The Solo book lineup is here, and it’s extensive. All the usual suspects are here: Novels from Del Rey and Disney Lucasfilm Press, comics from Marvel and IDW, the standard non-fiction… And a whole lot of kids stuff, because Star Wars. It’s all over at Entertainment Weekly, but here are my highlights.
The big one is Del Rey’s Last Shot by Daniel José Older, who you may recognize from From A Certain Point of View. The book, subtitled a “A Han and Lando novel”, covers several time periods: One before Solo with Lando and L3-37, one between Solo and A New Hope that brings in Sana Starros from the Marvel comics, and one after Return of the Jedi that will also feature Leia and “a very young Ben Solo”.
“We bounce around through time,” [Lucasfilm Publishing creative director Michael] Siglain says. “We always wanted to tell a story that had Han and Lando having one adventure after Return of the Jedi. At the same time, we really liked the idea of contrasting that with seeing them much earlier in their lives. A crime lord comes looking for the owner of the Millennium Falcon, but mistakenly thinks it was Han Solo at the time, but it was really Lando — which gets Lando mixed up in something else Han did that was Han’s fault. All these years later, the two of them have to right a wrong from much earlier in their history.”
The standard book will come with a reversible cover, and there will be a convention exclusive with L3-37 and Chewbacca. It’ll be out on April 17.
From Disney-Lucasfilm Press is Most Wanted, by Rae Carson. (She also had stories in From A Certain Point of View and Canto Bight.) The YA novel focuses on Han and Qi’ra as teenagers. “This is about the younger, young Han Solo,” Siglain says. “We’ll see what it was like for these two kids from Corellia to survive the seedy streets of this industrial world. They’re definitely products of their environment, and this story shows that.”
For middle-grade readers, Star Wars veteran Tom Angleberger (Origami Yoda) has The Mighty Chewbacca: Forest of Fear, which has a surprise apperance from Rogue One’s K-2SO and a new character described as a “librarian bounty hunter.”
Marvel will pitch in with Lando: Double or Nothing from writer Rodney Barnes (The Boondocks). The five-issue miniseries is “focused on Lando set during an incident right before the film, with backstory about Lando and L3,” Siglain says. It’ll be out the first Wednesday after the film, on May 30. IDW will feature a Han and Chewbacca story from Cavan Scott in Star Wars Adventures, a three-part storyline which begins in our first Star Wars Free Comic Book Day issue since Dark Horse last participated back in 2013.
But if you’re not a fiction fan, there’s always the two big non-fiction offerings: Solo: The Official Guide by Pablo Hidalgo and The Art of Solo by Phil Szostak. Pablo’s guide will combine the Visual Guide aspects with some cross-sections. (The Rogue One version had a similar setup: Only Episodes rate their own cross-section books these days.) The Art of Solo will likely be our best look at the development and evolution of the film, at least for the time being.
We didn’t get release dates for everything, but they’re all expected between April 17 and the movie’s release date of May 25, per Siglain on Twitter. We should know sooner rather than later, as preorders are expected to go up within the next few days.
For the rest, check out the gallery from Entertainment Weekly
Has there been any talk of an actual Solo movie novelization?
I don’t think so, but I have no doubts they’re doing one. It’s probably just coming out later, like The Last Jedi‘s, and they’ll want to make a big splash with the announcement.