Tag: journey to the force awakens (books)

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Journey to The Force Awakens book previews give us a glimpse into the GFFA 30 years on

Jedi-Bibliothek spotted previews of the four Journey to The Force Awakens books for young readers on iTunes – and they reveal – or confirm – at least a few things about the film. Turns out, the prologues to Moving Target, Smuggler’s Run, and The Weapon of a Jedi are actually set in The Force Awakens era. In Moving Target we get a glimpse of Leia – and a confirmation of her title – and Han tells a story about the Millennium Falcon in Smuggler’s Run. Luke’s situation will have to wait for the movie, though – Weapon of a Jedi features a red-armed C-3PO and Jessika Pava, a pilot with Blue Squadron. (We’ve heard of her before, spoiler-lovers!)

I’ve cropped the Phil Noto art, above, but head to Jedi-Bibliothek for some screenshots and a bit of story. (Including Lost Stars, which, alas, has no such illustration.)

The Journey to the Force Awakens novels will all be out September 4.

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Journey to the Force Awakens: Shattered Empire follows new characters

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In an interview with StarWars.com, Shattered Empire writer Greg Rucka reveals a few thing about the series. Mainly, that it stars a pair of married Rebels, Shara and Kes Bey.

“Shara flies, Kes is a ground-pounder, and a very experienced one,” says Rucka. “So, they have spent more time apart than together, and they’re in the Outer Rim world where the Imperial presence is felt, and they’re hoping that they can bring an end to this. But they’re both very tired veterans, and they come out of [the Battle of] Endor with the elation that we see in [Return of the Jedi]. ‘We’ve won. It’s over.’ — only to discover that, no it’s not. The Empire was huge.” Despite the fireworks, despite the funeral pyre of Darth Vader, despite the joy on Endor, the Empire is far from broken.

Luke, Leia Han and company are present in the series, though:

They’re all key figures in the Alliance, and will be represented. Just not in starring roles. “This is important,” Rucka says. “This could never be, as much as I wish I could’ve written, and would’ve loved to have written, the story of, ‘We’re gonna follow Luke for four issues after Return of the Jedi.’ That was never what my mandate here was. But, with that in mind, we see Luke, we see Leia, we see Lando, we see Han, we see Chewie. We see what they are doing, and while the stories are not about them — they’re about Shara Bey — the stories link. Issue 1 sort of stands alone. Issues 2 and 3 follow the same story path; they’re like a two-parter, and they lead into the fourth. As it stands, we meet Shara in [issue] 1 during the Battle of Endor, and we come out of the Battle of Endor, and then we cover about three to six months total in the series following the Battle of Endor. In that time, Shara and her husband find themselves in some situations only incidentally in the path of the principles, and in other situations, working quite closely with them.”

The four-issue series will start in September.

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Two new Shattered Empire variant covers spotted

Yakface discovered two variant covers for Marvel’s first entry into Journey to the Force Awakens, Shattered Empire, on eBay this morning. The Palpatine/Vader one is exclusive to Comic Pop Collectibles, while Luke and the Falcon will only be available from Third Eye. We knew there’d be variants – they’ve already revealed one, and Marvel editor Heather Antos tweeted about them last week – but the final number is a mystery. I expect there will be quite a few, though.

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The first Aftermath excerpts are away!

aftermath-smallEntertainment Weekly has the first excerpts from Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath, Del Rey’s entry in Journey to The Force Awakens.

It features a brief section set on Coruscant, Wedge Antilles (who we now know is one of the book’s main characters,) plus a character who first debuted in another of the new canon novels. (Now with a promotion.)

Much of the excerpt was up on Random House’s online catalog earlier today, but has since been removed.

Aftermath, along with the rest of the Journey books, goes on sale September 4.

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Chuck Wendig is writing the entire Aftermath trilogy

jtfa-aftermathJust as the publishing panel at SDCC was getting into Del Rey, Entertainment Weekly has big news: Chuck Wendig is writing the entire Aftermath trilogy.

Good news, given the recent history with round robins. We haven’t had a one-author trilogy since… Coruscant Nights? Dark Nest? Not exactly sterling examples, but a nice sign that Del Rey has, perhaps, learned from past mistakes. (Now we just hope Wendig is good at more than tweets!)

Also being talked about at the panel was Marvel’s upcoming Chewbacca miniseries we learned of earlier in the day.

The first hour of the panel focused on books for kids, and both parts are being liveblogged by Dan Brooks at StarWars.com, while our own James was valiantly live-tweeting.

