Tag: alan dean foster

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NYCC: New novels coming from Claudia Gray, Chuck Wendig, and a LOT of short stories

Aftermath: Life Debt and Aftermath: Empire's End jacks on display at NYCC. Photo thanks to @LillianSkye_.
Aftermath: Life Debt and Aftermath: Empire’s End jacks on display at NYCC. Photo thanks to @LillianSkye_.

A new novel, the next two Aftermath titles and a handful of short stories were announced at NYCC this afternoon.

NewRepublic: BloodlineAftermath: 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.

pirates

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.

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The Force Awakens novelization now has a hardcover release date

tfa-novelWe already know that Alan Dean Foster’s The Force Awakens novelization will out first in eBook on the same the day movie comes out – December 18 – but we now have an exact date for the hardcover version: January 5. (via)

→ Some slight cosmetic changes to Threepio for The Force Awakens, if a Mexican soda can is to be believed. (Honestly, I wouldn’t place any bets on this one – it looks more like a coloring error than anything else, but stranger things, etc.) Also on MSW, The Force Awakens LEGO set names don’t really shed much light on anything.

→ Both Adam Driver and Domhnall Gleeson had some things to say about Star Wars recently.

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Celebration Anaheim: Alan Dean Foster returns for The Force Awakens novelization

tfa-novelAlan Dean Foster is writing the novelization of The Force Awakens, Del Rey revealed today at their panel at Celebration Anaheim. It’ll be out in eBook on December 18, the day the movie comes out, with a hardcover to follow on an unspecified date in January.

Foster was the ghostwriter for the original Star Wars adaptation (credited to George Lucas) back in the ’70s, as well as the author of the first actual Star Wars novel, Splinter in the Mind’s Eye. This won’t be his first return to the franchise: He also wrote a prequel novel, The Approaching Storm, which came out ahead of Attack of the Clones.

This was already floating around, but it was confirmed that Del Rey is repackaging A New Dawn and Tarkin together as Rise of the Empire. We learned that that book will contain three new short stories, one of which ties into Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath. (Sadly, that’s just about the most we heard on Aftermath.)

That was just about the only real news out of the Del Rey panel that wasn’t already revealed earlier in the con.

As for Marvel, we got a few things: Greg Weisman will be writing the second arc of Kanan; They will be doing an adaption of The Force Awakens, but not anytime soon. Star Wars #6 is not John Cassidy’s last SW comic for Marvel… And Simone Bianchi will be drawing Star Wars #7, which is a one-shot Obi-Wan story on Tatooine.

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EUbits: Get a glimpse of Razor’s Edge

razors-edge-crop2Razor’s Edge. Fangirl has some exclusive art of the book’s cast, plus an interview with artist Magali Villeneuve. (Follow the link to see the whole thing!) Author Martha Wells chats with This Blog is Full of Words, Geek with Curves and Jedi News. (I’ll have more Razor’s Edge links later in the new release post.)

The blogside. At the official blog, editor Jennifer Heddle talks about the process behind Kenobi, while Bryan Young discusses the cinematic influences behind some of the books. Meanwhile, on my personal blog, I wrote a guide to the Expanded Universe for casual fans.

Street date shuffle. Can we still call it ‘street’ date for an eBook? The enhanced eBooks for Making of Return of the Jedi, The Empire Strikes Back and Star Wars have been pushed back to October 22, Star Wars Books has announced. The hardcover Making of Return of the Jedi will still be out on October 1.

Interviews. Suvudu had the transcript of John Jackson Miller’s Facebook chat, plus Shelly Shapiro and Brian Wood. Eleven-ThirtyEight chats with Jason Fry, Star Wars Union with Alan Dean Foster, and Target Audience magazine has Timothy Zahn.

Reviews. James was impressed with Dark Times: A Spark Remains #3.

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Newsbits: Alan Dean Foster, Karen Traviss, Penny Arcade, RPG awards, Sith omnibus

Alan Dean Foster, IAMTW GrandmasterHonors: The International Association of Media Tie-in Writers has named Star Wars vet Alan Dean Foster their second Grandmaster. Foster was the first novelist to tackle the franchise, ghost-writing the novelization of Star Wars as well as (under his own name) the first original novel, Splinter of the Mind’s Eye. He returned to the GFFA in 2002 with The Approaching Storm. (via)