The third author of the post-NJO series will be Karen Traviss. She joins Aaron Allston and Troy Denning, whose involvement was announced at Comic Con. Some other bits of info: Allston will launch the series with a hardcover in June 2006, and Denning will end it with another hardcover in 2009 2008.
Chewbacca World Tour ’04
He’s in Japan! Pretty neat publicity idea. Who doesn’t love a Wookiee?
Also, AP has an interview with George Lucas.
News for Bujold types
The new Chalion book is finished. Working title is The Haunted Hunt, and while it’s set in the Chalion universe it’s not in Chalion itself.
An interesting interview with a bunch of women sf writers, including Ms. Bujold.
Obi-Wan fanfic is among the subjects discussed.
Amusement on Hyperspace
Finally! All of those folks who have been avoiding the online portion of their Hyperspace membership have some things to watch:
Very funny commercial for Star Wars Battlefront
Preview of Birth of a Lightsaber
Don’t say they never gave you anything!
A Jedi craves not these things
But it’s nice when it happens… Clone Wars won an Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program.
“Seek what they sought:” Site breaks down the origins and influences of Star Wars
You MUST check this out: Star Wars Origins. The amount of work and research put into this site is simply amazing. There’s nothing really groundbreaking, but it’s a far more complete look at the origins of the saga than any other article or site I’ve ever seen – including the Magic of Myth book.
In depth looks at many of the things that influenced (or may have influenced) Lucas: Campbell, Flash Gordon, Kurosawa, 2001, Ben Hur, Lord of the Rings… And more. Brilliant, wonderful site. Why have I never heard of it before???
With George as my witness…
Once again, there will be no sequel trilogy. So sayth George.
“This was never planned as a nine-episode work,” Lucas said. “The media [pounced when] I made an offhand comment, ‘It might be fun to come back when everyone’s 80 and do another one of these.’ But I never had any intention of doing that.”
Retconning? Don’t know. Don’t really care. Am just happy that they’re keeping the line on this.
Also: DVD Reviews from Coming Soon, IGN, and The Digital Bits.
Movie News: King Kong, XF2, Harry Potter
Fan site Kong is King has a video production diary from Peter Jackson on the set of King Kong. Directors and fansites working together? What strange land is this?
Casting news for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: the Patil twins and Gabrielle Delacour.
X-Files 2 rumors again, this time from the lips of Robert Patrick (John Dogget.)
Dougray Scott might be the new James Bond. Tidbit: He was cast as Wolverine in X-Men, but dropped out to do Mission Impossible 2. Huh.
The Fantastic Four are set for three films. The linked article focuses on Chris Evans, who will play Johnny Storm and is currently starring in Cellular.
Star Wars Bookstore Roundup
Well, DragonCon pretty much killed any bookstore shopping, last week. But I did manage to get a book there. And there was a little movement in the bookstores this week.
Books
Flying Solo – by Jeremy Bulloch – I picked up a copy of Jeremy’s book at DragonCon. Just finished reading it and I have to give it a solid review. He not only includes stories about his stint as Boba Fett, but you get a lot of insight into the life of a working actor, as well as some great stories from the con circuit. There’s a great slip cover and it’s a lot of fun. But it’s limited to 2,000 copies, so you might want to pick one up, now.
New Jedi Order – Various – With the new films coming out and all the re-releases of Classic Trilogy books, it appears that Del Rey has tried to latch on to any new momentum. The first three books of New Jedi Order, Vector Prime, Dark Tide I and Dark Tide II, have been reissued for $4.99, instead of the usual $6.99 price. It doesn’t appear that Amazon has benefitted from this pricing drop, so you’ll probably have to venture to a physical book store to take advantage of the sale.
Magazines
SFX Magazine – September, 2004 – While we wait for next month’s issues with two collector covers (Rebel and Imperial) to hit US shores, we can content ourselves with the 69 sexiest aliens. Darth Maul, Princess Leia and Han Solo all made the list. But T’Pol from Star Trek is number one? Hmm….
Until next week, super geeks.
Hamill talks sequels
TFN posted this early in the morning and fandom went wild, as it is wont to do. Of course, they failed to clarify that Mark was talking about things George said back on the ANH set. They did edit the item this afternoon. IESB has quotes.
And for those who didn’t watch the Charlie Rose show last night, George DID say that after ROTS the story is over. Really. Over.
Of course, at the same press conference, LFL did confirm that they have a TV series in the pipeline. So who knows?