EUbits: A quick peek inside Shadow Games

Two smugglers walk into a bar… Today on the official forums, editor Sue Rostoni shared a brief excerpt from the proof of Michael Reaves and Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff’s Shadow Games. Black-barred for the paranoid spoilerphobics:

“In case you haven’t noticed, Captain, there are Imperials all over the place. It would be in our customer’s interests to be discreet.”

The Wookiee said something, to which Han replied, “Of course I’m discreet. I’m always discreet.” To Dash he said, “What’d you have in mind?”

The proof, for those of you keeping track, is 338 pages. Shadow Games will be out in paperback in the fall.

Interview. Lightsaber Rattling talks to Paul Kemp about his just-released Old Republic tie-in, Deceived.

Blurbs. In other Kemp-related news, there’s a summary out there now for his September paperback, Riptide. (via)

Comics. The Crimson Empire story that will be in Dark Horse Presents #1 will feature Kir Kanos in a standalone tale that will both recap some of the earlier CE and set things up for CEIII, according to Randy Stradley.

First look. The next in the Lost Tribe of the Sith series, ‘Pantheon,’ will hit July 18th.

EUbits: When the Sith are away…

Sith check. Paul S. Kemp’s Old Republic novel, Decieved, drops two weeks from today, so naturally there’s a book trailer.

Kemp has been making the rounds: He appeared on TOR-Talk and an interview with Fictional Frontiers will surely be appearing soonish. And those audiobooks he was giving away last time? The winners are up.

Weird facts. Who’s written the most Star Wars (adult) novels? The answer may surprise you.

Recently… John Jackson Miller has Knight Errant novel answers.

Details, details. Dan Wallace on how the trade paperback Jedi Path will differ from the fancy box version. The answers will… Probably not surprise you.

Interview. There’s not a whole lot of Star Wars talk here , but if anyone deserves a link without that pesky fact, it’s our pal Mike Stackpole.

EUCast squeezes Heir to the Empire 20th details out of Del Rey’s Schoeneweiss

The EUCast had Del Rey editor Erich Schoeneweiss on their latest podcast, and he revealed a few tidbits about upcoming projects. Most notably (at least to us,) is that we have some confirmation that Timothy Zahn is not the only one contributing annotations to the book; Editor Betsy Mitchell and a few folks at Lucasfilm (Leland? Pablo?) will be as well.

He also said that the cover art we’ve seen for the Heir to the Empire 20th Anniversary Edition is likely to be close to the final, but:

To my knowledge it hasn’t been completely approved yet, but that’s definitely the direction that we want to go. I believe the plan is that that will be the jacket, and it will have sort of treatment, some sort of silver foil treatment on it. But then when you take the jacket off of it, underneath, (kind of similar to what we did with the Death Troopers hardcover) it will have the original book cover as the paper-over-board cover.

Does this make me a prophet? Well, except for the part about it being the original (ugh) art.

In other news, Schoeneweiss said that Jason Fry’s The Essential Guide to Warfare is being pushed back to 2012 and an Essential Guide to the Underworld is in the planning stages. Updated versions of the character and ship guides are also likely in the next few years.

They also got in touch with Shelly Shapiro, who said that while they’re still discussing Paul S. Kemp’s duology, “There’s a good chance” it will be in the Old Republic era.

EUbits: DK’s LEGO Visual Dictionary has lengthy bestseller run

Sales. LEGO Star Wars: The Visual Dictionary is selling like crazy. It’s been on the New York Times Children’s Picture Book Bestseller List for 52 weeks. (Guess that explains all the LEGO stuff that DK has coming.) To celebrate the books’ NYT longevity, Lucasfilm and DK are donating $52,000 worth of books to charities supported by 501st and Rebel Legions.

In question. J. W. Rinzler will find out if he gets to write a Making of Return of the Jedi by the end of the month, he tweeted last night. Somehow I doubt they’re going to say no.

The blogside. Chris at EUC takes a look at the EU offerings of 2010 and 2011.

Comics. The upcoming return of Dark Horse Presents will feature details on the wildly anticipated Crimson Empire 3.

Interview. Our pal Mandy interviews comic artist Michael Golden, who drew Marvel’s Riders in the Void back in 1980.

Podcastery. The latest Jedi Journals is up.

Giveaway. Comment at Paul S. Kemp’s blog and you could win an ARC of The Old Republic: Deceived. Meanwhile, the EUCast is giving away a copy of Knight Errant.

EUbits: Clearing the boards

Previews. They’ve finally stopped releasing Red Harvest chapters at eight. (The book comes out tomorrow.) Meanwhile, there are three chapters of The Old Republic: Deceived scattered around the internet. I suppose we’ll learn soon enough if this actually has any effects on sales.

Interviews. On that note, Paul S. Kemp talks Deceived at Darth Hater, while Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff chats with Knights Archive.

Reader. An analysis of The Jedi Path.

Also… Drew Karpyshyn has a new site.

Video: Seth Green on Conan

Green makes the Robot Chicken Star Wars III rounds out to TBS to talk about his wife, his childhood acting career and his trip with ‘Conan’ to New York and Robot Chicken toys. (There are Robot Chicken toys?) There’s an actual clip in there somewhere!

He’s also getting ink over at Hero Complex, where he reveals that a Mara Jade joke was cut out of the show. Now what will I laugh wildly at? NOW WHAT?!?

UPDATE: And again (with Matthew Senreich) at Big Shiny Robot.

Troy Denning answers fan questions on Fate of the Jedi

Author Troy Denning chatted on the Star Wars Books Facebook fan page Wednesday afternoon. With more than a hundred comments to format got awkward fast, but overall it turned out pretty well! And no, it’s not just FOTJ… West End Games and the New Jedi Order and even The Old Republic also got some love.

And I can’t help but agree with this (from a question on if he reads feedback,) which is pretty much the reason I’ve given up on the message boards:

I DO stop reading anything that looks like it has a nasty personal edge to it (who needs that?), or in which it appears that the person/group is trying to drive an agenda. There’s just nothing constructive to be gained from that kind of stuff — and I’m not the guy that makes the decisions anyway.

If you’re like me and loath Facebook, EUCantina has collected all the questions and answers.

EUbits: More Red Harvest, Pablo, comics, and Mara Jade

Read Red Harvest After releasing the first chapter of Joe Shreiber’s Death Troopers prequel a few weeks back, StarWars.com has gone on to post chapters two, three, and four. If they keep going, will there be anything left for folks to read by the time to book actually comes out?

Interview with an internet rockstar. Lucasfilm’s Pablo Hidalgo talks to Mexican fan site Datapad de Korpil about his fandom activities before LFL, his books, and the editorial process.

Comics. Dark Horse’s February solicitations include Knight Errant: Aflame #5, Darth Vader and the Lost Command #2, Legacy: War #3, and a pair of trades. Meanwhile, StarWars.com has a Knight Errant atlas extra, and Tom Taylor reveals the cover of Invasion: Rescues #6.

Namesake corner. The 501st’s costume reference for Mara Jade’s jumpsuit. Sure, many of us aren’t fans of the outfit (Doesn’t a sleeve-gun kind of necessitate sleeves? Also, this.) but we can’t blame the legion – they’re only following in Dark Horse’s footsteps.