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Journey to the Force Awakens: Aftermath, Lost Stars blurbs, more covers

jtfa-aftermathThe Journey to the Force Awakens series finally gets a little bit of fleshing out on StarWars.com – and we finally get a synopsis for the centerpiece, Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath. As predicted, it features Wedge Antilles!

As the Empire reels from its critical defeats at the Battle of Endor, the Rebel Alliance — now a fledgling New Republic — presses its advantage by hunting down the enemy’s scattered forces before they can regroup and retaliate. But above the remote planet Akiva, an ominous show of the enemy’s strength is unfolding. Out on a lone reconnaissance mission, pilot Wedge Antilles watches Imperial Star Destroyers gather like birds of prey circling for a kill, but is taken captive before he can report back to the New Republic leaders.

Meanwhile, on the planet’s surface, former Rebel fighter Norra Wexley has returned to her native world — war weary, ready to reunite with her estranged son, and eager to build a new life in some distant place. But when Norra intercepts Wedge Antilles’s urgent distress call, she realizes her time as a freedom fighter is not yet over. What she doesn’t know is just how close the enemy is—or how decisive and dangerous her new mission will be.

Determined to preserve the Empire’s power, the surviving Imperial elite are converging on Akiva for a top-secret emergency summit — to consolidate their forces and rally for a counterstrike. But they haven’t reckoned on the Norra and her newfound allies — her technical genius son, a Zabrak bounty hunter, and a reprobate Imperial defector — who are prepared to do whatever they must to end the Empire’s oppressive reign once and for all.

We also get the covers for the YA novels:

Phil Noto on all three! Note that MVP author Jason Fry, in addition to writing the Luke novel The Weapon of a Jedi, did double duty with Cecil Castellucci on the Leia book, Moving Target. Also getting a full synopsis is Claudia Gray’s Lost Stars:

jtfa-loststarsThe reign of the Galactic Empire has reached the Outer Rim planet of Jelucan, where aristocratic Thane Kyrell and rural villager Ciena Ree bond over their love of flying. Enrolling at the Imperial Academy together to become fighter pilots for the glorious Empire is nothing less than a dream come true for the both of them. But Thane sours on the dream when he sees firsthand the horrific tactics the Empire uses to maintain its ironclad rule.

Bitter and disillusioned, Thane joins the fledgling Rebellion — putting Ciena in an unbearable position to choose between her loyalty to the Empire and her love for the man she’s known since childhood.

Now on opposite sides of the war, will these friends turned foes find a way to be together, or will duty tear them — and the galaxy — apart?

The Journey to the Force Awakens books – which will also include several reference books, plus at least two comics – will be out on Force Friday, September 4.

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First blurb for Marvel’s Shattered Empire

Shattered Empire #1Jedi-Bibliothek was first to spot the blurb for Shattered Empire, Marvel’s first foray into the post-Legends, post-Return of the Jedi galaxy, on Previews. Here’s the relevant bit:

Emperor Palpatine’s twenty-year reign of terror came to an abrupt and fiery end in the skies above the forest moon of Endor. A decisive victory for the Rebel Alliance, to be sure, but even with the loss of its leadership, the Empire’s Moffs and regional governors retained their hold on important systems from the Core to the Outer Rim, thanks to the might of the Imperial Starfleet. Now, with a power vacuum atop the Empire, those Moffs will jockey for position and control, and the heroes of the Rebel Alliance will soon discover that a wounded and fractious Empire may be more dangerous than any threat they faced before!

…We’ve been here before. I recognize that tree. Sounds like the differences at this point will be in the details, but then, this is a blurb: The most sanitized, spoiler-free form of story there is, painted in the broadest strokes possible because they know how we analyze them. And it’s not like the old Legends version of this didn’t leave plenty of room for improvement.

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The Force Awakens: Release schedule for Marvel’s Shattered Empire, John Williams has (reportedly) begun scoring

Journey to The Force Awakens: Shattered Empire #1Journey to The Force Awakens: Revealed at BookCon this weekend, thanks to via The Wookiee Gunner: Shattered Empire will be bi-weekly – two comics in September, two in November.

The first issue will be out September 2, and the trade paperback collection on November 17 – at least at the moment. (I doubt they’ll deviate much, but they are comics and September is a long way off.)

→ The Force Awakens is FINALLY on the cover of Star Wars Insider.

→ Word on the street (aka Scoring Sessions) says that John Williams has started scoring. Just as rumored!

→ Making Star Wars has a small grab-bag of rumors from the licensees, though the two main ones actually seem a little more relevant to Episode VIII than The Force Awakens. (Also, one of them made me SUPER EXCITED. But, uh, possible spoilers!)