Category: books and comics

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Heir to the Empire annotation #10: Last of the old, first of the new

After a week off, we get our tenth preview from the anniversary edition of Tim Zahn’s Heir to the Empire.

One of the parameters I wanted to set for the trilogy was that Luke would be entirely on his own as a Jedi, with no one he could call on for help or advice. And though I didn’t know it at the time, the line about ‘the first of the new Jedi’ nicely sets up Kevin J. Anderson’s Jedi Academy trilogy, as well as many other future books.

Heir to the Empire: 20th Anniversary Edition was is (at the moment_ scheduled for a September 6th release.

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EUbits: Interviews with Rostoni, Shapiro and Allie

Interviews, everywhere! There’s been an absolute plague of interviews lately. EUC talks to Lucasfilm Licensing’s Sue Rostoni, Podcaster Sohaib had Del Rey’s Shelly Shapiro on his show last week, and Roqoo Depot has Jedi: The Dark Side writer Scott Allie.

Blurbs. Drew Karpyshyn’s Revan novel gets a summary.

Fandom. Michael Falkner is breaking up with the ForceCast over their recent treatment of Expanded Universe fans.

Namesake corner. I’ve got two fairly minor Mara Jade bits today: io9 named her one of their 10 sexiest assassins. Naturally, it features fan art of both the badly photoshopped and naked body paint persuasions. (Sigh.) On the other hand, there’s a new namesake: A foal. She has a twin sister named after Princess Leia.

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Timothy Zahn is on Facebook, reveals Choices, Heir short tidbits

The man responsible for jump-started the Expanded Universe (and thus getting many of us in or back into fans) is now on Facebook! Believe it or not, it’s his first official page in… Ever! We’re happy to see him, so go forth and ‘Like!’

You can let him know who you’d like to see featured in a short story, provided Dark Force Rising and The Last Command get the annotation treatment…

In the comments, he reveals a little about the story that will be in the new Heir to the Empire: “The story in Heir (“Crisis of Faith”) does have Fel in it. The story also acts as a link between Choices of One and Heir to the Empire.” Also, “Pellaeon plays a major role” in Choices of One.

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Del Rey’s Shelly Shapiro chats with Expanded Universe fans

Del Rey editor Shelly Shapiro chatted with fans this afternoon on the Star Wars Books Facebook page. With more than 108 comments, you can’t say it wasn’t popular! Read on for a few high points, including Fate of the Jedi, book formats, typos, continuity, smugglers and more!

On the new edition of Heir to the Empire. We’ve been wondering if the 20th anniversary edition of Heir to the Empire would lead to Dark Force Rising and The Last Command getting a similar treatment. Shapiro said she’d like to do them, but Del Rey will “let the market guide us on that decision.” So if you want annotations for the rest of the Thrawn trilogy, buy Heir in September!

On the upcoming Wraith Squadron novel. Perhaps the biggest tidbit Shapiro dropped us was the time period of Aaron Allston’s 2012 novel. It “takes place around the end” of Fate of the Jedi! Future Rogue or Wraith novels are “Absolutely possible.”

Continue reading “Del Rey’s Shelly Shapiro chats with Expanded Universe fans”

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Street date shuffle: Choices, Heir shift again; Revan pushed back to November

Del Rey has tweaked the release schedule again… This time, Zahn’s Choices of One moves back to the original date of July 19th, while the Heir to the Empire anniversary edition moves up slightly to September 6.

Drew Karpyshyn’s The Old Republic: Revan jumps back a month to November 15. Meanwhile, on his blog, Karpyshyn compares game Revan to book Revan.

As I post this, Del Rey editor Shelly Shapiro is chatting with fans on Facebook. I’ll be back later with another post on her comments when the dust has cleared.

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Twitter QOTD: The underrated Expanded Universe

Are you on Twitter yet? If not, you’re missing out on a hotbed of Star Wars discussion. Alas, sometimes it’s hard to keep up with. Luckily, there’s a new service out there that makes it easy to collect and curate tweets… And what better time to test it out than a lazy Thursday morning? Head below the cut to see the answers to today’s Twitter question. Continue reading “Twitter QOTD: The underrated Expanded Universe”

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Heir to the Empire annotation #9: What would Karrde drive?

Things go a bit random with our ninth look at Timothy Zahn’s annotations for the anniversary edition of Heir to the Empire.

“Someone asked me once what kind of modern-day car Karrde would drive. I told him that it would probably be a nice, simple, family-style sedan or minivan. A Toyota or Ford maybe … with a Lamborghini V-12 engine tucked away under the hood.”

Also on the Star Wars Books Facebook this week, a mockup of the new Heir covers.

The release of Heir to the Empire: 20th Anniversary Edition was recently pushed back to September 13.

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Complete library of Star Wars novels will be released in eBook format on June 28

As speculated not so long ago, Random House and Lucasfilm will be releasing Star Wars novels in eBook format this summer – all of them.

“Readers and fans have been asking for the Star Wars novels to be made available digitally, and we’re excited that we can finally make this happen,” said Howard Roffman, President of Lucas Licensing. “We’re committed to providing fans with great Star Wars stories that can be enjoyed on any reading platform. We’re thrilled to see the extensive backlist of Del Rey and Bantam titles made available electronically.”

The “extra content” isn’t all that noteworthy to obsessives like us, but timelines, era breakdowns and excerpts will no doubt prove useful to new and casual readers.