up on Facebook asking which of three books – Miller’s Knight Errant, Reaves/Perry’s Death Star or Zahn’s Allegiance – you want to hear on audio first.

EUbits: Is July 16th the Crucible release date?

Street dates. Knights Archive spotted this release date for Troy Denning’s Crucible on the Random House Smart Archive. As it is put there by the publisher this could be the real release date… At the moment, anyway. The farther we are out from a release date, the more the things move around, but it might be worth penciling in.

Meet the new folks. Rebels authors Martha Wells and Kevin Hearne both spoke out publicly for the first time after the announcement of their new Star Wars project.

Star Wars Reads. Start planning for October 6th now, as StarWars.com has posted a location map for events through the U.S. A few authors have posted where they’ll be appearing already: Troy Denning, Dan Wallace and John Jackson Miller will be in Roseville, MN, while Pablo Hidalgo and Haden Blackman will appear in Corte Madera, CA, along with Aaron Allston, Drew Karpyshyn and Alexander Freed in Austin, TX. I suspect we’ll be hearing about more of these as the date approaches!

Comics. Skuldren from Roqoo Depot taped the ‘One Writer’s Approach to Star Wars’ panel at Celebration.

Detectiving! In all the hussle and bussle of live-tweeting Celebration, there’s not always time go back and find your sources. Thankfully, Pete did a little digging to find Paul Kemp’s tweet about his mystery duology.

Jawajames’ recap in photos of Star Wars Celebration VI Friday

Dunc has covered all the news, and I’m just the guy who takes the pictures. and organizes the Bounty Hunt puzzle hunt event at Celebration. So anyway, here’s some of the best of the photos. If you want to see the full set, I have a photo album just of Friday at Celebration VI (170 shots of the Del Rey panel, cupcakes, Friday Bounty Hunt, random costumes) on flickr. Continue reading “Jawajames’ recap in photos of Star Wars Celebration VI Friday”