First look. Suvudu revealed the cover for Jeff Grubb’s Scourge today. Yet another generic musclebound dude with a lightsaber, ho-hum. But given it’s a book featuring an all-new character and Hutts, I’m clearly not the target market here. Still, let’s hope it looks better on the actual book.
Staffing. Editor Betsy Mitchell, who’s been with the Star Wars novels since their rebirth in the early 90’s at Bantam, is leaving Del Rey. New hire Frank Parisi is taking over Star Wars and other tie-ins.
Hey! We know that guy!Dan Wallace in the St. Petersburg Times.
Nothing coming this week but a small pile of comics for Wednesday. Jedi: The Dark Side #5 wraps up the take of Qui-Gon and his apprentice Xanatos on Telos. John Jackson Miller continues Kerra Holt’s latest storyline with Knight Errant: Deluge #2. And the latest Omnibus — The Complete Saga — collects all six movie adaptions.
While a lot of talk this week has been focusing on the changes coming in the Star Wars Blu-ray release, there’s also been some news and chatter in the world of the Expanded Universe:
Shadow Games: Del Rey has posted two mini-excerpts from Shadow Games on the Star Wars Books account on Facebook. The novel, by Michael Reaves and Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff, comes out at the end of November.
“Confidence,” Dash retorted, annoyed at being pulled out of his pleasant reverie. “The Outrider is twice the ship the Falcon is.” As far as he was concerned Solo’s boat was a scow compared with Dash’s heavily modified YT-2400.
“Then where am I supposed to come by these steely-eyed, laser-toting…characters?”
A smile curved Kendara Farlion’s lips and her teeth showed, white and even in her face. “I never thought I’d say this, but there are advantages to being from Mos Eisley. I know exactly where to look for that kind of character.”
Favorite Scenes: Del Rey asked fans on Facebook to identify favorite scenes from the novels. A lot of deaths pop in: Anakin Solo, Ganner, Chewbacca (I guess fans have mellowed a bit on that) and Thrawn, as well as scenes from the X-Wing (both comedic and action scenes), Republic Commando, and Darth Bane series. Did not see any mentions of Waru or the Black Fleet Crisis, and that makes me sad.
Fact mirrors Star Wars fiction: Discovered: A real life “Crystal Star” (well, a crystallizing former star) – Formerly a white dwarf star, this planet is believed to be turning into one giant diamond. At 4,000 light-years away, it’ll take a while for this rock to be a girl’s best friend. Also, did not see any mentions of Waru, and that makes me sad again.
Interview. Paul S. Kemp’s Star Wars books so far have seemed to be fairly well received, but will we ever see him step up to write Luke, Han, Leia and the rest? In an interview with the Dearborn Press and Guide, Kemp says “I don’t think so.”
“Writers bring certain things to the table as part of the craft. Some are very good at plotting, some are gifted at prose, I think where I excel naturally is developing interesting, conflicted characters. To do that, I need a lot of room. It’s hard to do that with characters with so much history already behind them. It’s difficult for me to tell the kind of story I’d like to tell and have it star Luke, Han, Lando, and Leia, and their kids.”
The Old Republic: Revan. Drew Karpyshyn has a brief Q&A on his site about the upcoming book – which, you may be happy to know, is already in the hands of Del Rey. The book is current scheduled for an October release.
Comics. Comic Book Resources interviews John Ostrander about the upcoming series Agent of the Empire. Also at CBR, six pages of Jedi: The Dark Side #1.
Another Old Republic comic is coming. The new Insider contain news of a mini-series called The Lost Suns. Game writer Alexander Freed will be doing the writing honors, with the team from Blood of the Empire on art. Head on over to NJOE and/or Star Wars Universe for the full image and details.
Also upcoming… Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff reveals a new tentative title for her and Reaves’ Coruscant Knights followup: The Last Jedi.
More on the Dark Side: Scott Allie talks more with MTV Geek about Qui-Gon Jinn’s adventures in the upcoming comic Star Wars: Jedi – The Dark Side. Without revealing whether Qui-Gon is the one to cross over to the dark side, Allie talks about developing a story about the Jedi’s imperfect judgment, with a plot that is flashbacked to in the YA books, and describes Qui-Gon’s role here as a “powerful Jedi out on the rim of the galaxy, angry and alone, like a hero from the Clint Eastwood western.”
Comics. Writer Scott Allie talks about the Qui-Gon Jinn comic Jedi: The Dark Side with CBR. He reveals that the series will take place 20 years prior to The Phantom Menace, that the focus of Dark Side will be a personal story, and talks a bit about Xanatos. Yoda, Mace Windu and even Dooku will make appearances in the mini-series.
Events. Authors John Jackson Miller and Paul S. Kemp and Del Rey’s Erich Schoeneweiss will talk about Star Wars books at a panel at Chicago’s C2E2. The schedule isn’t up yet, but the panel will be Friday, March 18. (Question: Is C2E2 worth a vacation day and a 4-hour drive in the days of social media? I’ll have to think about it.)
History lesson. Tor.com’s Emily Asher-Perrin takes a slightly snarky (yay!) look back at the evolution of Star Wars galaxy maps. In retrospect, that first one was probably the only reason at all to be excited about Vector Prime. I must admit I do still like the old-timey calligraphy look it has.
The blogside.Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff reveals that one of the locations for Shadow Games (née Holostar) is Bannistar Station.
Kids. The folks behind The Strange Case of Origami Yoda will be back with Darth Paper Strikes Back in the fall.
Written by Scott Allie with artwork by Mahmud Asrar, it features Qui-Gon going to prevent a civil war on the planet of one of his former padawans, Xanatos. Yep, they’re bringing in stuff from the Jedi Apprentice series. The article has a full interview with Allie on the series, which will start off with a five-issue arc, and may become ongoing.