Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
The Star Wars Books page at Facebook had a chat with Troy Denning today. Due to the awkwardness of the format (and to spare you – trust me) I’ve gathered a quick recap of the highlights beneath the cut. The first part contains no spoilers, so if you haven’t finished Apocalypse yet, stop when you hit the red text.
Continue reading “Denning chats Fate of the Jedi, Apocalypse on Facebook”
Chat season. Troy Denning will be chatting Apocalypse tomorrow afternoon on the Star Wars Books Facebook page. (He’ll also be at San Diego Comic Con in July… A behind-the-scenes FOTJ panel, perhaps?) Also chatting, on the 11th, will be Essential Guide to Warfare author Jason Fry. We’ll likely be recapping both.
Scoundrels. Del Rey editor Frank Parisi was on last week’s ForceCast where he revealed two of the established characters that will be on the team. (If you want the fairly minor spoilers, highlight this: Kell Tainer and Winter. If Kell means nothing to you, he’s in the X-Wing series.)
Upcoming. We can expect news on something post-Fate of the Jedi what’s next “sometime this summer, if not sooner,” Erich Schoeneweiss said in response to a fan question. Not at SDCC, I hope.
Blurbs. Knights Archive spotted a longer summary for Pablo Hidalgo’s Essential Reader’s Companion in the Random House online catalog.
Interviews. Roqoo Depot talks to Matt Stover – mostly about his new book, Caine’s Law, which was out in stores yesterday – but they also touch on Star Wars. Meanwhile, Angela Slatter interviews Karen Miller and Sean Williams about working in franchises.
There’s only one release this week as The Essential Guide to Warfare makes its way into stores. The book by Jason Fry and Paul R. Urquhart is noteworthy to those of not really that into the details of armies and armaments mostly because it seems to contain a lot of nice art, including some new pieces added last week. If it’s more enthusiasm you crave, there’s a review over at EU Cantina. And another at the Star Wars Report.
Our next book release will be Jeff Grubb’s Scourge on the 24th.
I’m writing a Game Of Thrones/Star Wars crossover comic. Tense stand off between Han Stark and Joffrey Vader is ended when Han slaps first.
— Tom Taylor (@TomTaylorMade) April 1, 2012
Essential Reader preview: Prince Isolder uses antlers in all of his decorating. #notreally #SWEU
— infinata (@infinata) April 1, 2012
#SWCVI programming request: @danwall88 and @jasoncfry sing a cover of Johnny Cash’s I’ve Been Everywhere with Atlas names.
— infinata (@infinata) March 30, 2012
Yup, it’s back, and we’re still recovering from April Fools… More serious (okay, mostly snarky) tweets beneath the cut, including J. W. Rinzler on Making of Return of the Jedi, Paul S. Kemp on carbonite, and more on parenting, programing, and Luke’s love life. Continue reading “Han slaps first: Best #StarWars and #SWEU tweets for the past week”
Okay… The Mercy Kill cover has been tweaked. The ships appear the same, but the background has been tweaked – the ‘gray’ background will be silver when printed. It seems a bit overdone to me: you know Coco Chanel’s old axiom about always removing one accessory before you leave the house? I think it applies here. Maybe it’ll look better in actual silver? Still, I don’t think it’ll hurt Aaron Allston’s sales figures, and we’ve certainly seen worse.
Nonfiction. Knights Archive spotted Steve Sansweet’s next book, Star Wars: The Ultimate Action Figure Collection: 35 Years of Characters, on Amazon. Rancho Obi-wan publicist Consetta Parker confirms, as well as giving us a look at the production. Amazon gives an October 17 release date.
Essential Guides. With The Essential Guide To Warfare just a week away, there’s already a brief review from Knight’s Archive and an interview with Jason Fry at EU Cantina.
Fate of the Jedi. Roqoo Depot’s Skuldren takes a look at the series as a whole. Meanwhile, as you may have heard, Apocalypse made the New York Times’ bestseller list.
Hey, librarians! You can contact DK to hold a “Summer of Star Wars” day in June or July. By the by, we don’t recommend handing kids Fate of the Jedi.
If you’ve been following the Fate of the Jedi series in paperback, today is the day to go to the book store – the sixth book, Troy Denning’s Vortex, is out in mass market. Don’t forget, Erika reviewed it last year.
Meanwhile, Wednesday will bring those Dawn of the Jedi #1 reprints.
