Remember way back in 2009, when LucasBooks announced that the Fate of the Jedi paperbacks reprints would be in the slightly taller premium paperback format – and then changed their minds? Well, it seems like it’s just as well, because now it gives Del Rey a quick, easy way to make the canon novels stand out among the piles of Legends when they come out in paperback. The A New Dawn paperback, due out late next month, will be the first, but Tarkin and Heir to the Jedi have all been listed with the new format.
Props to Florian of Jedi Bibliothek for bringing it to my attention – though the Star Wars Books header photo in question has been up since January.
The premium paperback issue was rather controversial back in the day, but it seems that EU fans have bigger fish to fry these days. Below, a picture I took in 2009 to show the differences between trade paperback (The Clone Wars: Wild Space,) premium paperback (Stephen King’s Just After Sunset) and mass market paperback (Dark Force Rising.)
I miss Borders.
I think the premium paperbacks look funny, but that could just be a case of my cheese being moved.
Turns out I don’t own any premium format ppbs yet; the Star Wars titles will be the first. Huh.
I was pretty meh about it then, and I’m meh about it now… Unless/until they start releasing PB originals again, it’s doubtful I’ll ever lay hands on any of ’em.
Or, y’know, I’ve just turned to the eBook side.
I’m unreasonably irritated by this. I wanted to just ignore the “canon” status and put all my books together, since none of them have “Legends” branding to distinguish them. And I’ve already got the ARC version of AND, in normal scale. So that’ll throw that off, too.
You have to be a bit OCD to care, but collectors tend to be anyway.