If you haven’t spotted Visions yet, don’t fret – it’s officially out today. (Or maybe yesterday, according to Amazon. Even though they’ve been shipping it for a few weeks now. Whatever.) Meanwhile, coming to comic shops on Wednesday is The Old Republic #5
New Lost Tribe of the Sith, with FOTJ excerpt
‘Purgatory,’ the fifth installment of John Jackson Miller’s Fate of the Jedi tie-in is here, complete with a Jaina and Lando excerpt from next month’s Vortex.
Out this week: Clone Wars S2, TFUII, Invasion
It’s a good week for releases – or a very bad week for your wallet, depending on your foci.
With plenty of folks being bored with what we’ve seen of S3 so far, it’s a good time to pick up The Clone Wars Season 2 on DVD and Blu-Ray. (StarWars.com has a bonus feature and virtual trading cards.) If you’re looking for a less passive experience, there’s also The Force Unleashed II – the actual game – sailing into stores today.
As for books, Death Troopers is now out in paperback.
Comic fans won’t go home empty-handed on Wednesday, either. Both Blood Ties #3 and Invasion: Rescues #5 – as well as the latest Star Wars Insider – should be in comic shops.
Video: Millennium Falcon 3-D book trailer
Yes, that is Leland Chee.
I had a chance to check out Millennium Falcon: A 3-D Owner’s Guide a few weeks back. I’m not sure how many revelations there are in it, but it’s pretty cool.
Early cover for Zahn’s Choices of One
A preliminary version of the cover for Timothy Zahn’s July novel Choices of One has gone up on StarWars.com. It’s pretty rough, but nice to see Mara get some love again.
Video: Talking to FOTJ author Christie Golden
Christie Golden was in San Diego for a signing of her latest World of Warcraft book, The Shattering: Prelude to Cataclysm, and kindly sat down to talk with James about Fate of the Jedi and WoW after the signing at Mysterious Galaxy. (And no, James isn’t fired.)
EUbits: FOTJ except, Sue updates, Knight Errant story
Hey, remember Fate of the Jedi? The site StarWarsBookExtras.com is offering an excerpt from Try Denning’s Vortex – Chapter 5, to be exact. The catch? You need to redeem a code. Or, just click this direct link to the PDF. (Thanks, EUC!) The cards with the code were available at C5 or in the Hyperspace member kit.
Details, details. We got a couple of updates from Sue Rostoni on the StarWars.com forums last week. I had asked if there was a chance or others joining Zahn to do annotations for the Heir to the Empire anniversary edition, and she wasn’t sure — but did say that Del Rey was looking into it. She did have a solid answer on the ETA for the next Lost Tribe of the Sith story: October 25th, aka next Monday. (Hopefully it’ll contain a different Vortex excerpt.)
Short story. Speaking of John Jackson Miller, StarWars.com has an original Knight Errant short story, ‘Influx.’
Shadow Games. Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff reveals the main cast for the novel-formerly-known-as-Holostar.
Really? The Star Wars Books page on Facebook is starting a Reader’s Club. Not a bad idea, in theory… But starting with The Bounty Hunter Wars? Really? Uh… Good luck.
Roundup: The Making of Empire takes off
The Making of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back has now been out for a whole week and the coverage just keeps coming. The hightlight is almost certainly Vanity Fair’s interview with Irvin Kershner about reviews, George, the actors, and whether he would have directed a prequel.
- Two articles you’ll want to check out if you’re still on the fence about the book: Six important decisions that created The Empire Strikes Back and ten things you didn’t know.
- Author J.W. Rinzler has been making the interview rounds with StarWars.com and last week’s ForceCast.
- Also: A review from AICN and a video tour at TFN.
Out this week, maybe: Visions of Star Wars art
It’s time to start looking in earnest for the art book Star Wars: Visions. While it’s been listed online with a November release date, there have been several reports of it being in stores, which I take to mean that it’s not formally street dated. Preview some of the pieces at Underwire, and be sure to check out Paula’s review.
(Note: This post originally said that The Clone Wars S2 DVDS and TFUII were coming out today. That’s, uhh, next week. Sorry for any confusion.)
Star Wars, yes. Movies? Not necessarily.
I’ve never been big on the idea of Star Wars fiction having to be like movies: Novels are an entirely different format that requires different things. I don’t read Star Wars novels to experience the movies; I read them because they are different kind of stories. I’ve always been a reader above all else, and I don’t have any problem admitting that while it was the movies that turned me to fandom, it was the novels (and to some extent their illegitimate step-sisters, fanfic) that kept me here.
So if you really want to make me wince, you come out with a lazy, ill-thought-out list like Totalfilm’s 40 Star Wars stories that should be movies. Particularly when the list is inhabited by some of the worst stories the EU has to offer (Splinter of the Mind’s Eye) and things that are really only of interest to seriously hardcore fans (Luceno’s Millennium Falcon.) Hitting the random article button on Wookiepedia is no way to write a list.
Not all the stories on the list are from the EU, though that doesn’t mean they make any more sense as choices. Red 5 is a perfectly good web series, but I can see the concept getting old fast if you took it to two hours. Ryan vs. Dorkman doesn’t even have a plot.
I’m not completely against adapting the EU to other formats, mind. Splinter, Millennium Falcon or Rogue Squadron might might make good episodes of a Clone Wars-esque take on the OT period. (Let’s forget such a series would send the continuity-savants screaming into the night.) Knights of the Old Republic could function as an animated series or even a live-action mini-series. The concept of any Thrawn trilogy adaption makes me want to run screaming into the night (particularly if people start talking about live-action casting) but I could see it possibly working as serial animation as well. And I really hope that someone sent Seth Green some Star Wars Tales anthologies to mine for his upcoming humor series.
But as movies? A Star Wars movie should be epic, and the EU? Not so much. It’s there to continue the stories, let us know different characters and eras and cultures that we only get glimpses of (if that) in the films. It exists to build on the movies, not become them.