The only actual new thing you’ll find out there this week is the latest Star Wars Insider, which features an interview with Aaron Allston, Christie Golden, and Troy Denning on Fate of the Jedi and a short story by Jason Fry.
Our next book release will be The Essential Guide to Warfare on April 3.
Is Miller writing a post-ROTJ story? On her Livejournal, Karen Miller wrote that she is “getting ready to put together a short story for Star Wars Insider magazine.” She also shares/gloats that she got to read Aaron Allston’s Mercy Kill for “preliminary research.” All three of Miller’s Star Wars novels were Clone Wars tie-ins, so if Mercy Kill is any indication, this may be her first foray into post-ROTJ – or even post-Fate of the Jedi, since that’s when Mercy Kill is set. Or, she’s just writing about fighter pilots. We’ll see, I suppose.
Inside the beast. A new feature on Del Rey’s Star Wars Books Facebook page offers a few hints, including an “an author who is new to the GFFA.” And they liked our (also your) snark!
Speculation. It may be a moot point since Zahn said most of the Scoundrels scoundrels will be new folks, but EU Cantina has some theories on who might appear.
Excerpts. A little Scourge and a big Scourge. (via)
Review. James seems really excited about Dawn of the Jedi #2. Someone has to be, I suppose.
Randomly… io9 has some art from a Willow cartoon that never came to be. It’s not quite EU – unless you count that StarWars.com April Fools joke a few years back – but where else am I going to put it?
To write a character, you need to get inside their head. So, I’m drinking my coffee out of Darth Maul’s brain #starwars twitter.com/TomTaylorMade/…
— Tom Taylor (@TomTaylorMade) March 19, 2012
Welcome to a new feature! As fannish pros and fans alike are so active on Twitter, I thought we’d expose our readers to a little bit of what goes on there. This week: Some tidbits on The Essential Guide to Warfare, a few Fate of the Jedi snarks, and, of course, #ZahnSolo!
AND LO, THERE WAS NEWS AND IT BROKE… The announcement we were expecting is here, and it’s the title and cover art for Timothy Zahn’s Han Solo novel. Here’s the blurb:
The Death Star has been destroyed. The Rebellion has had its first big victory. And Han Solo, newly conscripted to the Rebel cause, is on the run from the Empire and the bounty hunters eager to turn him in for the huge reward being offered by Jabba the Hutt. Now a mysterious stranger offers Han the resources to execute a daring robbery from a major crime lord. The mission is impossible, but the prize will make Han a free man. With no choice but to accept, Han Solo and his Wookiee partner, Chewbacca, set out to assemble a cast of rogues, knaves, and cons with the right combination of wits, skills, and derring-do to pull off an operation of this complexity and scale—the best scoundrels the galaxy has to offer. And then the game is on: a rip-roaring, intergalactic, Ocean’s Eleven-style heist adventure starring Han Solo, Chewie, and Lando Calrissian, written by #1 New York Times bestselling Star Wars author Timothy Zahn!
Of course, the other 8 scoundrels are still a mystery, but we need something to debate until December 26! (A Wednesday? Well, I’ll take it.) For the record, Zahn himself says “…While there may be a name or two you recognize, most of the rest of the group will be new characters.”
IGN’s Eric Goldman talks at length witb Dave Filoni on season 4, including this season’s movie (and Star Tours influences, quadruple decapitation, the brouhaha over casting Simon Pegg and more. Including this interesting bit from where he talks about adapting Slaves of the Republic and the tweaks that had to be made to get it to fit where it does in the show:
…I think it really clearly illustrates the difference between the EU material and what makes it up on the screen as George wants it. Which is that in the end, the comic books are a great place for ideas and creativity by many, many really talented artists and writers. But when George is gonna bring it into his universe, a lot of times it’s going to need tweaks. Some things are really similar, but they’re not exactly the same, which isn’t that strange when you think about it, when you consider anything that’s adapted from one medium to the other. A lot of things change, whether large or small, all the time.
On continuity issues and things like the undeath of Maul:
I’ll even take stuff and ask George, “Hey George, would this work out? It’s not going to be in the show, but just to keep this all together.” There’s a very coordinated effort going on to keep things moving forward all together in the right way. So it did come up, how does he get there, and why don’t the Jedi find him or his body, or what’s going on with that? And that’s been discussed in some detail actually.
There are even a few tidbits about season 5: Apparently, it’s going to be a big year for Ahsoka.
Be sure to check back in the morning for our own roundtable discussion of S4!