Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
#StarWars Scoundrels will feature excerpts from Crucible and the Dawn of the Jedi novel, Into the Void by @timlebbon #SWEU #Zahnsolo
— StarWarsBooks (@DelReyStarWars) October 17, 2012
Scoundrels will be out January 1st, while Into the Void and Crucible are currently scheduled for May 7 and July 2. All three books are hardcovers.
Well, here’s the big news out of New York Comic Con: John Jackson Miller is moving up to the big leagues with a post-Revenge of the Sith novel tentatively titled Kenobi. And the Rebels series announced at CVI continues with a Han Solo novel from new-to-the-EU author James S. A. Correy, aka Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, whose Leviathan Wakes was recently nominated for a Hugo. They’re a big get for Del Rey!
On his blog, Miller describes Kenobi as “part epic western, part high-stakes drama, part romance.” You can get a closer look at Scalf’s preview art on his DA. (via) The book will be a hardcover and is currently scheduled for Fall 2013.
Also revealed: Golden’s Sword the the Jedi series will also feature Jag (well, obviously,) Ben Skywalker, Allana and Tahiri. And there’s still no word on Kemp’s duology, but Frank Parisi promises “It will f’ing blow your minds!” (Riiight.) And, finally, Crucible is not the big 3’s last adventure, it’s just going to “change them forever.” Thanks to @DelReyStarWars and avgoins for the live tweets!
Same Cliff Nielsen art, new layout. What do you think?
The book is due out July 2 in hardcover and eBook.
New York Comic Con. The schedule for the October 11-14 con is up, and both EU panels are on Friday… both at noon? Star Wars Books features Jason Fry and Pablo Hidalgo, while Brian Wood & Dark Horse: From World’s End to the Galaxy’s Beginnings will be Brian Wood, Jeremy Atkins, Randy Stradley and Sierra Hahn.
Previews. EUCantina has a few pages from The Essential Reader’s Companion… (Which you can currently pre-order for $19.19 on Amazon.) Oh, and Paul S. Kemp still can’t talk about his duology.
Interviews. There were a lot of them. In text, EUCantina has Haden Blackman, Jedi News has Bill Slavicsek (old-timers will remember his Guide to the Star Wars Universe) and Fangirl talks to Del Rey’s summer intern, Tom Hoeler. In audio, Fictional Frontiers has Aaron Allston, while Jedi Journals caught up with Aaron and Drew Karpyshyn at CVI. And Roqoo Depot ties up their series of CVI video interviews with John Jackson Miller.
The blogside. Roqoo Depot thinks Crucible may bring Borsk Fey’lya back from the dead. Oh-kay.
Reviews. James reads Lost Tribe of the Sith: Spiral #2, Knight Errant: Escape #4, and Darth Vader and the Ghost Prison #5.
Street dates. Knights Archive spotted this release date for Troy Denning’s Crucible on the Random House Smart Archive. As it is put there by the publisher this could be the real release date… At the moment, anyway. The farther we are out from a release date, the more the things move around, but it might be worth penciling in.
Meet the new folks. Rebels authors Martha Wells and Kevin Hearne both spoke out publicly for the first time after the announcement of their new Star Wars project.
Star Wars Reads. Start planning for October 6th now, as StarWars.com has posted a location map for events through the U.S. A few authors have posted where they’ll be appearing already: Troy Denning, Dan Wallace and John Jackson Miller will be in Roseville, MN, while Pablo Hidalgo and Haden Blackman will appear in Corte Madera, CA, along with Aaron Allston, Drew Karpyshyn and Alexander Freed in Austin, TX. I suspect we’ll be hearing about more of these as the date approaches!
Comics. Skuldren from Roqoo Depot taped the ‘One Writer’s Approach to Star Wars’ panel at Celebration.
Detectiving! In all the hussle and bussle of live-tweeting Celebration, there’s not always time go back and find your sources. Thankfully, Pete did a little digging to find Paul Kemp’s tweet about his mystery duology.
We got news about two new projects this morning at Del Rey’s panel. The first is a new series, Rebels, featuring the classic characters, which launches with a Leia-centric tale by Martha Wells. The second, focusing on Luke, will be written by Kevin Hearns. These were just approved, so no art. It’s set between ANH and ESB, I believe.
The second is something we’ve all been waiting for and half-expecting: A Jaina trilogy, Sword of the Jedi, written by Christie Golden. Lots of cheers from the audience! It’s set not too long after Fate of the Jedi and does have some (temporary?) art. The Jaina fans are super-excited, and who can blame them?
