Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
Since the book’s release, Chuck Wendig has been regularly featuring Aftermath reviews that object to the book containing gay and lesbian characters. (Some examples, oh my god so many examples, people are ridiculous.)
Today, he explained why. Continue reading “Chuck Wendig on why he highlights all those homophobic Aftermath reviews”
A new novel, the next two Aftermath titles and a handful of short stories were announced at NYCC this afternoon.
Aftermath: Life Debt (Summer 2016) and Aftermath: Empire’s End (2017) will be the next two from Chuck Wendig, while Claudia Gray has New Republic: Bloodlines set for a spring 2016 release. It’ll be set six years before The Force Awakens, and it doesn’t seem to be a Lost Stars sequel. (The Life Debt and Bloodline covers were spotted earlier today by Jedi Bibliothek.) UPDATE: Chuck Wendig on the upcoming books.
We also have short stories coming based around the aliens in Maz Kanata’s castle (as seen in Vanity Fair.) The first, ‘Bait,’ from Alan Dean Foster, stars a character called Grumgarr and will appear in the Star Wars Insider. Another, ‘The Perfect Weapon’ from Delilah Dawson, will be released electronically and feature Bazine, the woman in black. It’ll be released electronically in November, and there’s a temporary cover over at StarWars.com.
There’ll be four more stories from Landry Walker called ‘High Noon on Jakku,’ ‘All Creatures Great and Small,’ ‘The Face of Evil,’ ‘The Crimson Corsair and the Treasure of Count Dooku.’ They will also be released electronically, not as a Tales of book as we reported before. (Whoops.) All the e-novellas will come out on December 1, and the Landry ones will released in print, along with two more stories, in April.
At the panel, Pablo Hidalgo said that the Story Group took into account worldbuilding from George Lucas, the early Micheal Arnt script, and things Rian Johnson wanted to explore in VIII when building Journey to The Force Awakens. They’ve closely mapped out what happens after Return of the Jedi – revolving around Jakku – and the lead-in to The Force Awakens, but things between those two points are looser for creative freedom. He said to reread the Journey books in a year, and see what you catch.
As for Shattered Empire, Greg Rucka revealed that he hadn’t actually pitched the book to include movie characters like Luke, Leia and Han when the first cover was revealed. But he also promises that #4 will be a love letter to Luke, comparing him to Qui-gon Jinn.
You can listen to the panel audio over at The Wookiee Gunner, who also has helped me fill in a few gaps here.
Chuck Wendig answers fan’s Aftermath questions at TFN’s Jedi Council forums. Spoilers, and a few hints at the future installments.
In the aftermath of #ForceFriday, we are all making BB-8s out of tennis balls. Or tweeting. Maybe both.
Tosche Station Radio #127. Dunc joins Brian and Nanci to chat about Force Friday and (mostly) Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath.
Aftermath debuts on New York Times bestseller list at #4. Well, how about that.
With Aftermath, the first canon Star Wars novel to tread where only Legends had been before, it’s only natural that some controversy would erupt.
Now, some of it has been people who just plain don’t like Chuck Wendig’s writing style and/or the book itself. I didn’t find the style bothersome and liked the book, but both are perfectly valid complaints.
And then, there are the… Others. Our old friends (‘friends’) the folks who are still bent out of shape that the old Expanded Universe has been decanonized. And, of course, the folks who are mad that some of Wendig’s characters happen to be gay.
Needless to say, neither group is particularly sympathetic. The Legends folks might have a case, if they weren’t so plain-out obnoxious, but if there’s a moderate part of this supremely ineffectual ‘movement’ they’re being drowned out.
Together, some outspoken members of those three groups all got the idea to… Leave a whole bunch of very quick, very many one-star reviews on Amazon. Jim C. Hines and Michael Patrick Hicks have some nice breakdowns of that. Of course, there’s also a wonderful irony here. Per Wendig himself:
…A passel of negative reviews actually elevates the book’s overall sales ranking. Which in turn garners it more sales. Amazon reps have been clear with me on this point: buyers buy books with reviews, period. Not good reviews, not bad reviews. But rather: quantity of reviews impress buyers to make purchases. So, leaving a ton of bad reviews actually increases the book’s sales. Ironic, and not likely what anyone supporting such a campaign intends.
His response to the objections regarding the gay characters needs to be read in full, though.
