Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
The second book in the Legacy of the Force series is Bloodlines by Karen Traviss. Sue Rostoni posted the info in her blog yesterday.
Legacy of the Force is the nine-book series that leads us into the ‘Legacy’ era, which takes place after the NJO and Dark Nest. We don’t know much about it, aside from what can be drawn from the titles, but we do know Boba Fett will be involved in (at least) Traviss’ portion. Check the coverage of the Legacy C3 Panel for more on ther series as a whole.
The Church of Waru. There are people on TFN who have a sense of humor! A hundred and thirty five pages worth! Okay, so it’s mostly a chat thread… Still! Praise Waru!
Sideshow Collectibles is having a poll for fans to choose what EU character will be made into a 12-inch figure.
The choices are rather limited. I can see Mara Jade, Grand Admiral Thrawn, Asajj Ventress, and Quinlan Vos… But Kir Kanos and arctic suit Padmé from the Clone Wars cartoon? Kir Kanos? And don’t they have already enough costume changes in the movies for 50 Padmé dolls?
Oh well. Voting is open until November 4th.
What is Mara Jade’s Canon Length of a SSD in Vergere’s Potentium? If you’ve ever spent any time at all on an Expanded Universe forum, this is hilarious. Although sadly the thread on the whole fails to live up to the title when people actually start taking things semi-seriously. Oh TFN, will you ever change?
The results of Hyperspace’s “What’s the Story” feature have been posted. Congratulations Nex: The T is Hott!!, Master Ki-Aaron-Mundi, Captain Daultay Dofine, NarbFlick, TalonCard86, gohan316427, General Tarfful, Sompeetalay, The2ndquest and all-around starwars.com snark man The Dark Moose for getting to contribute a small bit to SW canon.
The New York Times has an article today on the economics of used books and the the place of Amazon.com in the market.
Personally, I love used book stores. Amazon is great if you really need something, but nothing beats the browsing experience. Fantasy and sci-fi is such a tough genre sometimes – the covers and blurbs are so awful and misleading that it’s hard to pick anything up at the bookstore – and if it’s crap or yet another lame Tolkien rehash, you’ve wasted your money. (Libraries, meanwhile, will often only get the best-sellers.) With a used bookstore, you can unload the crap and get more books for half off the cover price or less. It’s a win-win situation for the reader.
In fact – may Lucasfilm and Del Rey not smite me as I type – I would recommend getting used books if you’re trying to catch up on the Star Wars novels. They’re plentiful in many used bookstores and with the ups and downs in quality, you’re probably better off not wasting the extra cash on anything but the authors you know you’ll enjoy. Face it – the Jedi Academy trilogy is simply not worth $21 new when used copies are available on Amazon for as low as 39 cents.
Generally, with authors I enjoy, I do make it a point to buy new when possible. But the amount of authors and series I’ve gotten into because of used bookstores is hard to estimate. But with new releases, I simply don’t have the patience to wait for books to hit used. I shudder to think of what I’ve spent on the Expanded Universe over the years – I even bought Shadows of the Empire new, even though I knew it probably sucked at the time. (And so it did!) Learn from my mistakes.
The official site reveals The Swarm War cover and blurb for those without Hyperspace.
Likewise of interest to EU fans is the current featured blog: Abel G. Peña’s Only Sith Deal in Absolutes.
ETA: Random House has posted an excerpt from Dark Nest I: The Joiner King.
Hyperspace members can see the cover of Dark Nest 3: The Swarm War and a sketch for the third Last of the Jedi, cover now. Both are part of the Future Star Wars Publishing slideshow, which contains sketches from Visionaries and previews of a lot of the Del Rey’s upcoming nonfiction offerings, including some fantastic artwork from the upcoming New Essential Chronology. Hyperspace members can also listen to audiocasts of the Star Wars Spectacular, Dark Horse Comics, and Publishing panels from Comic Con.
The big EU news out of Comic-Con is all about Dark Horse – ongoing series Republic and Empire are wrapping up, to be replaced by a Knights of the Old Republic (based on the game of the same name) and a “a new ongoing series of five mini-series” starting with Rebellion. There’s also a short overview of SW coffee-table and nonfiction books.
The TV show gets a brief mention, focusing on preproduction and tech stuff, during the Star Wars Spectacular.
Next issue of Star Wars Insider will feature their Top 20 EU Moments. I expect there will be quite a bit of debate once this is released, but it’s always nice to see the books get some Insider page space.
Comic-Con 2005 is currently in progress in California, and there have been some hints that Jonathan Rinzler has an unfinished copy of The Swarm War cover. No guarantees, but attendees might get a peak. In the meantime, there’s plenty of other SW goodness going on in San Deigo.
Lucasfilm’s Sue Rostoni has started a starwars.com blog, where she has posted that Elizabeth Hand’s 2007 Old Republic novel has been canceled. No word on what will replace it, but fear not, there’s still one OR book in the queue – Drew Karpyshyn’s Darth Bane novel. Which I suspect is the one we’re all more interested in anyway. ;)
(More EU VIP blogs can be found in starwars.com’s listing of all the latest VIP posts.)
Another interesting post found in the starwars.com blogs is Ithorian Guy on The Mystery of the Whills. He obviously knows his stuff, and the entry came to my attention via a message board post by LFL’s Leland Chee, so you know he’s gotta be onto something.
And finally, starwars.com posted the October 2005 comics yesterday – previews of Empire #38, X-wing — Rogue Leader #2, Republic #83, and Clone Wars Volume 7, which collects the Obsession arc.
Nah, I don’t think so. And her list of the Top Ten Most Eye-Sporking Moments in the EU is pretty damn hilarious.
Spores!!!