Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
I briefly mentioned Del Rey’s new Essential Legends Collection – trade paperback reprints of the greatest hits – back in May, when Heir to the Empire turned 30. Of course Heir was part of the first wave, but today, Del Rey has announced that the remainder of Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn Trilogy is coming to the format this fall.
Continue reading “Mara Jade finally appears on a reprint cover”Heir to the Empire and Darth Bane: Path of Destruction eBooks on sale for $1.99. A May the 4th special!
Get out your credit card, because two huge holiday books are coming this week. Today sees the release The Bounty Hunter Code: From the Files of Boba Fett. A follow-up to The Jedi Path and The Book of the Sith, it’s by Star Wars all-stars Daniel Wallace, Ryder Windham and Jason Fry.
There’s also a more affordable version of Frames. (The original, lest we forget, would run you a cool $3000.) And, for the paperback fans, the reprint of Drew Karpyshyn’s The Old Republic: Annihilation drops.
Meanwhile, Wednesday: Dark Times: A Spark Remains #4.
Coming up for the rest of the year, we have the Death Star Owner’s Technical Manual by Ryder Windham, Chris Reiff and Chris Trevas (November 5) and the Scoundrels paperback (November 26.)
This weekend is New York Comic Con, and Star Wars will be out in full force – even more than their presence at San Diego Comic-Con back in July. From October 10 – 13, the Javits Center in New York City will be wall-to-wall fandom, and topping it off for Star Wars fans will be Pablo Hidalgo’s panel on Rebels on Saturday at 2:45 pm. On Tuesday, @StarWars warned that there will be a giveaway item at the Rebels panel – some sort of Imperial propaganda.
Del Rey announced their lineup of authors doing signings at their Star Wars Books booth (and free book giveaways), with John Jackson Miller, Drew Karpyshyn, J. W. Rinzler, Ryder Windham, Jason Fry, and Chris Reiff making appearances.
Rooqoo Depot has a great listing of more Star Wars goings-on, including a list of the Star Wars panels (Anthony Daniels! Origami! Making of Return of the Jedi!), as well as booth signings for DK Books and Dark Horse Comics.
For those looking for exclusive merchandise, Hallmark has a Rancor ornament, Kotobukiya has an R2-Q5 ARTFX+ Statue, and Dark Horse has a NYCC sketch cover variant for The Star Wars #1. Her Universe will be selling at the official Reed Pop store.
Somewhere on the scale between ‘Ugh, no’ (Boba Fett/Yoda) and ‘Well… okay?’ (Han Solo) there exists AICN reporting a possible Knights of the Old Republic spin-off movie. Somewhere a gamer is screeching like a little girl, but I just roll my eyes. Don’t get too excited, though – “literally a ton of activity going on regarding a whole bunch of ideas,” the report also says.
Apparently there are also rumors going around Bioware about Drew Karpyshyn being involved. I thought he was working on some fantasy novels (and a screenplay that will need to be shopped around, which doesn’t exactly scream ‘part of a major franchise’ to me.) Whatever, rumor mill.
UPDATE: Let the record show…
@agentjaspor @headgeek666 this would be awesome, but I haven’t heard anything about a #KOTOR movie. But I’m not at #bioware anymore so…
— Drew Karpyshyn (@DrewKarpyshyn) February 23, 2013
Ponders. Christian Blauvelt asks eight Star Wars authors (Drew Karpyshyn, Paul Kemp, Troy Denning, John Jackson Miller, James Luceno, Michael Reaves, Christie Golden and Aaron Allston) what they’d like to see in Episode VII and the other new films. Lots of love for the EU and female characters, naturally, which is more than I can say for most of the other wishlists that have been popping up daily.
Spin-offs. Ewan McGregor continues to voice his willingness to return as Obi-Wan. “I don’t know what he did in the desert,” he tells MTV. “We could make up some stuff.”
Superfans. Kevin Smith is (still) very excited. Though his casting for a young Han Solo is… the worst I’ve seen yet. Hopefully for the LULZ.
Kids. Chronicle Books has revealed the cover for Vader’s Little Princess, Jeffrey Brown’s followup to Darth Vader and Son. In the spirit of the season, Chronicle is also offering printable holiday gift tags.
Vader’s Little Princess is due out in April.
Audio. The live performance of Kyle Newman’s Smuggler’s Gambit from Celebration VI is now available to download. The cast includes David Collins as Han Solo, plus Sam Witwer, Tom Kane, Ashley Eckstein, Matt Lanter, Dee Bradley Baker, Matthew Wood, Clare Grant, and Daniel Logan.
Short stories. Next Tuesday, Jedi News will have an exclusive excerpt of the Timothy Zahn eBook ‘Winner Lose All,’ which releases on the 10th.
Mappage. Jason Fry talks about keeping The Essential Atlas as a living book.
Interviews. EUCantina talks to Drew Karpyshyn.
We’ve had quite enough excitement, so only one new release this week: The three-in-one eBook bundle of Drew Karpyshyn’s Darth Bane novels went on sale yesterday. Path of Destruction, Rule of Two and Dynasty of Evil will run you $18.99 at your digital bookstore of choice.
Since we haven’t heard that there are any more Bane books on the horizon, this is presumably to support of Karpyshyn’s latest Old Republic novel, Annihilation, which will be out in hardcover (and eBook) next week, on the 13th.
NYCC. Aaron Goins writes up last weekend’s Star Wars Books panel. We may have gleaned the big news then, but there’s more here. Since he was in town, Suvudu talked to Pablo Hidalgo about The Essential Readers’ Companion and Timothy Zahn about Scoundrels. And Tim Zahn met the Emperor!
Interviews. EUCantina talked to Del Rey’s Erich Schoeneweiss about winning back jaded fans, editorial decisions and even those Stover rumors. (Spoiler: Don’t hold your breath) and more. Meanwhile, there’s more Pablo over at BSR, and Bombad Radio has Drew Karpyshyn.
The blogside. On the occasion of old stories coming out into the light again, Charlene Newcomb writes about the birth of Alex Winger. And Steve Sansweet learns to love his action figure book.
Sword of the Jedi. All the news is above, but here are Shelly Shapiro, Jennifer Heddle and Frank Parisi discussing the series with Christie Golden.
HORRORS! Tosche Station’s Nanci is rereading the Jedi Prince books. Oh dear.
Dunc has covered all the news, and I’m just the guy who takes the pictures. and organizes the Bounty Hunt puzzle hunt event at Celebration. So anyway, here’s some of the best of the photos. If you want to see the full set, I have a photo album just of Friday at Celebration VI (170 shots of the Del Rey panel, cupcakes, Friday Bounty Hunt, random costumes) on flickr. Continue reading “Jawajames’ recap in photos of Star Wars Celebration VI Friday”