But most of the panel was, as promised, given to Q&A. Some highlights and updates on other upcoming books, including Crucible, Scoundrels and more beneath the cut. In attendance were Pablo Hidalgo, Aaron Allston, James Luceno, Drew Karpyshyn, Jennifer Heddle, Shelly Shapiro and Timothy Zahn.
Continue reading “Celebration VI: Del Rey annouces Jaina Solo trilogy, new original trilogy series”
Del Rey posted the finished version of the Crucible cover on Facebook today. It hasn’t changed all that drastically since the first version revealed at SDCC. (Click on Luke over there to see the whole thing.) They’re also calling it for Summer 2013, as opposed to the original announcement of Spring, but until we get a more specific date I’m not going quibble over that.
The book is still by Troy Denning, and it’s still a hardcover. We’re pretty much guaranteed to hear more about it next week at Celebration.
Crucible The upcoming post-Fate of the Jedi is on everyone’s mind. Roqoo Depot’s Skuldren takes a look at Scoundrel’s Luck, the 1990 WEG gaming adventure that author Troy Denning hinted holds a clue to the book’s villain. Meanwhile, Nanci at Tosche Station – not exactly Denning’s chief cheerleader – implores burned fans to give Crucible a chance.
I myself remain rather ambivalent on the book, but I can pretty much guarantee I’ll read it. Or try to, anyway, which is more than I can say for the other SDCC announcements.
The blogside, pro edition. Over at the Star Wars Blog, Leland Chee explains the Holocron, while Jonathan Rinzler introduces himself and writes about interviewing George Lucas. And this morning, Pablo Hidalgo gives us a tour of the new Insider
Nonfiction. The new book by super-collectors Gus Lopez and Duncan Jenkins, Gus and Duncan’s Guide to Star Wars Prototypes, will be available in August.
Interviews. John Jackson Miller chats with the Wisconsin State Journal about Star Wars and his new book.
Chat. There’ll be a Twitter chat with Tom Taylor on Thursday.
Charity. EUCantina is selling t-shirts for their A Force for Childhood Literacy program.
Umpth time’s the charm? A Random House listing for Troy Denning’s Crucible, the post-FOTJ novel announced last week at San Diego Comic Con, contains this:
SETS UP NEW SERIES: With this book, Han, Luke, and Leia are passing the torch to the next generation of Star Wars heroes, and the stage will be set for the next major Star Wars series.
This isn’t the first time we’ve heard this, but the New Jedi Order didn’t manage it, Legacy of the Force rounded out Jacen Solo only to kill him off, and Ben Skywalker… Well, okay, Ben is in better shape than his cousins ever were as teenagers. But that’s a pretty low bar, and thus a slim hope to hang on. Ironically, just this morning I was talking about an opinion piece I’ve been mulling, tentatively titled “Hey Del Rey, it’s your last chance to make me care about Jaina.” More then…
On the other hand, I’m guessing this means we’ll be seeing either a Jaina or Ben standalone announced at Celebration…
Comic-Con is over, and it’s time for a nap. (Damn you, Monday!) James’ pictures from Sunday begin here. Meanwhile, for those of you not online all weekend, here’s what went down for Star Wars. Some of these have had rather substantial updates after they were first posted!
Expanded Universe. Our focus, the books and comics, got some pretty big bombs dropped. Namely, we heard about our latest post-Fate of the Jedi novel, Crucible by Troy Denning, at the Star Wars books and comics panel. (James taped it! Others live-tweeted!)
Earlier, we had news of Star Wars, a new comic scripted by Brian Wood. It’s provoked plenty of discussion, both for the usual continuity issues and putting Leia in an X-Wing.
We’re also getting Vader’s Little Princess, a Leia-centric followup to Darth Vader and Son, and a Dawn of the Jedi novel by Tim Lebbon. There will be more book announcements at Celebration VI.
James also did an interview with John Jackson Miller, which is up over at Big Shiny Robot.
The Clone Wars. Lots of season 5 tidbits dropped, and the premiere will debut at Celebration VI.
Merchandise. Still nothing from Sideshow on their long-promised Mara Jade figure, but we did learn that a Mara mini-fig we saw at Celebration V is going into production as a Celebration VI store exclusive. It was also announced that Kotobukiya is going to do a Bishoujo Mara Jade, and Hasbro’s Jedi Mara figure will be in Wave 2 of the Droid Factory line. ‘
In other, less Mara news, Master Replicas is launching a Jedi costume line. Check out all that new Her Universe stuff!
Also. Course of the Force; Random House Audio bringing their fanfic-reading contest to CVI.
