David Maddox reviews Betrayal at SF Site, while Bookgasm takes on the NJO with Rebirth and Conquest.
Random outbursts of Allegiance news…
A summary of Timothy Zahn’s Allegiance was found by a TFN user on Amazon U.K. I wouldn’t put too much faith in it, as there are two listings for the book and the summary seems a rather rough rewording of the first look at the novel. And they have the movie placement wrong. But, for posterity:
A “Star Wars” novel set between the events of “Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi”, it features a younger Han, Leia, and Luke, as well as Mara Jade. Mara Jade, the Emperor’s Hand, is looking into the illicit financial affairs of a planetary governor, hoping to find evidence that he might be funding the Rebellion. Luke, Han, and Chewbacca are sent on a mission to help some rebel supporters. Leia is busy being a diplomat, trying to drum up support for the Rebel Alliance. And a band of 5 stormtroopers, on the run after refusing a direct order, finds itself in the strange position of doing good deeds…and perhaps even aiding the Rebellion. The paths of all of them will crisscross back and forth as they come closer and closer to meeting up with one another…but never quite managing to.
However, we do have something from an official source: Sue Rostoni posted an excerpt from Allegiance on the starwars.com boards today. Text beneath the cut, nothing all that spoilery, IMO.
This Is Not A Review
So, I finished Bloodlines, opened Photoshop and this is what resulted:
Traviss interview
The official site interviews author Karen Traviss about today’s release, Bloodlines, the second book in the Legacy of the Force series. Also included – a new excerpt.
Hey! It’s the Exile cover!
But… erm… Is Leia a little off? Or is it just me?
Don’t forget, Bloodlines comes out tomorrow. And… drumroll… there’s an excerpt up.
From the Blogside
This week’s highlight: Pablo Hidalgo’s On the Internet, Everything is a Big Deal. You’re on the internet, right? Read it.
Abel G. Peña looks back at “The Emperor’s Pawns,” a piece he did several years ago that defined and (in some cases) retconned the position of the Emperor’s Hands as we know it today.
Matril on why she loves Star Wars.
Anakinside1 looks inside the belly of the beast.
Oboe-Wan finds a telling moment in Empire Strikes Back.
Mike Beidler continues his NJO retrospective with a look at Mike Stackpole’s Dark Tide dulogy, Onslaught and Ruin.
Bloodlines excerpt!
Yesterday, Sue Rostoni said the cover for Aaron Allston’s Exile is hours away from approval… I think we may see it on starwars.com tonight.
To tide you over, there’s an excerpt of Karen Traviss’ Bloodlines beneath the cut. Continue reading “Bloodlines excerpt!”
Get your Fett on
This is interesting… No author tour, but Bloodlines book release events in Texas, Maryland, Colorado, Arkansas, Indiana, Missouri, North Carolina, and Utah.
Speaking of events, the Star Wars Road Trip was in Louisville yesterday.
And in other EU news, I somehow overlooked the Legacy #3 preview.
Noob!
The preview for Legacy #4 shows that the folks from Dark Horse might spend just a wee bit too much time on the internet…
This is (not) the war that never ends…
Andrew Wheeler has some thoughts on Tempest and the Things Get Worse-ness of the Expanded Universe, to which I can only say… Yeah. I know far too many people, avid EU readers before the NJO, who now are… not. Wheeler hits on the head one reason some folks (including me) view the Bantam line as more successful, depite the mixed quality of the books themselves – storylines very rarely lasted longer than a trilogy or so. You didn’t have book after book of endless catastrophe. If one book or trilogy bored, the next could be a complete 180 in any number of ways. There was, quite simply, variety.
I have hopes for the Legacy series – I’m generally hopeful, at least in the early stages. At the very least, it doesn’t look to be shaping up to anything on the level of the NJO, where I might have welcomed a book by Kevin J. Anderson if he just made the big bad and incredibly boring Yuuzhan Vong simply go away. (Finally, an acceptable use for those excess superweapons!) LOTF, with the linchpin of a civil war where both sides are populated by ‘good’ guys, and the possibility for main baddies who are, if not totally sympathetic, actually interesting, could avoid the NJO syndrome.
Maybe.