I’m not here to tell you how to feel about anything Star Wars. We are all adults here (or so I am going to assume for my own mental health,) and I can’t believe I have to keep saying this, but: Not everything in Star Wars is going to work for everyone, and that’s fine. Feel however you like about whatever, it’s no skin off my back. But that doesn’t give you the right to be a dick, and there’s far too much of that going around. Or, to throw it to Wendig again:
Loving something is fandom. Hate isn’t, or shouldn’t be, part of it. Fandom is about sharing awesome things with like-minded people. It isn’t about spreading hate and forming spiteful tribes. That’s heinous fuckery. Do not partake in heinous fuckery.
Amen.
And to end this on a high note, check out DragonCon’s Wendig panel with Tosche Station and the latest Full of Sith.
Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath is the first canon Star Wars novel to take place after Return of the Jedi since the old EU was declared Legends more than a year ago. I’ve only formally reviewed the lackluster Heir to the Jedi since then, but it’s no secret that the canon novels so far haven’t been to my tastes. My focus has never really been on books set during the film eras, and before Aftermath all the offerings were just that.
But I am pleased (and, yes, a little surprised) to report that I found Aftermath to be rather good. You’ll hear a lot about Wendig’s unusual style of prose – and I had some hesitation there as well – but I found that once I got into the rhythm of the book it was no trouble at all. In fact, this is the first canon novel I didn’t have to force myself through at all – it read speedily and offers a satisfying story with interesting characters.
But they are, for the most part, new characters. Wedge Antilles plays an important part, but you can’t call him a lead by any means. Rebel pilot Norra Wexley, her son Temmin, former Imperial loyalty officer Sinjir Rath Velus, bounty hunter Jax Emari and Imperial Admiral Rae Sloane (who originated in A New Dawn) carry most of the plot’s weight.
Only minor spoilers, if that, beyond the cut.
Force Friday is here, and that means Aftermath and the other Journey to The Force Awakens books are on shelves now. We don’t have a review (yet?) but you can check out some mostly spoiler-free takes on the book at Nerdist, Tosche Station, Big Shiny Robot and IGN. And there’s a new excerpt at USA Today as well.
There’s also an interview with author Chuck Wendig at EW, where they also talk about his introduction of a new gay character.
We all know by now (hopefully) that this Friday, September 4th, is Force Friday, when a huge chunk of The Force Awakens merchandise is going to drop. And naturally, what we’re most excited about are the 5 novels in the Journey to The Force Awakens line.
But first, there are other things coming out this week. Tuesday brings season 1 of Rebels on Blu-ray and DVD. Shockingly, there are no comics coming on Wednesday. (Shattered Empire, Marvel’s entry into Journey, will be out later in the month.)
You’ll also be be seeing things like coloring and sticker books for Journey, but for our purposes, here are the standouts:
From Del Rey, we have Star Wars newcomer Chuck Wendig tackling Aftermath, our first canon story set after Return of the Jedi. We know it stars Wedge Antilles and new character Norra Wexley, but not much more than that. First of a trilogy. An excerpt is available, though I wouldn’t be shocked to see another in the coming days.
Disney Lucasfilm Press has four novels total. Claudia Gray’s Lost Stars is a YA novel that follows two childhood friends, one who joins the Empire and one who becomes a Rebel. The last three are set during the original trilogy, one each for Luke, Leia and Han, though we’ve recently learned they all feature prologues (at least) set in The Force Awakens era. I’ve heard these described as both for young readers and as YA, but the presence of illustrations make me think it’s the former. Jason Fry’s The Weapon of a Jedi and Greg Rucka’s Smuggler’s Run are both set between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, while Cecil Castellucci and Fry’s Moving Target is our first canon story to be set between Empire and Return of the Jedi.
A handful of reference books will also be out on Friday: Star Wars: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know by Adam Bray, Cole Horton, Michael Kogge and Kerrie Dougherty and Benjamin Harper’s Ships of the Galaxy. Both are targeted to young readers, and we know that Ships, at least, has blueprints to TFA ships. We can also expect an assortment of things like sticker and coloring books, which may contain ‘new’ characters.
We’re expecting a lot of hints and small pieces in these books, but most of the heavy-hitting movie tie-ins will be out later. The Force Awakens novelization will be out on December 18 as an eBook, the same day as the film, with a hardcover edition to follow in January. We fully expect the traditional compliment of reference books – making of, concept art, etc – but those haven’t been formally announced yet. (Though are also expected in January at the very soonest.)