…A very odd choice of cover art. Your thoughts?
SDCC schedule: Friday brings EU events!
There are two panels for Star Wars Expanded Universe fans at San Diego Comic Con on Friday; One on books with Shelly Shapiro and Timothy Zahn, and Dark Horse’s dedicated Star Wars panel with Randy Stradley, John Jackson Miller, Shelly Shapiro and more.
A second Clone Wars panel, with focuses on animation. Pablo Hidalgo hosts, with Dave Filoni and CG lighting and FX supervisor Joel Aron. Lego and Hasbro are also throwing dedicated Star Wars panels, while folks from eFX, Gentle Giant, Kotobukiya and Sideshow will have a collectibles update.
Also noteworthy: A Robot Chicken panel, and ‘Genre Authors Explore the End Times,’ featuring Mira Grant (Feed) and several other authors of post-apocalyptic books.
Apocalypse to contain excerpt from next series
On the page for the final Fate of the Jedi novel, Apocalypse, the Random House Spring catalog says that the book will feature an “extensive excerpt of book one of the next Star Wars series.” (via)
Given that they’ve been saying for some time now that we won’t be seeing another mega-series in the nature of Legacy of the Force and Fate of the Jedi, we can only hope that means a trilogy at the most. And, while I can’t really summon much vitriol for the guy, I hope dearly it’s not going to be by Troy Denning.
The catalog also contains pages for Luceno’s Darth Plagueis book and Fry’s Essential Guide to Warfare, as well as a new Caine book by Matt Stover. Head under the cut to see the pages for Apocalypse and Plagueis. Continue reading “Apocalypse to contain excerpt from next series”
New book will explore connections between Star Wars and history
Publisher John Wiley & Sons is compliling a book that will explore parallels between world history and the movies, the New York Times reports.
“George Lucas is a history buff, and his fascination with history greatly influenced the plot and themes explored in the Star Wars universe,” Connie Santisteban, associate editor for general interest books at Wiley, wrote in an e-mail. “Being able to work closely with Mr. Lucas on this and other books will give fans an inside look at the real science, history and political science that informed ‘Star Wars’ while also providing readers with an educational tool.”
The book is being compiled by history professors Nancy Reagin and Janice Liedl, who have done books in the same vein about Harry Potter and Twilight. (I wonder if it goes anything like this. Minus the snark and animated GIFs, naturally.) The book even has Lucasfilm’s blessing, says a spokewoman, including Lucas’ “notes and input.”
Wiley will also produce additional books focusing on “science and politics within the Star Wars saga.”
Heir to the Empire annotation #12: C’baoth, again
In the twelfth annotation from the upcoming Heir to the Empire: 20th Anniversary Edition, C’baoth gets snarky.
‘Admiral’ would be the normal shipboard form of address (‘Grand Admiral’ is awkwardly long for casual conversation), but C’baoth almost invariably uses the entire rank. Not as a form of respect, of course, but as a form of sarcasm.
The book is due out September 6th.
EUbits: Catching up with cover art, Fate of the Jedi excerpts, blueprints and more
Cover art. Two upcoming reprints are getting brand-new covers: Joe Schreiber’s Red Harvest and Michael Reaves’ Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter. Timothy Zahn also gives us our first look at the back of Choices of One on Facebook.
eBooks. Speaking of Zahn, he wrote about Star Wars and the Kindle for Amazon.
Fate of the Jedi. While we were in Columbus, two Ascension excerpts emerged: One long, one short. It’s out in August. Huh.
What in the what? If you really love blueprints — I mean REALLY love blueprints — then you’ve probably already jumped for joy about Star Wars: The Blueprints, since it was also announced last week sometime. As always when it comes to this collector edition stuff, I shrug.
Lists Dark Horse and Star Wars made Newsarama’s list of the ten most important comic relaunches in comic book history. (via)
Out this week: Star Wars books go digital
Tomorrow all of Random House’s Star Wars back catalog will be available in all the various eBook formats. For some, this is super-exciting… For others, merely shrug-worthy. In any case, there is a trailer.
This isn’t going to be every single Star Wars book – Young Jedi Knight fans, you are nubs out of luck – but as both Bantam and Del Rey are Random House imprints, this is the vast majority of them.
There are no actual new releases this week, but I did miss last week’s lone comic: Jedi: The Dark Side #2. In stores now!
Heir to the Empire annotation #11: How the hell do you say ‘C’baoth,’ anyway?
Del Rey was back today with a new preview of Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire annotations.
‘C’baoth,’ incidentally, is pronounced ‘SA-bay-oth,’ with the first vowel pronounced like the ‘a’ in ‘has.’ If I’d realized how hard it was going to be for everyone else to figure out, I would have changed the spelling.
Heir to the Empire: 20th Anniversary Edition will be out (hopefully) on September 6th.
Out this week: Latest Insider
No new books, no new comics, but you ought to be able to find Star Wars Insider #126 on stands today. This is the one with the Lando story by Timothy Zahn, so it may actually be worth picking up.
EUbits: Zahn will have Heir bookplates for con season, Riptide mini-excerpt
Checking in with the Zahns. Since the anniversary edition of Heir to the Empire is coming out too late for summer con season, Del Rey has made Tim Zahn some bookplates to sign. (He’ll be at SDCC and Dragon*Con this year, among others.) Don’t count on getting any through the mail yet, though.
And don’t forget there’s a new Lando short story in the latest Insider, which is apparently arriving to subscribers now. (I don’t have mine yet, though. Look for it to show up in bookstores in a week or so.)
Mini-excerpt. Star Wars Books gave Facebook fans a quick peek at Paul S. Kemp’s Riptide yesterday.
Interviews Sean Williams talks about The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance at Suvudu.
Podcasts. The new Jedi Journals is out. Chris and Jay talk reboots and more.